Part 14

“That’s her,” said Aunt Lizy, coming back with some haste, before Uncle Ranz could weld his broken narrative. “She said she’d try it, fer Nathe had a fine farm, an’ Bune Waller said the same. Bune wuz an old maid with one leg crippled up ’count of a snake-bite when she wuz little. The old folks thought Bune would suit better’n the widder, not havin’ any young-uns to mix up with Nathe’s, so they went to him an’ told him that Bune wuz the best they could do. I’ve always wished I could ’a’ been there when they told him. Uncle Joe Withers, he wuz senior deacon then, he said Nathe cut his galluses an’ went straight up. When he come down an’ got his breath, he says to ’em, ‘Who’s counted the finest-lookin’ single woman in Silver Valley?’ an’ they ’lowed Callie Brown wuz the takin’est one, sence she’d come back from South C’liny, where she’d been workin’. But she wuzn’t keen to marry, not a mountain man anyway, fer she wouldn’t look at Mince Peters, who wuz runnin’ a payin’ sawmill, an’ the best ketch ’twixt Cherokee an’ Hiwassee. Nathe ast ’em would she be good to the childern, an’ they ’lowed she would, she looked like she’d jump out o’ the way of a worm ruther’n step on it, but he couldn’t git her, they said, not ef he’s as rich as cream in a cracklin’ gourd. She didn’t have no call fer holdin’ off though, Uncle Joe told him, fer she hadn’t saved a brownie workin’ in the mills, put it all on her back, he reckoned, an’ she didn’t have no home, her folks all bein’ dead. ‘But ef you go to see her,’ he says, ‘you’ll ride back jest like you come. She’s livin’ at my house, an’ I know Callie.’ Nathe never paid no more ’tention to what they said, an’ fixed hissef up fer courtin’.”

“Fixed hissef up!” Uncle Ranz bore in, returning with vigor to his own. “I reckon! I wuz right there, an’ the way he shaved an’ slicked an’ combed an’ dressed would take me all day to tell ye. We wuz exactly the same size, me an’ Nathe, an’ he walked in on me an’ says: ‘Ranz, you let me have that new suit o’ yorn, an’ I’ll give you that white sow an’ them three shotes you been a-wantin’. I’ve got to have it right now,’ he says. He’d let his clo’s run down till a skeercrow wouldn’t ’a’ swopped with him ’thout a smart chance o’ boot. But when he wuz all growed inter my suit, an’ rid off on a big bay mare he had, thinks I yer my own half-brother, but it ’ud take some travellin’ to find yer mate fer looks. He went over to Joe Withers’, where Callie wuz stayin’, an’ in two weeks they’s married. When he wanted to, Nathe had a way o’ talkin’ that folks said would put heart in a holler log, an’ I reckon Callie wuz all heart, the way it turned out. As fer holdin’ hersef high, I never seen none o’ that after she come to live with Nathe. She made him a good wife, an’ got to likin’ him powerful, but he never seemed to take to Callie. ’Twuzn’t thinkin’ about Ponnie, though, that kept him from likin’ her, fer when he did drap his troubles he drapped ’em hard. It pestered me awful the way he went on fer a while, huntin’ up ever’ woman he could hear of that wuzn’t much good. I said to him onct that Callie seemed to be doin’ _her_ part, an’ he said: ‘Ef you don’t think I’m adoin’ mine, Ranz, jest keep a-thinkin’ it.’ An’ I dassent say any more, fer Nathe in them days wuz wearin’ his temper outside his shirt, an’ you had to tech him keerful er go round. When Callie wuz fust married she didn’t know much about housework an’ takin’ keer o’ farm stuff, but she went at it steady, an’ in less’n a year she wuz runnin’ ever’thing like it ort to be, an’ nobody would ’a’ knowed the childern wuzn’t hern ef she hadn’t been too young to be their mommie.”

“Ay,” said Aunt Lizy, “they went under her skirts like they belonged. Nathe lost a lot of his luck when he buried Callie Brown.”

“How long did she live?” I asked, and Uncle Ranz seemed to approve of the sympathetic query, which perhaps reminded him that he had a new and perfectly safe pair of ears for an old tale.

“She lived four years full, an’ inter five, from the time she married Nathe till we put her in the graveyard in the row above Ponnie an’ her two. We wuz lookin’ fer Callie’s baby, little Rufe, to die, an’ Nathe ’lowed they could lay there together. That soft look Callie had turned out to be weak lungs, an’ the cotton-mills hadn’t hepped ’em any. The hard work at Nathe’s pulled her down to a shadder. I own it, I got to thinkin’ a heap of Callie. Looked like she wuz tryin’ her best an’ never botherin’ Nathe, er lettin’ on she wuz any more to him than a hired woman. When I seen it wuz killin’ her, I wuz druv to say something. I’d tried Nathe, an’ that didn’t hep any, so I went to Callie an’ told her straight out that she could git a divorce from Nathe any day she wanted it, fer the whole country knowed how he wuz runnin’ on, an’ the deacons had been to him about it. I said she wouldn’t have to go fur, nuther, to git somebody to take keer of her right. She wouldn’t have to go blood-naked ner eat acorns, not by a thousan’ mile, while I wuz drawin’ a workin’-man’s breath. When I said that, Callie turned her back on me an’ begun to cry. I waited to see what she wuz goin’ to say, fer a woman’s cryin’ might mean one thing an’ it might mean another. When she turned round she says: ‘Ranzie, I’ll fergive ye ef ye’ll go to church reg’lar.’ An’ I went to meetin’ from then on, till Callie died, though it wuzn’t easy to set still an’ listen to ol’ Silas Mack a-whinin’ from the time he got up to preach till he set down two hours afterwards. Barrin’ that, I ain’t ever been sorry I let Callie know she could git away ef she wanted to. I told Nathe about it after she wuz dead, an’ he said he wouldn’t hold it agin me, seein’ he never hurt hissef makin’ it easy fer Callie, an’ he told me to stay right on with him an’ hep look after the farm. I thought ef he didn’t want to make a fuss, I wouldn’t, an’ I staid right on till he married Lu Siler. He wuzn’t slow about pickin’ up Lu. She hadn’t been a widder more’n three er four months, an’ chainces wuz thick with her, ’cause she had a house an’ lot in Carson, an’ a fine piece o’ land on Little Horse Branch. When Nathe got ready he walked right in an’ took her. She wuz a little older’n him, an’ short on looks, but there never wuz a better woman than Lu, leavin’ out Callie, an’ she wuz awful proud o’ Nathe. She wuz the one who got him inter this Freemason business, bein’ Eastern Star hersef, an’ a lot o’ her folks an’ friends belongin’. Nathe took to it fine, an’ went as high as he could as fast as they’d take him, an’ always held a big hand afterwards in whatever they had goin’ on, till late years when most o’ the old members had drapped out er wuz buried, an’ he seemed to sort o’ fergit about it. He went around with Lu, an’ treated her respectful, like he ort, with her deedin’ him ever’thing she had an’ cuttin’ out her own folks. He sold the house an’ lot in Carson an’ built the big house on the farm the first year he was married to Lu. He said he wanted her to have ever’thing as nice as she had it in Carson when she wuz livin’ with Jim Siler. It wuz in them years that Nathe sort o’ stept up in life.”

Uncle Ranz was forced to take breath, though he knew that Aunt Lizy would be in at the breach.

“Nathe never got bigetty though,” she said. “It wuz about that time that he got to lookin’ round an’ heppin’ folks in hard luck. He wuz always ready with the loan of a cow fer a widder, er a plough-critter fer new-married couples, er a sack o’ meal, an’ sometimes a bit o’ money that he wuzn’t too pertickler about gittin’ back. I’ve said many a time that Silver Valley owed a lot to Lu Siler fer makin’ a changed man out o’ Nathe.”

“You want to start that old argyment, Lizy, an’ you can have it. I say, an’ I’ll always say, it wuz Ann that changed Nathe, an’ not Lu Siler.”

“Ann!” The contempt of the elect was in Aunt Lizy’s voice. She reached into her pocket for her snuff. Only snuff could reconcile her to the existence of Ann. Uncle Ranz turned to his more passive hearers.

“There ain’t any man, er woman nuther, in this country,” he said, “who knows more about that than I do. It begun ’long in the last year o’ Callie’s lifetime, an’ I reckon I wuz purty keen on what wuz happenin’ round Callie. Nathe had a little ol’ mill on one end o’ his farm, fer grindin’ corn fer hissef an’ his neighbors. It’s there yit, only it’s been built all over. An’ he had a little ol’ log house settin’ close to the mill, where he kept a fam’ly to ’tend to the grindin’ an’ hep on the farm. He ’lowed the man could work on the farm, an’ his wife could tend to the mill, in a pinch anyways. Well, Curt Lindsay, he come over from round Cowee an’ ast fer the place. He said he wuz married, an’ his wife’s mother wuz livin’ with ’em, an’ she could handy ’tend to the mill. His wife wuzn’t much stout, an’ he didn’t count on gittin’ anything out of her but a little housekeepin’, an’ maybe hoein’ in the patches. An’ Nathe told him to come on. Curt wuz a big feller an’ looked like he’d make a good hand. I told Nathe so mysef, an’ there’s one more time I’d ’a’ done better ef I’d kept my mouth shet. Well, they come on, an’ the mother looked like all she knowed wuz hard work an’ more of it. But Ann, Curt’s wife, she looked like a hummin’-bird round a rosey-bush. The mother, that ’uz Mis’ Baker, told me Ann had never been much strong an’ her daddy, up till he died a little ’fore that, had never let anything be put on her too hard. Ann wuz willin’ enough, but they had to put it on her light, er she’d git down sick. Curt didn’t keer one way er another so the work got done. Ann had married him when she wuz fourteen, an’ she wuzn’t more’n up’rds o’ fifteen when she come to live on Nathe’s place. Nathe wuz a little above thirty-five, an’ had seen his troubles, but they hadn’t put the years on him. When he wuz smoothed up, folks said ef his good looks wuz divided around, they’d make ever’body in the settlement look passable, even countin’ Sary Copp, who had a caved-in nose an’ scrofula o’ the jaw. But Nathe wuz fur from bein’ as good as he wuz good-lookin’. I reckon he wuz the furdest from the Amen row right then that he ever wuz in his life. He’d put a mortgage on his farm to git spendin’ money, an’ he wuz runnin’ round spendin’ it. ‘Ranz,’ he says to me, ‘I don’t keer much about women, but what’s a feller to do with hissef?’

“An’ then Ann moved in. ‘Let’s go over,’ Nathe says to me one day, ‘an’ see ef Curt’s got settled. Maybe he’ll need some hep about something.’ ‘All right,’ says I, an’ we went. Looked like there wuzn’t nobody at home when we come up. Nathe walked up big an’ pounded on the door till I wished there wuzn’t anybody in there to hear him. Then Ann opened the door. Nathe hadn’t ever seen her ’fore that, an’ when she looked up, a bit skeered, an’ her eyes as blue as a prize ribbon at a fair, Nathe fell back inter the yard like she’d pinted a gun at him. I ask her how her folks wuz, seein’ Nathe wuzn’t goin’ to talk, an’ she said they’s well, an’ her mother wuz in the house, wouldn’t we come in, an’ Curt wuz gone to Carson to git some things they needed fer housekeepin’.

“‘What things?’ says Nathe, gittin’ over his lock-jaw, an’ when she told him, he says: ‘Tell yer mother to come over to the house an’ my wife’ll give her anything you’re needin’.’ Then he went off. I follered him, an’ he walked along like a wooden man till we got nigh home, then he says: ‘Ranz, I reckon I’d better look after things round here a little closer’n I been adoin’.’ An’ from that minute Nathe wuz changed, an’ he hadn’t ever set eyes on Lu Siler. Callie wuz still alive, an’ she seemed awfully hepped up about Nathe. She talked to me of how he wuz takin’ holt like he raley owned the place, an’ it wouldn’t be long till he’d lift the mortgage, an’ maybe send Angie Sue to Carson to school. But Callie wuz too worn out by that time fer any change to do her downright good, an’ she died in the spring, like I wuz tellin’ ye. Then Nathe married Lu. I ain’t sayin’ my own half-brother married a woman fer what she had, but I do say that he’d got to be sort o’ cravin’. Where he’d spent a dollar before, free as water, looked like he wuz tryin’ to save three. He wuz runnin’ the farm close, an’ raisin’ ever’thing we et purty nigh, but coffee an’ sugar, an’ wuz watchin’ his tradin’ right sharp, though when Lu got there he built her a nice house, like I said, with her own money, an’ he went around the country with her whenever she wanted him to, an’ didn’t mind spendin’ on his lodge a bit ’er heppin’ folks like Lizy wuz tellin’ ye. I quit livin’ at Nathe’s an’ went over inter Tennessee. Callie wuz on my mind, more’n when she’d been livin’, seemed like, an’ on top o’ that I wuz afeard Nathe an’ Lu were goin’ to have fallin’ weather. I thought ef he wuz in fer a mess I’d seen enough o’ his troubles. But he kept writin’ fer me to come back, an’ when I’d been gone about two year I come home. I found ever’thing runnin’ like sugar-water in sap-time. Nathe never went round the mill, er where Ann wuz, so fur as anybody knowed. When something had to be ’tended to over there, he’d git Lu to go.

“‘Lu,’ he says one night at supper, ‘looks like we ortn’t to live here in this big house with ever’thing comfortable, an’ water piped from the mountain yander, an’ the fam’ly that works fer us puttin’ up with that smoky little hut over at the mill. When yore folks wuz out from Carson the other day I wuz ashamed to tell ’em that shack wuz on our farm. What you think about takin’ what I make tradin’ this year an’ fix ’em up a place they can keep clean an’ make look like something? Mis’ Baker’s always ready to come over here an’ give you a hand at anything, an’ we ort to make it easier at home fer a hard-workin’ woman like she is.’

“‘I’d hate to fix up a place fer that rowdy, Curt Lindsay,’ said Lu. ‘He stays drunk half o’ his time now.’

“‘You fix it, Lu, an’ I’ll drive him off er make him do better. The women-folks there are human, same as us, even ef Curt ain’t.’

“‘Yes,’ says Lu, ‘I git awfully sorry fer that pore little Ann. I don’t know what keeps her spirits up. She’s always singin’ when I go over there, er diggin’ in the yard round her flowers, an’ they say Curt beats her, too.’

“Nathe jumped up then, like he’d swallered a crumb too quick, an’ went out to the water-bucket. When he come back he wuz a little hoarse from chokin’, an’ he says: ‘You do what I told you, Lu. You know more about houses than I do. Fix it up so we won’t be ashamed of it anyway, an’ I can git a better man to live there ef I have to drive Curt off.’

“Lu ast me to hep her, an’ we got Mose Kimpit to boss the job, him that married Angie Sue afterwards, an’ I hired some men, an’ in no time Ann wuz livin’ in a little house that looked like a pickcher, but Curt wuz drinkin’ harder than ever.

“‘You’ll have to get rid o’ him, Nathe,’ said Lu, an’ he said: ‘Well, let’s go over there an’ see about it.’ ‘Come on, Ranz,’ he said; ‘Curt might jump onto me an’ I might want some hep.’ Nathe wuzn’t afeard o’ nuthin’ this side o’ Jordan, an’ I laffed an’ went on with ’em. When we all got in a hunderd yards o’ the house we heard somebody screamin’, an’ Nathe got white as a dead man. ‘It’s Ann,’ says Lu; ‘he’s a-beatin’ her,’ an’ she begun to cry. Nathe says to me: ‘You stay here with Lu. I’ll fix him,’ an’ set off runnin’ like he’d gone mad. He didn’t open the door, jest kicked it in like it wuz glass. There wuzn’t any more screamin’, an’ when he come out he says: ‘Go in there, Ranz, an’ hep patch that feller up. I’ve give him two hours to git up an’ crawl off. He knows what the law does fer a man that lays his hand on a woman in the fix Ann’s in, an’ he’ll go. He don’t want to spend the next ten years in the pen.’

“Well, Curt went off, an’ Mis’ Baker wrote fer a son she had over on Cowee to come an’ take his place on the farm, an’ they all lived there in the little house quiet as could be. The whole country wuz braggin’ on the way Nathe had settled with Curt, though some said he ort to have tuk him up an’ let him go to the pen. Anybody that ’ud beat a little thing like Ann ort to git the worst the law could lay on him.

“In about three months Ann’s baby wuz born, an’ Lu acted like she thought it wuz hern, the way she took keer of it, an’ wuz over there half the time. She begged Nathe to go with her to see it, but he wouldn’t. That wuz woman’s business, he said. Things went on quiet-like fer two or three years, maybe four. Angie Sue got through school an’ married Mose Kempit. She didn’t do much fer hersef, considerin’ the chaince they give her. She had Ponnie’s temper, too, but Ponnie had a big heart along with her temper, an’ Angie Sue never had no more heart than a hornet’s got. Little Rosie wuz a-growin’ up, an’ the boys, Herb an’ Sam, wuz nearly men. They wuz quiet boys, not wuth much one way er t’other. Ann’s brother got married, an’ Nathe fixed him a house not fur from the other one, an’ Ann an’ her mother lived by thersevs. Mis’ Baker, she ’tended to the mill. The boy wuz named Baker, fer Ann’s father, an’ folks called him little Bake Lindsay.

“Well, we’s livin’ along, an’ ever’body comfortable, when one day in the fall when the woods wuz a-turnin’, Lu says to me: ‘Ranz, s’pose we take Rosie an’ the boys an’ go hunt chestnuts to-day? I ain’t been in the woods this year.’ That suited me, an’ we all went over to the big hill about a quarter of a mile to the back of Ann’s house. Nathe wuzn’t along. He’d got a letter the day before tellin’ him to come to Carson about a trade, an’ he’d set off walkin’ that mornin’, not lettin’ the boys drive him to Scatter to hit the train. It wuz too much trouble, he said, an’ he liked to walk. He wuz in fine health then, his skin clear pink, an’ not a gray hair in his head. Lu wuz feelin’ a little lonesome, I reckon, after he set off, an’ that’s what made her hit on goin’ fer chestnuts. We had a good time, an’ picked up a lot, but we didn’t go up the big hill any furder than the oak spring. Me an’ Lu an’ Rosie set down by the spring to rest a bit, an’ the boys said they’d shammuck along home an’ carry the chestnuts. We had about two flour-pokes full. While we’s settin’ there, me an’ Lu an’ Rosie, we heard somebody laffin’ way up at the top o’ the hill. ‘There’s somebody else out to-day,’ said Lu. ‘Let’s wait an’ see who it is.’ We knowed from the way the voices sounded that whoever wuz up there had started down. I sort o’ felt like I knowed the man’s voice, the way he wuz laffin’, an’ I set there with my eye-teeth a-gittin’ loose, till right out o’ the woods about fifty yards above us come Nathe an’ Ann. They come on down, not seein’ us till they wuz right on us, but we saw them all right. An’ I’ll say to ever’body here, an’ Lizy too, that they may have been as mean as the old boy, but they looked like they’d got to Heaven an’ took up. Nathe’s face wuz like halleloo, an’ Ann wuz flutterin’ ’s ef she wuz made out o’ wings. She saw us ’fore Nathe did, ’cause he wuzn’t seein’ nothin’ but Ann, an’ she give a little scream an’ set right down on the ground. Nathe looked around then, right at Lu. They stood there lookin’ at each other, an’ Nathe couldn’t move his eyes fer a minute. Ef there’d been a hole anywheres handy I reckon he’d ’a’ drapped into it, but he didn’t have any hidin’-place, an’ Lu--Lord bless her!--maybe she wuz sorry fer him, she said, ‘Let’s go home, Rosie,’ an’ turned off an’ we come home.”

“Ay,” said Uncle Dan’l, “Lu wuz a good woman. I wuz thinkin’ when that Jenkins wuz here an’ we wuz talkin’ about who ought to lay ’long o’ Nathe, that Lu had paid fer the place, even if she didn’t git it.”