Part 15

“Maybe so, but I am glad it wuz Callie got it, an’ I hope she knows it,” said Uncle Ranz, a bit snappishly. “I wuz sorry fer Lu, though. Nathe come in about midnight an’ went to bed in the room next to the one where him an’ Lu always stayed. But he didn’t sleep none, an’ about three o’clock he come an’ woke me up an’ ast me what Lu wuz meanin’ to do. I told him she hadn’t said yit, he’d find out to-morr’. But next day she couldn’t speak fer a cold she’d caught settin’ by that spring. She wrote on a piece o’ paper that she’d git a divorce an’ they’d divide the property fair. Nathe got down by the bed an’ begged her not to do that. He said there wuzn’t anybody to blame but him, an’ it ’ud kill Ann to be disgraced, which wuz what he ortn’t ’a’ said to Lu, but Nathe wuz so tore up I reckon he couldn’t think o’ pickin’ his way. An’ Lu wrote, ‘Is Baker yore boy?’ an’ Nathe said he wuz. I s’pose he thought lyin’ wouldn’t hep him any with Lu lookin’ right through him. I could see the big tears rollin’ down Lu’s face, an’ she wrote: ‘I’m goin’ soon as I git up.’ But she didn’t go, an’ there wuzn’t any divorce, fer her cold turned inter double pneumony. In three days she wuz dead, an’ we laid her up there in Callie’s row next to little Rufe.

“It wuzn’t long till talk wuz floatin’ round ’bout Nathe an’ Ann, though I don’t b’lieve he went nigh her, an’ I reckon Rosie started the talk. Nobody but me had heard Nathe say that Bake wuz hisn, but Rosie told Angie Sue what she’d seen that day by the spring. An’ they thought it wuz fine to act smart about it.”

“The gals thought a heap o’ Lu,” said Aunt Lizy, irrepressible as justice. “I don’t blame ’em fer takin’ her part.”

“I ain’t blamin’ ’em,” said Uncle Ranz. “I’m sayin’ they wuz mighty hard on Ann. Angie Sue said she wuz goin’ to tell her father he had to turn Ann off the place. I never heard her tell him, but I seen her go into the room where he wuz. When she come out she looked like she wuz fallin’ to pieces, an’ milk couldn’t be whiter. As fur as I know that wuz the only time she ever named Ann to her daddy. Nathe wuzn’t bothered about Angie Sue, but he walked mighty keerful on Ann’s account. He kept goin’ to church right along, an’ travelled over to Carson faithful to his lodge meetin’s, an’ acted a little more’n fair in his tradin’, an’ kept his name right up. He wuz gittin’ to be wuth something too. I reckon his farm, an’ stock, an’ what he had in the Carson bank, would ’a’ come to more’n anybody else in Silver Valley could ’a’ spelt. So the deacons let him alone, as they ort, with no more proof than what me an’ Rosie saw, an’ him behavin’ right an’ payin’ the preacher reg’lar, besides givin’ him a suit o’ clothes an’ a fine pair o’ shoes at Christmas.

“Folks sort o’ made it easy fer Ann too, fer ever’body thought a sight of her.” Here Aunt Lizy gave the narrator a glance that drove him to an emendation. “Barrin’ a few o’ the women that wuz so good they didn’t have no use fer the New Testament. Most o’ the folks would go to the mill, like they’d been doin’, an’ act frien’ly, an’ make a heap over little Bake. Ever’body knowed that Ann had had an awful time with Curt, an’ Nathe wuz twenty years older’n her an’ could talk water up-hill. Nobody could prove nothin’ anyway, ’cause walkin’ in the woods one time wuzn’t no proof, not what the law could handle anyhow.

“Lu had been dead runnin’ onto a year, an’ the talk had died clean out, when Nathe told me to go to Mis’ Baker an’ tell her to take Ann to Carson an’ git a paper from the judge sayin’ she wuzn’t Curt’s wife. It wuz the law in them days that if a man an’ his wife didn’t live together fer three year they wuz nachally divorced ’thout goin’ inter court. I b’lieve they’ve changed it to five year now, but it wuz three then, an’ Curt had been gone four year an’ up’ards. I found Ann all in a trimmle an’ cryin’ hersef to death. She showed me a letter she’d got from Curt sayin’ he wuz comin’ back to settle with Nathe--that he’d heard whose boy Bake wuz, an’ he reckoned Nathe wouldn’t be so spry about havin’ him arrested ef he come back. She said she wouldn’t marry Nathe, fer Curt would be shore to slip in an’ kill him. That’s what Curt said he would do in the letter, an’ she didn’t have no more sense than to believe it. I went home an’ told Nathe, an’ he swore like no human bein’ ort to, an’ went straight off to Ann’s. When he come back, I knowed from his looks as fur as I could see him that his tongue hadn’t hepped him fer onct.

“‘I told her,’ he said, ‘I’d marry her, an’ take keer o’ her the rest o’ her life, like no woman wuz ever tuk keer of in Silver Valley, an’ ef Angie Sue come home she’d have to begin smilin’ at the gate er she’d never git inter the house, an’ Ann told me to find me a good woman an’ let her alone!’

“‘She’s afeard Curt’ll come back an’ kill ye, Nathe,’ I told him.

“‘Yes,’ he says, ‘Curt’s comin’ to kill me! That’s why he sent in his brag. So’s I could have my trigger ready.’

“‘Shucks,’ I said, ‘he’s a big coward; he’ll never come.’

“‘’Course he won’t,’ says Nathe, ‘but that don’t hep me ef I kain’t make Ann believe it. Git me a good woman, she says, an’ let her alone! It ’ud serve her almighty right ef I did.’

“‘You won’t do that, Nathe,’ I says, an’ he said: ‘No, I’ll hang around Aim fer the rest o’ my life, waitin’ fer a chance to lick her shoes!’

“‘That won’t be much to do,’ I told him. ‘Her shoes ain’t bigger than a thimble.’ ‘No, they ain’t,’ he says, an’ took the all-over trimmles. ‘I’m clean crazy, Ranz,’ he says.

“He mulled around fer maybe a month, kickin’ at his luck, an’ tryin’ to break pore little Ann, an’ the very day Mis’ Baker told me that Ann couldn’t hold out agin him much longer, he tied up with Nan Tittiewad.”

Uncle Ranz paused once more, and Aunt Lizy, always at the gap, and now evidently big with information, darted in.

“Her name wuzn’t Tittiewad. I knowed her folks that year me an’ Dan lived out in Jackson County. Her name wuz Benson, an’ her fam’ly wuz sort o’ bigetty. She married Jim Sluter the fust time. Jim’s father wuz called Taterwad ’cause he stole a wad o’ ’taters onct, not more’n a good mess, an’ wuz carryin’ ’em home when he wuz ketched with ’em. His name wuz Ham Sluter, but folks called him Ham Taterwad after that, an’ from him it went to his whole fam’ly. When Jim married Nan Benson, they called him Jim Taterwad after his father, an’ Nan would git so mad about it they told her they’d change it to Tittiewad ef that ’ud suit her better, an’ the madder she got the tighter that name stuck to her. Jim an’ her didn’t git along. They fit up an’ down the road, till fin’ly Jim left her, an’ nobody ever knowed what become of him. He got clear away from Nan. But they kept callin’ her Nan Tittiewad, the same as ever, ’cause it fitted her, I reckon, an’ it follered her wherever she went. I could ’a’ told Nathe all about her, but he wuzn’t sayin’ much to folks around home right then. He met Nan one day in Carson, an’ went round to the boardin’-house where she put up. They talked all night, an’ the next mornin’ they went to the court-house an’ got married.”

Aunt Lizy was breathless from the hurried discharge of her burden, and Uncle Ranz came in leisurely.

“I never knowed nothin’,” he said, “till I seen ’em drive up an’ Nathe hepped Nan out o’ the buggy. She wuz tall, an’ had a fair sight o’ flesh on her, but you couldn’t call her fat. She had red hair, but nobody wuz ’lowed to say it wuz red. She said it wuz orbun, but that didn’t change its color a bit. Her skin wuz white as a white egg-shell, an’ her eyes sky blue, not dark blue like Ann’s, an’ her lips as red as shumake heads. She wuz the fust woman Nathe had laid his hand on in nigh to a year, an’ I reckon, considerin’ what his nater wuz, it jest made him swim off. Nan sailed inter Lu’s house, an’ in less’n half an hour she’d been in ever’ corner of it. Her lip wuz curlin’ considerable, but when Nathe come in she ’peared to be satisfied. I b’lieve she wuz raley took up with Nathe at first, an’ he went about with his head lookin’ over all of us, heppin’ do ever’thing she wanted, pullin’ the furniture here an’ yander, an’ takin’ the pick o’ the parlor set to the room where they slept, an’ all sech crazy work. But when they’d been married about three weeks, an’ Nathe begun to think o’ settlin’ down to work like he ort, she said at breakfast one mornin’ that seein’ they’d done without a honeymoon, s’pose they tuk a trip to Californy er Flurridy. She’d always wanted to go to them places, she said. Nathe ’lowed he didn’t have enough money in the bank fer the trip, an’ didn’t have time to go ef the cash wuz layin’ handy. She got mad then, an’ said: ‘Well, I ain’t got time to wash yer dishes an’ sweep yer house an’ cook yer meals, nuther.’ Nathe told her he thought Rosie had been doin’ most of the work, but ef it wuz too much fer her, he’d let Angie Sue come home a while. She’d been wantin’ to come, ’cause she’s havin’ trouble with Mose Kempit, the man she married the fust time. An’ Nan said: ‘Oh, Lord, don’t bring any more peek-eyes in here! I’m smotherin’ to death now!’ Then she got up an’ walked down toward the creek, but she come back fer dinner, an’ from that time on it looked like the devil wuz runnin’ the house from top to bottom. Nathe fin’ly said he’d give her the money to go to Californy on ef she’d stay when she got there, but she told him she wuzn’t that easy, he wuz goin’ to do more than that fer her. She said she’d have to be paid good fer comin’ to sech a hole an’ livin’ with an ol’ squeeze-pocket that had killed three wives an’ kept another woman too. I reckon she’d picked something out o’ the neighbors, an’ Rosie had told her about Ann, fer she wuz powerful thick with Nan the fust week she wuz in the house.”

Uncle Dan’l was growing restless. “I say, Ranz,” he put in, “I never b’lieved Nan wuz near as bad as she made hersef out. She wuz tryin’ to git Nathe to drive her off, so she could sue him fer support an’ live where she wanted to.”

“’Course she wuz,” assented Uncle Ranz. “I found that out right away, an’ me an’ Nathe talked it over. ‘You want to be keerful, Nathe,’ I told him, ‘an’ keep yer hands off her an’ not give her any claim agin ye. She’ll wear hersef out ’fore long.’ ‘You reckon she will?’ Nathe ast me, an’ I told him I wuz shore she would ef he kept still no matter what she done. That seemed to hep him, an’ he set his teeth an’ tried to stand it. He didn’t dare go to see Ann, fer that wuz what his wife wuz watchin’ fer. He knowed she’d find him out, day er night, an’ he walked straight as a shingle. The whole neighborhood thought Nathe wuz actin’ fine, an’ anybody would ’a’ been sorry for him the day that Nan called Ann’s name an’ put something else to it as plain as the Bible speaks it. Nathe set still, like he’d never move till jedgment-day, an’ her tongue hurtin’ him worse than rippin’ fire. I b’lieve Nan felt kinder discouraged after that, thinkin’ she’d never git him riled enough to beat her er drive her off.

“It wuz awful the way she made a destroyment of things in the house. One day she wuz settin’ in the big room with Nathe, an’ she tuk a little penknife she had an’ begun to cut the threads out of a cushion that Lu had worked all over with little birds an’ leaves. ‘Don’t do that,’ said Nathe. ‘Lu made that hersef.’ An’ Nan says, ‘It’s mine now!’ an’ throwed it inter the fire. Nathe jumped up to grab it off the blazin’ logs, an’ Nan got right afore him. He’d ’a’ shoved her down, I reckon, if Cricket Sawyer hadn’t been there an’ held him back. Crick knew what Nan wuz after, the same as the rest of us, an’ she got so mad at him she never spoke to him afterwards, though they set at the same table three times a day.

“She found out where Nathe kept the aperns an’ trimmin’s an’ things he wore at his lodge meetin’s. He thought more o’ them cooterments than anything he had. Nan got the key to the drawer, an’ when he come in one day she wuz all rigged out in ’em. ‘Don’t I look purty, Nathe?’ she says, walkin’ up an’ down ’fore him. An’ he wuz afraid to say a word, fer he knowed what she’d done to that cushion. ‘You won’t be wantin’ ’em any more,’ she says, ‘’cause yer lodge’ll turn ye out soon as I tell ’em what you’ve got over yander at the mill.’ Then she walked out an’ down the road with them things on, an’ Nathe never seen a stitch o’ the riggin’ afterwards. I fixed it up that she tied a rock to ’em an’ throwed ’em inter the creek.

“We’d had about seven er eight months o’ Nan when Nathe begun to look thin an’ show he wuz losin’ out. I b’lieve he got to thinkin’ that Nan wouldn’t mind heppin’ him off inter the next world ef she could do it sly. He kept Crick Sawyer hired, but I couldn’t find out what fer, he wuz so lazy an’ slept half of ever’ day. I got to teasin’ him about drawin’ pay fer gittin’ his breath, an’ he fired up an’ told me that Nathe had hired him to watch Nan at night, he’d got so skeered o’ what she might do when he wuz asleep. I felt ashamed o’ Nathe fer that, an’ I never let him know I’d found out what Crick’s job wuz. But I says: ‘Crick, ef Ponnie er Callie er Lu left here owin’ Nathe a hard time, Nan has shore paid it fer ’em.’

“She never done a thing to hep round the house, but she wuz always on time fer her meals. She’d take the head o’ the table, too, like she wuz the queen bee, though she hadn’t warmed kiver with Nathe sence the fust month she wuz there. She’d talk an’ laff an’ make fun o’ Crick, an’ wouldn’t let a soul pour the coffee but her. One day when she’d poured a cup fer Nathe, it sparkled up quare, an’ he throwed it inter the fireplace. It wuz that day that he went off to Carson an’ come back with a cousin of ourn, Lem Thatcher, who’d went out West an’ done well, an’ come back to see his kinfolks. He wuz a widower, an’ a little younger’n Nathe, an’ tolerable fair-lookin’ too. When Nan found out he had some money she put on her best dressin’ an’ smiled like a pickcher. When she wuz all flossied up an’ shiny, a man would have to look at her sort o’ easy out o’ one eye, till he found out her ways didn’t match up. We’s all past the place where Nan’s looks counted fer anything, but Lem wuzn’t, an’ when she’d plumb her eyes at him he’d wriggle an’ turn red. Nathe seen his chaince then, an’ told Lem he had to go inter Tennessee fer a few days, but fer him to make hissef at home an’ not think o’ leavin’ till he got back. He staid about a week, an’ when he come home Lem an’ Nan had been gone three days. I reckon they’s half-way to Californy by that time. She left a note tellin’ Nathe the sooner he got his divorce the better it would suit her an’ Lem, an’ he could keep the few dollars in his old sock, she said. She didn’t have no use fer ’em, an’ his boy, Baker, might need ’em. She had the note tacked up outside the front door. I wuzn’t at home the mornin’ they left, but Crick told me she made Lem tack the note up, an’ her laffin’ till you could hear her to the pasture gate.

“Nathe got a divorce soon as he could, but it wuz a year er two ’fore anybody could speak to him about Nan ’thout him takin’ out his big handkercher an’ wipin’ his for’ed, he’d got inter sech a habit of it while she wuz around. As fer his house, it shore needed a good woman in it, Nan had been sech a tear-down.”

“He got a good woman when Aunt Lindy Webb went there,” said Serena, anticipating Aunt Lizy, and making it known that the story had reached a stage familiar to her generation.

“Ay, Nan had sort o’ shattered him,” said Uncle Dan’l, “and he made up his mind he wouldn’t make no mistake the next time.”

I wanted to hear about Ann. A depression was upon me, as if she had died. Then I remembered that she was going to South Carolina with Bake. But it was a relief when Uncle Ranz uttered her name again.

“Of course Nathe went to see Ann first, but she stuck to what she’d said before, an’ Nathe didn’t take it so hard this time. He could see fer hissef that Ann couldn’t run his place, an’ he wuz shore needin’ somebody that could. Rosie had got married, but her an’ Angie Sue kept comin’ home to stir up trouble with anybody that wuz hired on the place, an’ Nathe wuz beginnin’ to show his gray hairs. Ann had been sick fer a long spell. She tuk down dreckly after he married Nan, an’ when Nathe seen her fer the fust time in nearly a year, he give right in an’ told her she could have her own way about ever’thing an’ he’d stand by her jest the same. She begun to pick up purty soon, and in a little while wuz as peart as ever. I don’t reckon it made any difference ’tween ’em when he married Lindy Webb. Lindy had been married before----”

“Twice,” said another voice, younger than Aunt Lizy’s.

“That’s so, twice,” said Uncle Ranz, “an’ she had shown clear as gospel what a good woman she wuz. Nathe ast about her from fust to last ’fore he ever went to see her. He wuzn’t takin’ any chainces. Lindy’s fust man would run away ’bout ever’ other year, an’ she would make the crap an’ take keer of it, an’ have his plate at the table ready fer him ever’ meal she set down to, in case he drapped in. Ef she had a little money saved up, he took holt of it right away. Onct she saved seventeen dollars makin’ syrup, runnin’ the cane-mill night an’ day, an’ he took ever’ dollar soon as he come in. He went off at last an’ staid so long that Jim Webb wanted to marry Lindy, so he went round ’mong the neighbors an’ called a meetin’. They voted she could marry Jim, but she couldn’t take up with any furriner that might come along an’ want her farm. She married Jim then, an’ he would ’a’ made her a good husband ef he hadn’t hurt his leg tryin’ to break a yoke o’ steers hissef, ’stead o’ lettin’ Lindy do it like she wuz used to. It didn’t heal up, an’ Lindy had to wait on him hand an’ foot fer ten years, an’ make the livin’ fer both of ’em. Jim wuz quarrellin’ all the time, an’ Lindy said he wuz fractious ’cause he wuz so disappinted in not bein’ able to hep her like he’d set out to do. He died about the time her farm wuz run through with, ’count o’ him wantin’ ever’thing, an’ livin’ on almanac medicine, but she had nice things in her house an’ she brought ’em all to Nathe’s. It wuzn’t long till she had Nathe’s place lookin’ as well as it did in Lu’s time, an’ she had more in the cellar to eat an’ drink than Lu ever had. There wuzn’t nuthin’ Lindy didn’t know how to do er to make. She wuzn’t burnin’ jealous nuther, an’ told me hersef she wuzn’t goin’ to keep Nathe miser’ble by tryin’ to change his nater. She’d leave that to the Lord, she said.”

“That wuz the only thing,” said Aunt Lizy, “that I held agin Lindy. She wuz too easy about Ann.”

“Well, Ann never bothered her. She never set her foot in the big house, an’ she told Nathe she’d never cross the doorstep after that day she met Rosie in the road, an’ Rosie mewed up her mouth an’ drawed back her skirts. Nathe come to see that Ann wuz right. Lindy had a strong hand on the girls, an’ kep’ his house so he could set in it peaceable, which wuz more’n Ann could ’a’ done. He told Ann she could always do as she pleased about ever’thing except one. He said Bake would have to go away to school. He put it that the other childern might treat him like he wuzn’t as good as they wuz, an’ Ann give in. But I had an idy he seen she wuz gittin’ all wrapped up in Bake. Nathe couldn’t stand bein’ left out like that. Anyway he sent Bake off, an’ he growed up a fine feller, comin’ back fer his vacations, an’ to hunt ’possums Christmas, an’ ever’body likin’ him same as ef he’s raised right here.

“About a month after Nathe married Lindy, somebody writ Ann from Birmingham that Curt had died down there, an’ Nathe sent me to Alabam’ to make sure it wuz so, an’ I found out it wuz. I thought Nathe would be terr’bly cut up when I told him, ’cause ef he’d waited a little, Ann might ’a’ married him with Curt out o’ the way. But he ’lowed it wouldn’t ’a’ made any difference, he couldn’t let Ann come inter the big house where the girls would keep her miser’ble even ef she’d been willin’ to try it, an’ it wuz too late fer him to go away from Silver Valley an’ begin all over. I could see he wuz gittin’ satisfied with things as they wuz.”