My Children Are More Precious Than Gold (14 page)

The congregation grew quiet. Everyone
knew Tutt well enough to know even though he had just supposedly
gotten religion, he wasn’t a person to cross. Finally, a nervous
giggle from amid the congregation broke Tutt's concentration on the
preacher. He must have decided as he looked over the crowd that he
was outnumbered if he thought about doing anything to the preacher.
He wadded slowly out of the river and without a word to anyone
walked toward home.

Tutt didn't come to the revival this
year. Mama said she reckoned that last year's meeting was probably
enough religion to last Tutt for the rest of his natural life. She
suspicioned that he had only come for the free meal anyway and got
caught up in the moment. Bess figured Mama was probably right. She
had Tutt pegged most of the time.

A scurrying motion caught
Bess's eyes off to the side of the pews. A small, gray squirrel
descended from a hickory tree off to the edge of the clearing and
perched at the tree's base in the fallen leaves. Standing upright,
he placed his front paws together as if to pray. Bess grinned,
wondering how many revivals of Preacher Irby's that squirrel had
attended. Suddenly, he jumped sideways, chattering loudly. A
terrapin moved slowly from under a gooseberry bush behind the
squirrel and past him.
Ifen that squirrel
hadn’t gotten out of the way, that turtle would have surely ran him
over,
Bess mused.

Hearing a soft drone that steadily
became louder, Bess shifted on her slab seat and looked around to
see where the noise came from. No one else seemed to notice the
hum, because it was drowned out by the loudness of Preacher Irby's
voice. Finally getting himself worked up into a real sweat,
Preacher Irby unbuttoned his suit coat, slipped out of it and
tossed it on the grass behind him. Bess knew from experience that
this was the half way sign of the length of his sermon.

Glancing around the clearing, her eyes
lit on the outhouse. She suddenly felt the need to go there. When
she stood up taking her weight off the end of the slab, it shifted
off the center of the wood block leg underneath. The drone became
louder, but Bess didn't hear that because she was already in the
outhouse. What she did hear was the high pitch sound of excited
voices and painful squeals. She peeked through a crack in the
boards on the outhouse door to see what was happening.

Everyone was waving their hands back
and forth above their heads, swatting the air around them. At
first, she thought the preacher’s sermon had finally filled the
congregation with the Holy Spirit. Then she saw the problem. Small,
black honey bees crawled, a few at a time, out from the hollow,
wooden block under the end of the slab in the very spot where Bess
sat.

A black, buzzing, whirling cloud, the
swarm of bees attacked the children first, causing them to yell in
pain. Angry parents turned on their seats to glare at the noisy
children to hush them up. Instead, they were horrified when they
realized what was happening. They scrambled over each other to
evacuate the brush arbor as fast as the children did.

Some of the men headed for the river
and jumped in, hoping to stop the pursuit of the bees by ducking
under the water. The men and women who couldn't swim ran for the
cover of underbrush nearest them and kept on going, headed in the
general direction of their homes.

Bess watched Lue and Don flash by the
outhouse, trying to get out of their shirts to release the stinging
bees trapped inside. The malay of screams from the women and
children varied in pitch, depending on whether they had been stung
or was just anticipating a sting when a bee flew near
them.

In mid scripture, Preacher Irby had
been oblivious to the pandemonium around him, but with all the
ruckus, he paused, trying to figure out what wondrous thing he said
to cause such a lively reaction in his congregation.

A loud buzz passed his ear sending a
cold chill down his spine just before a sharp pain pierced the back
of his neck. Then he realized his congregation’s reaction wasn’t
coming from his sermon as he slapped the bee.

“
Meeting dismissed,” he
yelled at the already dispersed crowd as if they needed his
permission to leave. He looked around for some place to hide,
swatting at the bees diving at his head, and decided on the
outhouse. Preacher Irby jerked on the wooden square that served for
a door knob, but the door didn't open.

From inside, he heard a low frightened
voice say, “Who's there?”

“
Preacher Irby, that's
who! Let go of this door and let me in there quick afore I'm stung
to death,” he demanded in a very unpreacherlike tone.

“
All right,"”Bess answered
meekly, opening the door a small crack, “But don't let no bees in
here with ya.”

The preacher jerked the door from her
hands to widen the opening enough to get inside. He slammed it
behind him, turning the latch to lock it. Then he slumped down on
the hole in the seat next to Bess. Rubbing the painful lump swelled
to the size of a quail egg on the back of his neck, he listened for
the commotion to quiet down.

With a feeling of despair, he hung his
head and thought about this revival not being one of his best or
more profitable ones, either for that matter. First night, those
ornery boys tried to discourage attendance by throwing rocks at his
congregation. Today, it seemed the men had built the brush arbor on
top of a bee hive stump. To make matters worse, here he sat alone
in the outhouse with one of the pretty, young girls in his
congregation. That wouldn't look too seemly to the rest of her
family when they noticed Bess was missing and came back after
her.

Holding his head between his hands, he
tried to ward off the throbbing headache he felt coming on. Please
God, he prayed silently, let me get out of this outhouse afore Bess
Bishop’s family comes looken fer her. I kin jest imagine the tales
that would spread about the preacher and one of the Bishop girls
sharing the outhouse. Those were the kind of tales that would
stretch out of unseemly proportions when the story passed along the
Blue Ridge. Please, God, settle em bees down fast.
Amen.”

Finally, all was silent on the other
side of the outhouse door. Bess looked through the cracks in the
outhouse at the clearing. It was empty except for the praying
squirrel chattering excitedly from a branch high up in the hickory
tree where he felt safe. The terrapin had froze to his spot when
human feet ran by him. His head peeked out of his shell now that it
was quiet around him and moved his head slowly from side to side to
see if it was safe to go on.

The once angry bees had settled down,
flapping their wings as they slowly crawled over the vacated slab
seats. Softly, they buzzed proudly among themselves about their
recent victory.

Slowly, Preacher Irby opened the
outhouse door and stepped out. “I reckon it's safe to leave now,
Bess. As quick as we kin, let's go off down the road to keep away
from those bees so as not to stir them up again.”

“
All right,” Bess agreed,
following the preacher.

“
Y'all be able to get home
by yerself from here, youngun?” The preacher asked.

“
Sure, I will,” Bess
nodded.

“
All right. I’ve been
thinken, y'all reckon it might be a good idea to not mention where
we have been hiden together today. That is if the subject ever
comes up. Ya understand?” The preacher raised his eyebrows and
waited for Bess’s reply.

“
Sure I understand,” Bess
replied, but she really didn’t see why it mattered where the two of
them hid to get away from the bees. If Preacher Irby was worried
about it, she might as well go along with him.

“
I think that would be
best. I’ll seed ya all and yer family soon. Good day.” The preacher
parted from Bess as quickly as he could after looking around to
make there was no one near by watching him emerge from the outhouse
with the girl. He could only pray everyone in the congregation had
been so excited by the bees the subject of where Bess hid and who
hid with her would never come up.

Chapter 12

The Burial

Thudding horse hooves caused Nannie to
straightened up quickly from rekindling the fire under the large,
black, iron kettle full of steaming, wash water. Frowning because
of the kink she felt from bending over, she rubbed her back then
untied her apron strings and turned the apron over to the clean
side as quick as she could. An ominous feeling came over her as she
watched the rider's fast approach. Something bad must have
happened. Elmer Litwiller would never run his horse like that
unless he had urgent news to pass along the neighborhood. Pulling
on the reins, Elmer brought his horse to a skidding halt at the
edge of the waddle fence.

“
Mornen, Nannie!” Elmer
touched the brim of his straw hat and nodded to her.

“
Mornen, Elmer. Get down
and come in. Sit a spell and tell me what yer lathering yer horse
up fer on a hot mornen like this.”

“
Cain't do it, Nannie.
Deliveren sad news to the neighborhood so I have to hurry
on.”

“
Mercy sakes, Elmer. What
is it?”

“
Doak Woods passed away
early this mornen kinda sudden like.”

Nannie gasped at the news. “Oh no!”
She moaned.

“
Otillie thinks Doak's
heart gave out. Her sister, Addie Cox, sent me to fetch ya to hep
with the funeral preparations.”

“
Mercy sakes! Of course I
will, Elmer. I'll leave fer the Woods directly.” Tears welled up in
Nannie's eyes. Before she spoke again, she put fingers to her
trembling lips to still them. “We'll miss Doak. He was a good
friend to us.”

“
To all of us that knew
him. That's fer sure,” Elmer said sadly. He kicked his horse in the
sides and took off down the road.

Nannie wiped the tears from her eyes
while she watched Elmer disappear from sight. Taking a deep breath,
she hurried to the house, stepped up on the porch and stop to look
at the wash tub, waiting to be filled with hot water so she could
wash clothes.

That tub did double duty, because on
Saturday nights, the family used it for a bathtub so they would all
be clean for church on Sunday. Each one of them used the tub full
of water with some hot added from the tea kettle now and then to
take the off the chill, starting with the littlest member of the
family. It took most of Saturday evening for all thirteen of them
to take a bath.

Earlier Nannie carried the tub from
the smokehouse, and placed it on the wash stand that sit on the
porch. The she took the wooden framed scrub board down from its
nail on the porch wall and placed it in the tub. Nannie shook her
head sadly as she thought about how the common place routines of
the day can be replaced so quickly by a sad event like Doak’s
passing.

“
Younguns, Elmer Litwiller
jest stopped to tell us some sad news. Doak passed away early this
mornen. Poor Tillie needs my hep preparen him fer the funeral. In
this heat, we don't have no time to waste. Cass, ya can do the wash
today? The water is about ready.” Without waiting for an answer,
Nannie continued, “Look see how that rabbit stew is comen on the
stove, Cass. Ifen it's done, ya can dish up a stewer full for me to
take along while I change clothes. Dillard, run find one of the
boys to hitch up a horse to the cart fer me while I put on my
Sunday outfit, and get word to yer Pap about what's happened.
Tomorrow ya girls fix up a big kettle of beans to eat and bring
that along to the funeral.” Nannie was almost to the bedroom door
when she turned to face the girls. “Oh, I won't be back tonight so
don't ferget to gather in those flour sacks of apple slices dryen
on the smokehouse tin roof and lay em back there in the mornen.
Bess, y'all hurry and get cleaned up and come with me to the
Woods.”

“
Me, Mama? Why me?”
Squeaked Bess.

“
Yer old enough to hep
out, and Tillie likes ya. Maybe yer being around will be some
comfort to her.”

The morning heat sent shimmering waves
dancing across the red dust on the rock strewn road in front of the
horse and cart. Bess watched sweat trickle down the side of
Nannie's somber face beside her bonnet tie as they bounced along
traveling as fast as Nannie dared to drive the horse.

When they approached the Wood's
homestead, the rhythmic strike of hammers against nails broke the
gloomy silence. A couple of men were building Doak’s coffin in the
barn. Hollow echoes bounced off the ridge and back to Nannie and
Bess. A small herd of milk goats, their bags uncomfortably full,
milled in front of the closed barn door, loudly protesting that it
was past milking time.

Neighbor Cox had parked his flat bed
wagon and horse along side the barn. The horse's reins were tied to
a large metal ring attached to the barn wall. Nannie parked by the
Litwiller buggy at the hitch rack in front of the house. The
Litwiller’s dark brown horse drooped his head in the heat and
methodically stomped one foot then another, trying to dislodge the
large, horse flies, biting him on the legs.

Walking to the house on the grassless
path that Doak Woods had used his whole life, Bess noticed a black
kettle sitting in the center of the yard with wood stacked under
it. A wooden pail of lye, made from water run through wood ashes in
Otillie's ash hopper set by the kettle. Tillie must have been
planning to make a batch of lye soap that morning.