Pamela Morsi (3 page)

He stepped up onto the porch and, without bothering to open the screen, hollered out to the cabin’s occupant.

“Uncle Jeptha!”

There was a slight screech of wood and sound of wheels turning on white pine floor.

“Did those men find ye?” the old man called back. “They’s a whole passel of them looking for ye. I said you were up at the cornfield.”

“They found me,” Moss answered quietly.

“What’d they want?” his uncle asked. “They looked as sober and determined as a lynch mob.”

“You’ve got the right of that,” Moss answered.

“What’d they want?”

“They wanted me to go down to the meetinghouse with them,” he said.

“The meetinghouse? In the middle of the week? What for?”

“To get married,” Moss answered.

A moment of complete silence followed his words, and then the scrape of wheels against wood was heard once more as Uncle Jeptha propelled himself to the doorway.

“To get married!” the old man exclaimed with disbelief.

The subject was so abhorrent, Moss could hardly meet the man’s eye.

“I married Eulie Toby this afternoon,” he said simply. “She and her younger brother and sisters ought to be here by suppertime.”

Uncle Jeptha stared at him in disbelief as he ran a worried hand through his waist-length steel gray hair and then pulled thoughtfully upon the long white whiskers that hung nearly to his belly.

“You done married her?” His voice was incredulous. “I didn’t know you’d even been courting her.”

“I ain’t courted her,” Moss answered.

It was on the tip of his tongue to declare that he never
would
have courted her. He wanted to denounce her as a scheming, bald-faced liar. He wanted to declare his innocence in the whole shameful, sordid story. But she was his woman now, for better or worse, and a man who spoke ill of his wife was as low-crawling as Eden’s serpent.

“I ain’t courted her, but I married her,” he said simply.

Uncle Jeptha’s brow furrowed in concern. His words were only a little above a whisper.

“I take it the men this morning were thinking the gal had a grievance against you.”

Moss shrugged He was tired of denials. He was tired of explanations.

“I married her,” he said simply. “She’s on her way up the mountain with her kin. You’d best be expecting strangers come to live here.”

“They’re all coming to live here?” Jeptha asked. “They’re all to come here, for permanent?”

Moss nodded.

“Four young gals, one near enough to marrying age, but the rest still children,” he said. “The boy’s about half-growed, but considers himself more so.”

“Here? Here in my cabin?” Jeptha’s expression was mutinous. “They cain’t come here to live in
my
cabin.”

Moss raised an eyebrow and gave the old man a long look. “She’s my wife and they’re my wife’s kin.”

“I’m your kin,” Jeptha proclaimed. “This is my farm. I don’t see people and I don’t like strangers. You cain’t just bring in a bunch of strangers I don’t know and make me live with them.”

“Would you have me turn them out?” Moss asked. “We’re all just going to live here together. It will all be fine, I’m sure of it.”

Moss didn’t even believe his own words as he said them.

“It’s my place, you cain’t just bring a passel of children to live here,” Jeptha insisted.

“It’s where I live,” Moss told him. “It’s where I work. I’ve got a perfect right to bring a wife into this cabin. A wife, and her kin, and even a one-eyed possum if that’s what I’ve set my mind to. You’re my uncle and I like and respect you, but I’ve worked this farm like it was my own since I was a boy. I got some say about the place, too.”

Jeptha’s expression became steely and determined.

“There ain’t no room here for a new family,” he said with certainty. “Children take up a lot of space and there just ain’t none.”

“We’ll empty out all that storage,” Moss told him. “I’ll put a new roof on the shed and we can move the barrels and grain out there.”

The old man snorted, disgruntled. “It’d be better to put the noisy children out in that shed.”

“Uncle Jeptha …”

“Is that her coming?” the old man asked, looking beyond Moss to the ridge path.

Moss turned in that direction. It was her, all right Her and one of her sisters. The little one was done up very fine in a pretty and serviceable calico, long blonde curls hanging down to her shoulders. His wife didn’t look half so well. Her gray homespun had seen far better days, and her stringy hair was flying around her face like a loose dishmop. She was a bit too tall, a bit too thin—a bit too much married to him.

Suddenly looking at her, Moss felt too tired to even argue with Uncle Jeptha. He didn’t want the girl or her family here any more than the old man did. She’d ruined his life, but there was not a thing he could think to do about it. With a sigh of resignation he leaned his shoulder against the porch pillar and watched them approach the cabin.

His new bride had a ten-pound poke tied to a stick balanced upon her shoulder. The younger girl carried a small handsome carpetbag. When she spied Moss watching her, the little one was brought up short in hesitation.

His wife glanced up and saw him and she actually smiled as she urged her sister forward. She was, it seemed, still as cheerful and pleased to be wed as she’d been this morning.

The screen door slammed open against its hinges, and his uncle wheeled himself out onto the porch to get a better look at the new arrivals, the ones who were taking over his house, the ones who were invading his private sanctuary. He was red-faced and angry, his teeth clenched.

The little girl caught sight of Uncle Jeptha and gasped.

“Look, Eulie!” she hollered out pointing at him. “That man ain’t got no legs!”

At that moment, that precise moment when she was hoping to make a fine impression on her new husband and his family, Eulie Toby, who had never once raised a hand to any of her siblings, could have gladly cut a peach tree limb and switched Little Minnie’s legs to blisters.

She had hurried to the Pierces’ home with a spring to her step, grateful that at last she could bring her family together. There had been some uncomfortable moments. She’d been forced to tell that outrageous lie to the preacher. Moss Collier had publicly denied her. She’d been married with the groom under threat of a shotgun. Her husband-man showed every evidence of hating the sight of her. And now practically all the men on the mountain believed her to be a young woman of assailable virtue. But it was all going to turn out fine. Of course it would. She would make sure that it would. It just had to.

Rather than being delighted and thrilled at the news that the Toby family would all be together once more, Little Minnie, dressed like a doll in one of the many new dresses Mrs. Pierce had bought her, turned stubborn and set up a pout.

She didn’t want to go live up on the mountain. The Pierce house had wooden floors with soft rugs. Minnie had her own room that she didn’t have to share with anyone. And Mrs. Pierce let her eat biscuits and honey whenever she wanted.

“I don’t want to be one of those nasty Toby children,” she complained.

If her sister’s childish whining hadn’t been annoying enough, Mrs. Pierce had taken to sniveling even before Eulie got there. Apparently Mr. Pierce had hurried home with the news, and his wife had immediately begun to blubber. Her sister was a sure-enough cutie, Eulie couldn’t deny, but who would have thought that after only a few short months the childless Mrs. Pierce would grow so attached to the girl?

Eulie tried unsuccessfully to cheer the woman up. But there was simply no cheering. Judith Pierce sobbed uncontrollably and clung to Little Minnie as if she would never see the child again. Eulie explained repeatedly that they would just be going as far as Barnes Ridge and they would attend services at the meetinghouse every month. But even that didn’t seem to comfort the woman.

They’d left Judith in tears. And Little Minnie complained every step up to Barnes Ridge. Eulie had managed to keep her determined good temper with difficulty. However, when she looked up and saw Moss Collier on his porch, obviously waiting and watching for her, she was heartened.

He was still wearing his wedding clothes. Of course, he hadn’t really been dressed for a wedding. But the sturdy brown ducking trousers fit him well, and the leather galluses that held them up looked handsome enough against the plain cloth buttonless overshirt he wore.

He was really a very nice-looking man—tall and sturdy, with a broad, powerful back and shoulders and all that thick black hair. And if his gentle kiss was indication
of anything, he could be tender, No, it was not going to be any big sacrifice for Eulie to ease his sad loneliness. And once Moss Collier saw how pleasant her family could be, he’d forget all his anger over the dirty trick she’d played on him. She was sure of it.

“Look, Eulie!” her sister hollered out, pointing toward the cabin doorway. “That man ain’t got no legs!”

Eulie looked up, stunned and horrified. She knew, of course, that Moss Collier’s old uncle was a war veteran who’d lost his limbs in battle. But she had never seen the man so much as darken the church door. He was a hermit. He never left the Collier farm, and Eulie supposed that she thought him a poor suffering saint who never left his bed. But here he was on the front porch, sitting in a low wheeled cart and looking decidedly unfriendly.

Little Minnie clutched her leg tightly, fearful.

“He’s just a man,” Eulie assured her, trying to pry the child loose from her so that she could walk. “He’s my husband-man’s uncle. I guess that makes him our uncle as well.”

“Ain’t no legless man a relative to me,” Minnie whispered with certainty.

Eulie continued to half lead, half drag her sister forward. This was their new home, and these men were their new family. It was important to make a good impression. Unfortunately, Little Minnie was disinclined to make an effort. And neither of the men appeared particularly welcoming.

The husband-man leaned against the porch post in a posture that should have indicated indolence. But Eulie could see that even in the relaxed pose he was rigid with anger.

“Howdy!” she said, smiling as if nothing had happened.

Neither man bothered to respond. At the foot of the step, Eulie released her sister, and the little girl immediately hid behind her.

“Howdy,” Eulie said again. This time she directed her words to the man in the cart and extended her hand. He was pale and scraggly and appeared to be dirty and amazingly unkempt.

“I’m Eulie Toby, I—” She stopped herself midsentence, shook her head and giggled. “I mean, I’m Eulie
Collier
.”

She shot a quick smile toward Moss. His expression was so grim she turned immediately back to the older man.

“You must be Mr. Collier’s uncle. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Jeptha Barnes,” the old man responded as he accepted her handshake without enthusiasm.

“This is my sister Minnie,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to pull the child to her side. “She’s just a child.”

It was an explanation as well as an excuse. Children couldn’t be expected to know that pointing out a man’s missing legs did not fall into the realm of good manners. In truth, Eulie thought that Little Minnie was old enough to know better, but it was not the time to go into that now.

“Where’s the rest of them?” Moss asked her.

“Oh, they’re coming,” Eulie assured him. “Rans went to round up the twins and my sister Clara. I thought Minnie and I had better hurry up so I’d be here in time to start supper.”

Moss eyed her unpleasantly. “We’ve been cooking for ourselves a long time,” he said.

She nodded. “Of course, but we couldn’t expect you to cook for us,” she said.

His tone was cynical. “I don’t know why not—you’re all expecting to eat my food.”

It was not a kind thing to say, and Eulie blushed with embarrassment. He was plainly still angry. Of course, it had only been a few hours since the wedding, so she supposed she couldn’t exactly accuse him of holding a grudge. Still, Eulie was quite ready for him to simply get over it. They were married now, and she was ready to live happily ever after. She guessed that it might take him a while to come around to that way of thinking. But she was sure that he would.

“I’m a really fine cook,” she informed him, not even attempting to hide her pride. “I’ve been hired out over at the Knox place and them younguns of theirs quite prefer my vittles to the ones their own mama fixes.”

Moss Collier shrugged.

“We eat real plain here,” he told her. “Bread and gravy, potatoes and corn. Spring vegetables when we got them.”

“And that’s exactly what I like to cook,” she said. “Plain food, but better than you’ve ever tasted.”

The husband-man did not appear awestruck at his good fortune.

“Have you put in your garden yet?” she asked him. “I’m a wonderful gardener. Best on the mountain, iffen I do say so myself. You give me a little plot of land, tired and poor as you please, and I’ll grow you food till all your stores and cellars are full to bursting.”

He still didn’t look all that impressed.

“Garden plot is on the other side of the kitchen,” he said, indicating the nearby building. “I put down some, but with all your brood come a-begging we’ll need more than twice that measure at least.”

Eulie disliked the inference of her family as beggars, but she swallowed down the insult as if it were a joke.

“Yes, sir, there’s a full mess of us Tobys, all right,” she said, chuckling. “But we’re a hardworking family, used to pulling our own weight. We won’t never be no burden to you.”

The husband-man’s expression was incredulous, as if her words were completely beyond belief and he was primed to say so. But he glanced down toward the old man and perhaps for his sake held his peace.

He relinquished his position against the porch post and turned toward the front of the cabin.

Seeing it close up for the first time, Eulie was elated that even in its very worn, weathered state, the chinking was in good condition and it appeared snug and tight. The old man in his little cart blocked the doorway so she couldn’t so much as get a glimpse inside. But she was not discouraged. She could make a home out of a prairie dog tunnel as long as her family would be all together.