To Make My Bread (10 page)

These days Kirk washed himself at the spring until his face shone. He and Basil did odd jobs for Swain and with some of the money they bought a razor. They had quarrels over it, for Basil accused Kirk of making the blade dull and wanted to force him to sharpen it. Neither of them took very good care of the razor and as John had used it once on a green stick without anyone's knowing, perhaps the blame should have been put on him.

Kirk was very careless. If he made money he spent it like Granpap, only the Good Lord knew on what. Sometimes he slapped all he had made, which was never much, into the gourd for Emma and the young ones. Basil, much as Emma hated to think it, seemed always to be looking out for Number One. And when he gave money for home he always gave it into Emma's hands with an air as if he grudged what he gave. He was a good, kind son and never said he grudged the money. It only seemed that he did—and perhaps it was the other way.

With Basil and Kirk going about their own affairs, Granpap turned more and more to John. And John was happy enough over this. The second winter after Basil was baptized Granpap got up from the supper table one night and said, “Want to go to the store, Son?” He said it to John who had asked forty times before and had always been refused. Did he want to go? It was Saturday night. Men came in and sat around the store on Saturday nights and talked. John would hear men's talk.

The trail had never seemed so long. John ran ahead and looked down at Granpap who was taking the side of the mountain in leisurely strides. It seemed as if the old man was standing in one place, merely going through the motions of walking. John hurried about on the upper trail like a snake doctor zigzagging above a creek, trying to set Granpap an example of hurry. It was no use. The old man kept up his leisurely regular stride, even when they were going down the steep trail on the other side of Thunderhead.

In Swain's store men sat on boxes near the stove to keep warm and to be near the sand box for spitting. Hal Swain stayed behind the counter most of the time, for people came in off and on to buy. In between selling Hal took his place on the box everybody knew as his, the box at the right of the stove pipe.

Many folks were in that night. Fraser McDonald and his son Jesse were there. Jesse was waiting for Kirk so they could go down the creek to see two girls who had come from South Fork to visit some kin over Sunday.

Jim Hawkins, who always let up on his watch of Minnie on Saturday nights, was there as usual. Some said he locked Minnie in the house, but that was nonsense. He only saw that she had gone safely to bed and shut the door behind him. There was no lock on his door. On Sundays he allowed the young men to come and see Minnie while he sat by as a proper chaperon. There was talk that Minnie was not always at home when her father thought she was there. But it was only talk, for no one had ever given proof. As Fraser McDonald said, people would get along fine if they would believe nothing of what they hear and only half of what they see. Only people don't always act in the best way, and so the talk went around about Minnie.

Bud McEachern was in the store. He lived over South Fork, but was staying a few days with Sam McEachern whose bachelor cabin was under Barren She Mountain. Bud was there to have a talk with Granpap. They were waiting for Sam.

“Sure he's coming?” Granpap asked Bud. “Sure he ain't out after a gal?”

“Sure,” Bud said. “Sam aims high. Didn't you know? Got a little miss all dressed in lace down in Leesville.”

Sam Wesley, just from the hospital in Leesville, spoke up. “He can have her,” he said and spat with a twist of his head. “He can have all the gals in Leesville for what I saw of them.”

“And what did you see?” Bud asked.

“Clean to Christmas,” Sam said, “and back again.”

“Glad to get home, eh, Sam?” Hal Swain asked. From his place behind the stove he saw a girl come in the door, and got up to find out what she wanted.

Many girls who lived near came in on Saturday nights to buy something—a spool of thread, some needles, perhaps just to look at some calico. They came in and with one eye on the counter took little sly glances toward the men. And often after the girl had left, one of the young men got up and strolled carelessly out of the back door.

“Glad to get back?” Sam Wesley repeated after Hal had taken his place again. “As soon as I left the hospital I promised my God I'd never set foot out of the mountains again.”

He had been taken to the hospital because of a hard fever. When he felt strong again and they wouldn't let him go, it was very trying.

“I said to the nurse,” he told them, “ ‘I want some water the worst way.' And she said, ‘You've had a fever so I can't give you no water. It's against the rules.' I was feeling better so I said, ‘Where's my jeans?' And she perked up her lips and told me I couldn't have them. It was against orders. And I said, ‘You send the doctor here.'

“And when the doctor come I said, ‘Doctor, I lied to my God when I let them bring me here. They won't give me any water and I dream at night about a spring of real water running alongside my cabin. Doctor, I've got to go back to the hills.' And he said, ‘Well, to-morrow.'

“And to-morrow the nurse brought my jeans. And she said, ‘Get up now and I'll dress ye.' ” Sam minced his words in a high treble like a girl. John had been staying close to Granpap's back hanging around in the half dark looking like Granpap's aftermidday shadow. Now he edged closer to Sam in order not to miss a word of the story. “And I told her,” Sam went on, “that no woman has ever dressed Sam Wesley and no woman ever will. So she went out and I got dressed and slipped away. I found somebody to drive me part the way up the mountain. And the first spring I come to welling out of a rock I said to Jim, ‘Let me down, Jim.' And he helped me down because I was still weak. And I laid me down flat and drank of that water till my sights was full. And under that tree with the water coming in my mouth I promised my God I'd never leave the mountains again.”

“Reminds me,” Granpap said, “of the time when I come back from Georgy. Men, the ugliest woman up here looked like a sweet angel, and the lowliest bush was a tree of heaven.”

John went back to Granpap and sat down on the floor at his side. If Granpap was preparing to tell a story about Georgy, he wanted to hear.

“This is the place for me,” Fraser McDonald said quietly. “Here I've lived and here I'll lay me down and die.”

“And die poor,” Hal Swain told Fraser.

“Yes, and die poor,” Fraser said.

“You cut yourself off from outside and you cut yourself off from riches,” Hal insisted. “People are getting rich out there.”

“And there's plenty of poor, too,” Fraser said. “I know.”

Hal Swain kept on. “You've just got to be a little smarter than the other fellow and you'll get along,” he said.

Sam winked on the side at Granpap. Sure you had to be smarter than the other one. Didn't Hal know, along with his Sally, just how to be smarter than the others?

The talk suddenly lost its interest, or else everyone had plenty to think about when it came to the idea of getting riches stored up. Quietness settled down in the store. John leaned against Granpap's box. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. So long as there was talk his ears kept his eyes awake. But when the quiet came, the dimness in the store and the heat from the stove made him doze off. Sam Wesley picking on the banjo woke him. Sam was singing a song about a girl and her soldier lover.

The song went on interminably and Sam's nasal voice clanged out the words, with emphasis on the piece of clothing whatever it might be. At last when Sam had sung of every piece of clothing he could think that a man or a woman might wear—he added the women's to give zest to the song—he ended his singing. And it was very sad, for after the maiden had brought the soldier everything he demanded, the soldier in the meanest way said,

John was tired and sleepy. He hated the song because it had lasted so long. And he hated the maiden who had run around so crazily. It showed how foolish women could be. No man could have been fooled like that. He would have stopped running to the shoemaker and the hatmaker and the coatmaker. He would have stood up to the person who was ordering him around and asked, “What do you think I am—a nigger slave?”

On the way back it was John who lagged on the trail and Granpap who urged him to hurry. John trudged along behind Granpap. He was disappointed. For such a long time he had envied the boys when they went with Granpap to the store at night, and now he had been there it hadn't seemed very unusual.

The next morning, however, the visit seemed more of an event. John remembered that no women had been sitting around the stove. And for the first time he had been away from Emma and Bonnie. So he swaggered around the cabin pretending to Bonnie that wonderful and mysterious things had happened the night before, things that she must never be told.

T
HE
spring was under a cottonwood tree about fifty feet from the cabin. Some ferns grew around it and deep down at the back the roots of the cottonwood showed up through the clear water. To the right of the tree and just a little way back a fire burned under an iron pot. Near enough to this for convenience was the great round stump where Emma and Bonnie pounded out the clothes when they washed.

Emma was standing on the far side of the spring watching Granpap at work. It was summer time again and Granpap had gone back to his conniving with the McEacherns. But now there was a different situation. He was sprouting corn at his own place where before he had sprouted it somewhere else. And he had decided to peddle the liquor for the McEacherns. At least he had decided to take turns with Sam at driving it to the outside. Sam had made a fair proposition, and Granpap was tired of hiring a steer from Swain. He wanted one of his own.

Emma looked at her father. He was leaning over a bench under a rough shelter of saplings covered with walnut bark. With a hammer and nail he was making some small holes in the bottom of a large new pan. Emma wanted to speak, but Granpap was so intent on what he was doing she hesitated. For awhile she waited and then the words in her had to be spoken.

“I heard Kirk ask if he could go with ye,” she said in a low voice. She felt very shy and hesitated again, before she went on. “Are ye going to take him?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Granpap grunted.

“I want ye not,” Emma told him.

“He'd be a help,” Granpap said.

“And maybe go to his death.”

“And if he does he's chosen his way. Kirk's a man.”

“He's eighteen come next fall.”

“And a man.”

“And I'm a woman and can't keep him. I know.”

“No. Ye couldn't keep him from Minnie though you wanted.”

“Whether I wanted or not, his drinking kept him from Minnie.”

Jim Hawkins had ordered Kirk from his cabin on a Sunday because he had gone there drunk.

“Hit's Basil now,” Granpap said, working over the pan. He hoped to get Emma's mind off the trip Kirk wanted to take with him.

“You don't have to tell me. I know Basil's there every Sunday for supper. Jim Hawkins hopes to get a steady boy like Basil for Minnie.”

“Some say Kirk and Minnie have been seen up Little Snowbird,” Granpap went on. He was leaning over and Emma could not see the triumph in his eyes. He was getting her off the trail as surely as if he was an animal and had walked into a creek to get the hounds off his scent.

“If they have,” Emma said shortly. “I don't know hit. But I do know Sam McEachern brags she's his girl.

“And that's another reason,” Emma went on, catching the scent again, “him and Kirk oughtn't to be together. They'll be sure to fight. I wish you'd leave Kirk, Pap. I wish you'd stay yourself and not fool with all this.” She pointed to the two bags of corn that leaned against the bench.