GREAT JEHOSHAPHAT AND GULLY DIRT!

 

By Jewell Ellen Smith

 

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"Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt!" is presently out of print. It is reproduced here in its entirety. Copies of the first edition of the original work are available by e-mail from Jewell Ellen Smith’s Daughter Nan Kemp, npkemp@swbell.net.

 

Copyright © 1975 Jewell Ellen Smith. All rights reserved.

All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.

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Chapter 1

An usher I'd not seen before carefully wheeled my chair down the center aisle and over to the right so that I would be facing the pulpit. Most Sunday mornings I sat on the opposite side of the church. But this usher didn't know that. Oh well, no matter.

The usher was saying something to me, but before I could adjust my hearing aid, I had to push my shawl back and slip a glove. By then, he had quit talking.

He let my chair roll to a stop so close to the chancel rail. I could have reached out and kicked it with my foot--that is, I had been in the mood to kick a chancel railing and if I could have moved either foot.

I was almost in a kicking mood!

No, no! I shouldn't think of such a thing as kicking that brass rail. I should be wishing I could kneel down before it. Somehow, though, my mind wasn't on praying.

The usher stepped back, then hesitated.

"Will this be all right, Mrs. Goode? Can you hear Dr. Shirey's sermon from here? Or would you rather be a little over toward the choir and the organ?"

"This is fine. Thank you kindly." I was surprised the man knew my name.

He smiled and handed me the morning bulletin.

The minute the usher's back was turned, I clicked off my hearing aid so that I wouldn't have to listen to the pastor's sermon, the organ, or anything else. I just wanted--well, I didn't know exactly what I wanted.

The only reason in this round world I kept coming to Central Avenue Church was that it was right across the street from Crestview Rest Home, and I had to get out and away from that place once in a while. Crestview wasn't so bad, as nursing homes go. In fact, it was all right. Still, any rest home is a sad comedown from one's own house--and such a change.

As the congregation filed in, I looked about me. The sanctuary, quiet and beautiful with its stained-glass windows, its high, arched ceiling, and its deep carpets, was the only serene spot I had found since I came to the city. Out on the streets all was rush, confusion, turmoil--enough to drive one to distraction.

Here, too, I managed to block out for a little while the feeling of helplessness I'd had since I became so frail. The doctors kept saying that my general condition was good and my arthritis might improve some. But as yet I couldn't see much change.

To make myself lift my head and quit looking at my stiff, swollen knees, I turned toward the nearest window. I liked those green velvet curtains and the matching cushions on the pews. Both were the exact color of an Arkansas pine in early spring, when it takes on new life and puts forth myriads of tender buds, each a creamy, candle-like shoot, lovely enough to adorn a sacred altar.

I gazed at the candles on the altar and at the open Bible, crisscrossed with its narrow scarlet ribbons. The sight of that Bible was always a pleasure. It brought back memories my old church down at Drake Eye Springs--small, standing so calm in its grove of aged white oaks.

That little church had everything a big church has--except a steeple. But the colored folks up at Sweet Beulah Hill had a steeple. They had built a tall belfry and spire for church, and Sweet Beulah's bell could be heard for miles.

But it wasn't green curtains or candles or the memory of old country churches with their Bibles and bells that drew me to this large sanctuary. And it wasn't the quiet beauty of the room that made me want to come. It was my duty to be in some church.

Besides, the young minister had invited me to attend. I didn't care for Dr. Shirey's sermons. Not yet. But I did like him, and no doubt his sermons would improve. After all, a preacher is like wine. To warm the heart, each must age.

Young Dr. Shirey visited the nursing home every Tuesday afternoon, talking and passing the time of day with each of us. He always let me talk of my late husband Wallace, of our children and grandchildren. Lovely youngsters, little Vic, Nan, Jodie. Dr. Shirey seemed to understand why I refused to go live with any of my children after my health failed so.

Sometimes the young preacher and I discussed religion. One day I took up practically an hour of his time with the tales about my preacher grandpa, Grandpa Dave. Dr. Shirey was intrigued with the old man's ministry. And for some reason or other, he was delighted to hear about Grandpa's double buggy and his matched white mares, Martha and Mary. He said it made him wish he could have been a country preacher back in horse-and-buggy times.

I was much concerned for Dr. Shirey. Standing there now behind the pulpit, he looked bone tired. And no wonder, for besides his parish work he was forever running here and there--to the juvenile detention home, the clinic for alcoholics, the mental health center, the Black ghetto. Often, he told me, he got discouraged over it all.

Never did I mention to him how I felt: bewildered, lost, like an autumn leaf caught up in an angry storm and carried far away from its forest, a leaf that longed to stay where it was, there to turn golden yellow, then brown, and finally, late on a winter evening, to flutter to the ground and to its sleep beneath the trees.

Nor would I ever breathe to my young pastor that some days I was utterly cast down, so broken in heart that I wished I were a little girl again and could run and hide under my grandma's bed.

I couldn't confide such a thing to Dr. Shirey. It would show I had lost courage--as so many older persons do when change comes with the years. Half the patients at Crestview are like that. They don't want to keep up. They want to look back. My roommate has that attitude, and I try to tell her not to give up, to face the present, to look to the future. It's all right to remember bygone days with a grain or two of nostalgia, but there's no need living in the past.

I was doing just that--remembering bygone days--while I waited for the choir to finish its anthem. When I was a little girl in Arkansas, in the section of low Ouachita hills that lies between the Mississippi River and the Red, our manner was slow and simple, down to earth as gully dirt. The horse-and-buggy days were already fading away, but we didn't sense it. The swift pace that was to come, virtually overnight, was still undreamed of. There were not many automobiles, no superhighways, no jets, and no spacecraft. In south Arkansas, the fastest thing on wings was a thieving chicken hawk, and anything in the sky bigger than a buzzard was referred to as a "flying machine."

There seemed to be fewer problems then. Nobody had yet thought to build nursing homes and institutions for this, that, and every other kind of person with a complaint. The elderly, maimed, halt and blind were sheltered beside the hearth of their blood kin.

The Negroes I knew--Shoogie, Doanie, Sun Boy, Ned, Little Stray, and all the rest--lived out in the country close by us. I couldn't have managed without Shoogie, for she was my main playmate, even though my sister Mierd and my brother Wiley were still living at home. Why, if it hadn't been for Shoogie, I never would have learned to build a good frog house in the sand. I'd love to see Shoogie again. After she married Doanie's oldest boy, they went off to the West Coast. I'd like to be with her, climbing pine saplings, wading in the branch, and jumping deep gullies!

We were all eating our white bread then and didn't know it.

There were no alcoholics. A heavy drinking man was a sot, a sinner. Women didn't drink--or if they did, they didn't tell it. And as for mental health, it was an unheard-of term. Any persons slightly off were said to be "curious," or at worst, "touched in the head." They were tolerated by family and friends, while those considered dangerous were sent off to be locked up in the state asylum.

Ah, old man Hawk! He must have had a mental problem! I hadn't thought of that old coot in years. I wonder what a psychiatrist would have said about him. And Miss Dink. She didn't have a mental problem; she was just blind and had to be looked after. Fortunately her niece, Miss Ophelia, gave her a home. And Ward Lawson, Miss Ophelia's husband! Now he was sure a sot drunkard--an alcoholic if there ever was one.

One summer afternoon Mama had let me ride with her in our buggy to visit Miss Dink, who, at that time, was living with the Lawsons on the run-down Crawford place some few miles beyond Rocky Head Creek.

I had a gourd dipper in my hand and was skipping along the edge of the woods on my way down the path to Miss Dink's spring. My hair, braided tight, was tied with ribbons that flipped and rippled as I bounced along the trail. I could smell honeysuckle blooms and climbing jasmine, and I was wishing I had the time to chase the yellow butterflies that were swooping and fluttering zigzag from bush to bush. But Miss Dink had wanted me to hurry to the spring and bring her a gourdful of fresh water. She had said, "It ain't far from the house here to the spring, sugar. Just stay in the trail till you hit the branch and turn down left a little ways."

Then she had skimmed her bony fingers over my face and braids to find out how I looked. "Ah, Nannie," she said to Mama while she still had her hands on my cheeks, "I can tell you and Jodie won't have no trouble a-tall marrying your baby off. She's pretty as a pink. What color's her eyes and hair?" Miss Dink patted my head.

"Her eyes are sort of greenish blue, like a gander's. And her hair's about as yellow as a crooked-neck squash when it's good and ripe. But that don't matter. If Bandershanks does as well as she looks, she'll fare fine."

"Just so she ain't got buck teeth. Many's the old maid I've seen with teeth like a beaver."

"Well, we can't be sure about her teeth yet. She's still got her baby set." Mama looked down at me.

I kept thinking about Miss Dink's eyes. Mama had told me she was losing her sight. Poor thing. The minute she said I was pretty as a flower, I knew she was plum blind, for I wasn't pretty. It hadn't been two days since Wiley had told me I looked exactly like a billy goat.

Mama was saying, "Bandershanks, you take Miss Ophelia's gourd out of the water bucket on the porch and run get some fresh spring water. Follow the trail now, like Miss Dink said."

I was following the trail, but I was beginning to think I wasn't ever going to find that spring. Then I heard Mister Ward Lawson yelling at his wife.

"Good God A' mighty, Ophelia! Damn you! What in God's name are you doin' down here, roamin' round at the branch this time of the evenin'?"

"Just looking for berries, Ward."

"Berries, hell. You're lookin' for my still, that's what you're doin'. Huckleberries ain't ripe yet!"

"Still? What still?"

"My whiskey still!"

Miss Ophelia dropped the basket on her arm. "Lord help my time. You must be lying to me, Ward."

There they were, right down the trail in front of me--Miss Ophelia wringing her hands and twisting them up in her flimsy apron, Mister Ward shaking his fist at her.

I darted behind the nearest sapling.

"Naw, I ain't lyin'! I'm aimin' to turn out some first-rate whiskey and roll in big money doin' it!" Mister Ward grinned and let his clenched fist unfold so he could push his hair up from his eyes. His fat, sweaty face was as red as his hair.

"Don't you know somebody'll turn you in so quick it'll make your head swim? Folks in this settlement ain't gonna allow no whiskey-making!"

Mister Ward spit out a wad of tobacco and wiped his shirt sleeve across his mouth. My papa didn't ever let his shirt get as dirty as Mister Ward's.

"You wanta bet?"

"There ain't a drinking man in Drake Eye Springs, 'cept you! They'll ride you out on a rail, even before the Law gets wind of it."

"Hell, gal, that's where you're wrong! Ain't nobody findin' out about my still. It's gonna be hid good. Quit wringin' your damn hands! That's all you know to do ever' time I try to tell you somethin'. Com'ere. Lemme show you the spot I got picked for settin' it up at." He grabbed his wife's arm and they started up the branch. The bottom of her skimpy skirt caught on a briar vine, but Mister Ward wouldn't wait for her to untangle it, so it got torn.

I had already noticed when Miss Ophelia lifted her apron that her dress was stretched so tight against her stomach it was like a sack on a rooster. But Miss Ophelia didn't look much like a rooster. The freckles, thick on her face and arms, made her look more like a poor little brown speckled wood thrush wearing a bonnet and being dragged along by one wing.

She kept stumbling on with Mister Ward, and he kept shouting to her about some contraption he wanted to build. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. But, whatever it was, Miss Ophelia didn't like it.

"See this level ridge? My platform for the mash barrels is gonna be right 'long here under these willows. Ah, here's where I'm gonna set my drum. It'll be pure copper. That's what I'm gonna buy--a pure copper drum! Won't that be a beaut? Undergrowth's so heavy in here even you couldn't spot at first! Now, could you?"

"Oh, Ward, you can't do this! It ain't right to make moonshine!" Miss Ophelia was beginning to cry. "It'll ruin us! Think what could happen! All our young'uns need clothes so bad, Ward! If you've got money to--"

"Shut up, Ophelia! Stop that Goddamn cryin' and snifflin'."

Now that they were out of sight, I tiptoed back to the narrow, winding trail. I dropped the water gourd, and it got sand and grit inside. I didn't know whether to pick it up and run back up the hill to the house or whether to skedaddle on to the spring and dip up Miss Dink's cool water, like she had told me to do.

I grabbed the gourd and swiped it out as best I could with the tail of my underskirt. I could still hear Miss Ophelia and Mister Ward. Her sobbing and his yelling sounded like they had stopped close by, but there were so many dogwood bushes and briar vines and pine trees growing tangled together on both sides of the trail that I couldn't tell for sure where they were. I ran on down the hill.

When I got even with Miss Ophelia's berry basket I slowed down to look at it, but I didn't dare touch it. It was lying bottom side up, but I couldn't see any huckleberries spilling out.

The more Mister Ward shouted at Miss Ophelia, the faster I scooted on down the steep hillside. Once I stumped my toe on the root of a sweet gum tree and fell. But I held on to the gourd. As I was getting up, I saw the spring just ahead.

I decided I'd better wash the dipper in the branch water before I stuck it into the deep, clear spring. As I waded out to the middle of the branch, cool sand oozed up between my toes, and for a minute I forgot all about Mister Ward's loud, ugly talking.

But I heard him again.

"I don't know why in hell you can't get it through your thick skull, Ophelia! I got it all figured out. All I gotta do is rake up money to buy the copper cooker, and I'm sure gonna get it, one way or another. 'Course, this summer I'll have to buy chops and rye too. But come another year, I'm gonna plant a heap of corn. I ain't gonna raise a stalk of cotton on the whole place. That won't set so good with old Ned. But hell, if that nigger don't like it, he can lump it! I got new plans for him anyways."

"New plans?"

"Yeah. He's gonna be helpin' with the runs. And them burr-headed boys of his are gonna be cuttin' wood and keepin' up the fires. Ah, I tell you, it's gonna be a perfect setup! Like Hicks said, I got plenty of water and a nice spot here in this hollow, 'way down the main road. Even the smoke ain't gonna drift far! Can't figure why I haven't done rigged me up a still long ago. Like Hicks said, ain't no need of a man with my brains workin' hisself to death walkin' behind no plow!"

"Who's this Hicks you're talking about?"

"You don't know him, Ophelia. He's sorta my business partner. Lives down below the State Line Road. Now, he's a moneyed man! He's got him one of them automobiles! Me and him's goin' in together fifty-fifty. I'm gonna take the whiskey to him in big batches--gallons and five gallons. Naturally, I'll be obliged to get myself a automobile! Then Hicks--"

"A automobile?"

"That's what I said! A automobile! I'll buy me one soon's the money starts pilin' in. Then, by God, when I ride through Drake Eye Springs, folks won't say, 'Yonder goes Old Ward.' They'll say, 'Yonder goes Mister Ward Lawson.'"

"And I'll say, 'Yonder goes the biggest red-headed fool the Lord ever let breathe!'"

"Makin' easy money ain't bein' a fool, Ophelia! Like I was fixin' to tell you, after we get the whiskey 'cross the Louisiana line, Hicks can sell it retail--you know, in fifths. And sometimes by the drink. We'll get a sight more for it that way. He's gonna get regular customers lined up and see to it that I'll have plenty of sugar--two or three hundred pounds at a time. He can arrange with a fellow so there won't be no suspicion round here. You know yourself if I was to go to Drake Eye Springs and start buyin' a heap of sugar at Mister Jodie's store, that'd be a dead giveaway. Say, he might be the very one to loan me some money! Providin' I don't let on to him what it's for."

"Ward, you ain't talking sense! You're just--"

"Dammit, woman, shut your mouth! This is the first sensible thing I ever--Good God A' mighty! Ophelia, look down yonder at the spring! Who in hell's that? Heerd ever' damn word I said! Why didn't you tell me somebody was around? Looks like some young'un!"

"I didn't know nobody was here. I sent the young'uns to fetch the cow, and I left the house just a minute ago to come look for berries."

"Ophelia, that's that damn little gal of Mister Jodie's and Miss Nannie's! I swear to God, if she tells her pa, I'll kill her! I'll kill her! So help me!"

It was me, all right! I snatched up the water gourd and started streaking back up the trail!

"Good God, Ward! You're drunk, or crazy! Don't say such a thing! Anyhow, she's so little she wouldn't know what's going on! See how little she is? Just look at her spindly legs!"

I didn't have time to look at my spindly legs. I just tried to go faster!

"Ain't no little gal gonna stop me! Dammit! I'm gonna set up my still come the devil to my doorstep! And if the Law comes bustin' it up, I'll know exactly who turned me in! Woman, you get on to the house and see who all else's up there. I swear to God! Don't nothin' ever go right for me! Get!"

"I'm going, Ward. I'm going. Miss Nannie must've come to set with poor Aunt Dink."

"Poor Aunt Dink! Poor Aunt Dink! That's all I hear! When's that old blind bitch ever gonna die?"

"Ward, she's my aunt! She raised me from a baby!"

"Yeah, yeah! From a bastard baby. You've told me ten times how your ma died a-birthin' you and didn't nobody want you, so Miss Dink and her old man taken you and raised you. Then, fool me, I come along and married you! My pa told me I'd rue the day. He said I ought to marry me a big rawboned gal--one that could plow a mule and do a day's work in the field. Pa was a blame fool about lots of things, but he sure know'd women. He said these little stringy ones like you ain't good for a confounded thing but birthin' young'uns, and he was sure right. Here I am thirty-nine years old, goin' on forty, and ain't got a damn thing but two old mules, some wore-out plows, and a houseful of young'uns--and you expectin' another one."

I was so far up the slope now I didn't try to hear any more Mister Ward said. Nearly half of Miss Dink's water had sloshed out of the gourd before I could get it back up to the house, but Miss Dink and Mama didn't seem to notice, or care either. Mama wouldn't even listen when I started to tell her Mister Ward was going to kill me. She just shushed me and whispered she was proud of me for being so smart and for me to sit down on the floor by her straight chair.

Mama and Miss Dink were talking about the World War and about Miss Dink's nephew, who was already fighting way across the waters in some place called France, and about my two big brothers, who went off to the army camp. Then they got started telling one another of long-time-ago things, with Miss Dink doing most of the telling.

"Well sir, time's a-flying fast. It fair scares me to think it's already 1918. The Mister, he's been in his grave ten years, Nannie. He passed in the summer of 'aught-eight. Come the first Sunday in June--and that'll be next Sunday--it'll be ten years, even."

"Mama, Mister Ward said--"

"Shh, Bandershanks, Miss Dink's talking, hon."

Miss Dink talked on and on. Mama just nodded her head or said, "Yes'm, that's right" or "Well, I declare to my soul!" or "I reckon so."

"Mama, when is Mister Ward gonna--"

"Bandershanks, get up here in my lap and be quiet! How can me and Miss Dink talk if you don't be quiet?"

Miss Dink started telling about hound dogs stealing goose eggs and about how it's easier to pick a goose than a gander when you're making feather beds. She told all about her drove of geese that nipped off the grass in the cotton fields, and that made her think about the summer the lice crawled off the geese and got all in her hair.

Then Mama remembered that once when she was a little girl, way back in Alabama, she and all the other pupils at Clay Hill School got lice on their heads. The teacher sent word home that every last young'un had to have his head shaved.

Miss Dink laughed. "Makes me recollect the time Ophelia caught the seven-year itch over at Calico Neck School. I never was so put out over nothing in all my born days. And 'course, Ophelia just know'd she was disgraced for life! But, like I told her, getting the itch ain't nothing, but it's sure a disgrace to keep it! Well, sir, Nannie, I didn't have no notion of what to do. And I couldn't let on to a soul that Ophelia had caught it, not even to Doctor Elton. Finally, I smeared hog lard on her, and that cleared it right up."

Mama let me slide out of her lap so she could stand up and take my hand. "I hate to leave, Miss Dink, but I promised Jodie's pa I'd take his new Gazette by the Goode place so's to read a piece to Mister Malcolm--something about Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations ideas. Mr. Thad couldn't go himself, this time. You know he walks over there ever so often to read the war news to Mister Malcolm."

"Mister Malcolm will be proud to hear you read. He's like me: setting there blind as a bat, with no way of knowing what's going on, 'less somebody comes and tells him."

"Mr. Thad says the weekly's got a right sensible column about this new law they're getting up to let women vote. I left the paper out yonder in my buggy, but I'll go get it."

"That rigamarole is all beyond me, Nannie. I'll never live to vote. Anyhow, that ain't women's business! Set back down, Nannie, just for a minute."

Mama let go of my hand and sat down again in the worn-out chair, the only one in Miss Dink's room.

"Nannie," Miss Dink whispered, raising herself up on her elbows, "I oughtn't to breathe this, but I know you ain't gonna talk it. Nannie, that devil Ward is running after the Bailey girl!"

Mama caught her breath! She grabbed my hand.

"You know which one I'm talking 'bout, Nannie--Wes and Lida Belle's daughter."

"Not Addie Mae!"

"Yeah! The darkies here on the place--Ned and Eulah--I got it straight from them. Folks say the girl is slow-witted. She must be, to be fooling 'round with Ward."

"Bandershanks, baby, you hurry on out front and be climbing into our buggy."

I was so glad to get to leave I didn't even ask Mama why she wanted me to be in a rush.

Old Dale was standing there in the shade of the tree where Mama had hitched him, his ears dropped down, his eyes half closed, all his weight on three feet. Once in a while he would give his tail a swish to scare away the two horseflies that kept settling on his hind legs.

He didn't even notice when I climbed up into the buggy seat and started playing with the reins. I put one forefinger between the flat, slick leather lines and joggled them up and down with both hands. Then, stretching my legs so I could prop one foot up on the dashboard, like Papa always did, I practiced saying "Glick! Glick!" out of the corner of my mouth, just exactly like Papa.

I eased the whip out of its holder and waved it round and round high in the air. That whip was as old as the buggy but it looked brand new, for Papa and Mama wouldn't ever use it. They said Dale was too decrepit to be whipped. The whip's green tassel on the wrist loop was still fluffy and soft as silk.

I was squeezing the tassel to make finger waves in it when I saw Mama coming. I put up the whip quick!

It didn't take Mama long to get Dale untied, waked up, and headed around toward the Drake Eye Springs road.

"What do you know, Bandershanks, Dale actually wants to trot now!"

"How come?"

"His head is turned towards home!"

"Mama?"

"What, hon?"

"Mister Ward's gonna shoot me."

"What?"

"Mister Ward's gonna kill me with his gun."

"Child, what on earth are you talking about?"

"Mister Ward said it!"

"Bandershanks, sometimes I wonder about you! When did you see Mister Ward?"

"I didn't see him good, but--"

"Well, then, you quit imagining things—or telling stories. It's mean to tell stories, and a sin, besides. You don't want the Old Bad Man to get you when you die, do you?"

"No'm!"

Mama had told me a long time before who the Bad Man was. When Brother Milligan preached about him, he called him "that Old Split-Foot Devil." But Mama said "devil" is an ugly word for ladies to use, so she always said "the Bad Man." No matter what his name, I didn't want him to get me and burn me up, so I quit talking about Mister Ward.

Soon we came to the main road, where we turned into what Mama said was the left fork. She told me if we were to go the other way, and kept on riding eight or ten miles, we'd wind up down in Louisiana.

I never had been to Louisiana.

A few minutes later we met Old Mister Hawk in his narrow wagon. Mama said he was the only man for miles who had a one-horse wagon. He didn't have a horse, though, just a mule.

Mister Hawk made his old, bony, gray mule go over in the weeds and grass so there would be lots of room in the road for our buggy. When he said "'Evenin', Miss Nannie," he took one hand and lifted his hat clean off his head.

Next, we came to the Baileys' house. Miss Lida Belle was sitting on the front porch, and she waved and called out for Mama to stop. Mama drew up the reins, slowing Dale to a walk.

"'Evening, Lida Belle."

"Lord, Nannie, here I sit barefooted as a yard dog! You caught me resting my feet! Tie up your horse and come on in!" Miss Lida Belle took her snuff brush out of her mouth and started putting on her shoes.

'Td love to, Lida Belle, but it's getting on over in the evening. I'll have to come another day."

"Do that, Nannie! I'd sure be proud."

"I will. And y'all come!"

"We will!"

Mama flapped the reins ever so lightly against Old Dale's back. He trotted on.

"Mama, where's Addie Mae at?"

"I don't know, hon."

"Is Mister Ward gonna run after her like our rooster chases hens?"

"Bandershanks!"

"But Miss Dink said--"

"I declare to my soul! You hear too much. Now quit asking questions."

Mama didn't talk any more for a long while.

"Mama, Miss Ophelia said I don't know what's going on."

"What?"

"But Mr. Ward said I'd tell Papa."

"Bandershanks, I don't know what in Heaven's name you could be worrying about! When did you ever hear Mister Ward or Miss Ophelia talking about Papa, or anything else for that matter?"

"At the spring."

"This evening?"

"Yes'm."

"What'd they say?"

"I don't know."

"Well, surely you remember something--if you heard them. Just tell me one thing they said."

"She was crying and crying. And he said, 'Shut up.' And she said, 'Don't do it.' And he said he's gonna get lots of money and buy him a au-something."

"A automobile?"

"That's it! And he saw me squatting down by the spring dipping up water, and he said he'd kill me."

"Good Heavens!"

"Miss Ophelia said I wouldn't tell!"

"I declare to my soul! Tell what?"

"I don't know, Mama!"

Mama yanked the buggy whip from its holder and gave Dale a quick, sharp whack that made him fairly fly on up the road! It was the first time I'd ever seen Mama do that. She wouldn't let him slow down, not even when we got to the Goode place.

"Ain't we gonna stop and read none to Mister Malcolm?"

"No, hon. I've changed my mind."

"I want to play mumble-peg with Wallace! Mama, Wallace can throw mumble-peg knives better'n Wiley, or anybody!"

Mama didn't answer or say another word. She kept Dale trotting on, fast as he could go.

In a few more minutes we were going up the hill in front of our house. Dale started turning off the road to go to our wide gate, just like he always did, but Mama made him pull the buggy back into the sandy ruts.

"No, Dale, we need to go on up to the store!" She gave him another hard flip with the reins.

"We're going to Papa's store?"

"Yeah, hon. I've got to talk to your papa. But you won't even have to get out. When we get there, you can just sit in the buggy while I run in and speak to Papa a second."

"I gotta get me some candy!"

"I'll bring you a piece of candy. You just stay in the buggy."

When Mama came out of the store, Papa was with her. Papa was frowning and looking down at the ground, and Mama was looking at Papa. He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and whispered something I couldn't hear.

He walked on over to the mulberry tree to untie Dale's bridle, while Mama gathered up her skirt and climbed back up into the buggy.

"Did you get my candy?"

"Your papa's got you a piece."

He handed me a long peppermint stick. "Bandershanks?" he said.

"Sir?"

"I want you to tell us what all you heard Mister Ward say to Miss Ophelia this evening when you went down to their spring. Every word. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." I turned my peppermint stick over and licked the other side.

"Well? Start telling us."

"Miss Ophelia was crying."

"What had Mister Ward said to make her cry?"

"He said, 'Won't that be a beaut?'"

"What was gonna be so pretty?"

"I couldn't see nothing, Papa. Just the branch. And tadpoles in the water."

"What else did Mister Ward say?"

"He ain't gonna plant no more cotton. Just corn. And he ain't gonna buy no sugar from you."

"Sugar? And corn? Hmm. Hon, what did Miss Ophelia say about the corn and sugar?"

"She said, 'Ward, don't do it.'"

"Don't do what?"

"Don't say nothing about shooting."

"Yeah? Go on! What else?"

"'Don't make the moon shine.'"

"Moonshine? Great Jehoshaphat and gully dirt! Nannie, take this baby home! Don't let her out of your sight!"

"Papa, you mad at me?"

"No, hon. You're a sweet girl. You and Mama go on home now, and you help her milk the cows and fix supper. I'll be there directly, and maybe I'll bring you another stick of candy."

"Peppermint?"

"Yeah. Peppermint!"

On the way home, Mama kept the buggy lines clenched tight with both hands, yet she allowed Old Dale to walk or trot slow, suiting himself. She seemed to be thinking about something far off down the road.

By the time we got back to our hill, the sun was all the way down. The sky, way across Papa's cotton field, looked red. Mama said that was the glow of the sun against some sinking clouds.

"It's a sign of no rain, Bandershanks, when the sky's red in the evening."

We could see the moon, too, rising over the walnut trees, between the top of our wagon shelter and Grandpa Thad's house. It looked just like always, when the moon is full, and I didn't think Mister Ward had anything to do with it.

Chapter 2

Next morning, nothing was said about the moon shining or about Mister Ward. Instead, while Mama was fixing my breakfast, she told me it was a perfect day to make sauerkraut.

"How come, Mama?"

"Our cabbages are ready, and Doanie and Huldie are up here to fix them."

"Did Shoogie come?" I jumped out of my chair to run to the side window.

"Probably so."

"I see her! I see her! She's out yonder in the well lot. Mama, lem'me go play with Shoogie!"

"Not till you eat your biscuits and fried meat. You and that Shoogie have got the whole morning before you. Come away from the window, now, Bandershanks. You want syrup on your biscuits?"

"No'm. Just smear on butter."

By the time I got out to the well lot, cabbages were piled everywhere, and Doanie and Huldie had gone back into the garden to cut more. Shoogie was sitting down in the sand, leaning back against a big water tub.

I picked my way toward Shoogie, being careful not to bump into the mounds of cabbages or the kraut-making stuff spread all the way from the well curbing to Mama's wash shelter. Even so, I stumbled against a sack of salt.

Shoogie saw me and grinned. I squatted down beside her to watch her rake together some sand for a frog house. She already had one black foot buried in the sand and was heaping a stack of wet dirt on top of her other one.

"My frog houses fall in, every time!" I said.

"I told you, get water and sprinkle hit on, and pat the sand hard. Pile hit up high and pat some more. Then, wiggle your toes just a little speck 'fore you eases out your foot!'

Shoogie knew how to make the best frog houses in the world. So I raked up a pile of sand and shoved my foot down under it. I smoothed the sand over, then gave it a pounding with both fists. Next I reached around behind Shoogie to get some water out of the tub she was leaning against.

"Let hit trickle 'tween your fingers on the sand. You is doin' good!"

"Look, Shoogie! My house! It's staying up!"

"Get you a dab o' wet sand and patch that little cave-in at the door."

Before Shoogie could show me the best way to fix my door, Huldie called her to come help with the kraut. I hadn't even noticed that Doanie and Huldie were back from the garden.

"Get a hustle on! Girl, you is big enough to flop one of these churn dashers!"

"I'm big too, Huldie! Can I flop some?"

"Sho', baby. We's got two churns and two dashers, and more nice green cabbage heads than you can shake a stick at!"

Huldie handed one of the churn dashers to Shoogie, the other to me. Then she and Doanie dumped a thick layer of sliced cabbage leaves into the bottom of each churn and sprinkled on lots of salt.

"Now, you girls can start beatin' hit down. Here, baby," Huldie showed me, "make the dasher go up and down just like this was a churn o' clabbered milk. That's the way! Wham hard! We's gotta mash them leaves till the water runs out and melts that salt. Then we can put in some more."

Shoogie and I kept pounding away. I saw her reach down into her churn and get a handful of the salty, bruised cabbage and eat it, so I tried some. It was good!

I ate more and more of it, but after a while I got to where I couldn't bear to put another bite of the briny shreds into my mouth. Jogging the dasher up and down wasn't fun any more, either.

Shoogie's arms got tired, but Huldie said we couldn't quit. As soon as her grandma wasn't watching, Shoogie sidled over to me and whispered, "Bandershanks, tell her your arms is wore slap out. Say, 'Huldie, my poor little arms is a-killin' me! Please let me and Shoogie quit!' She'll pay you some mind. Then we can go play!"

"But, Shoogie--"

"Say hit! You wants to play, don't you?" Shoogie scooted back to her churn.

"Huldie?" I said.

"What, baby?"

"My poor little arms is a-killin' me. Shoogie said-- I mean, let Shoogie-- I mean, please let me-- My poor little arms is--"

Huldie and Doanie started laughing so I couldn't finish what Shoogie wanted me to say.

"Law, y'all is a pair o' sly ones! Shoogie, you the one what's puttin' this baby up to tellin' such as this. Her poor little arms! Why, you is got the child talkin' just like you does! Tell you what: me and Doanie'll let you both rest them poor little wore-out arms right now! Y'all trot down yonder to the gully at the syrup mill and fetch us two good-sized rocks so's we can hold down the kraut in the brine water. Don't just pick up the first ones you sees. Find some that is nice and flat and smooth."

Shoogie grabbed my hand. "Come on, Bandershanks, let's go. I's gonna show you how I can jump clean 'cross that gully--where hit's way deep!"

We ran through the horse lot, past the pigpens, and down the lane as far as the calf pasture. Then we climbed the rail fence and went farther on toward Huldie's house and the syrup mill, till we came to the place where Shoogie wanted to jump across the gully.

The gully was deep, and wide--too deep and wide for me. But Shoogie leaped back and forth across it so many times she was out of breath.

"Let's get them rocks now, Bandershanks. I sees some just right, there in the bottom. All we's gotta do is pick 'em up and wipe off the gully dirt."

The two rocks Shoogie picked out were so heavy it took us a long time to lug them up to the well lot. When we did finally get back, we saw that Huldie was in the garden again, and Doanie was gone. Shoogie said she must be in the kitchen helping Mama cook dinner.

"Bandershanks, you reckon they gonna cook cake?"

"No. We don't have no cake or pie, 'cept on Sunday."

"Let's make us some more frog houses."

"I wanta play like we're big. You be Huldie, and I'll be my mama. Let me tell you to stir up nice 'tater pies and cakes, 'cause the preacher's gonna come!"

"Iffen we plays like we's wimmins, where we gonna get some snuff? When I's Grandma Huldie, I gotta have me some snuff!"

"Run in the garden and ask Huldie."

"Bandershanks, is you outta your head? Snuff's too good. She ain't gonna gim'me none o' her'n. You gotta go get hit from your grandma! She got some, ain't she?"

"Yeah, but Grandma Ming says I must never, never in this round world take a dip."

"Tell her hit's for me. That'll be the truth."

"I better not. I know what! I'll get Mama to stir up sugar and chocolate. It's just like snuff."

"Is it good?"

"Yeah. Gooder'n candy!"

Mama wasn't in the kitchen; neither was Doanie. So I got the chocolate box and the sugar bowl by myself. I grabbed a spoon too and ran outside before I filled my mouth.

"This sho' is sweet!" Shoogie mumbled after she had packed three spoonfuls of the mixture down between her lower lip and her front teeth. Then she handed the bowl and spoon back to me.

"My mama don't dip snuff. She's a nice lady. She says nice ladies don't dip--just old grandma women."

Huldie walked up while I still had the spoon in my hand. She was puffing, wiping sweat off her forehead, and talking to herself.

"Mercy, this is one more hot day!"

The basket Huldie balanced on her head was heaped up with cabbages. If she was going to make me and Shoogie churn them all down, we'd never get to bake Preaching Sunday mud pies!

"What's you girls doin'?"

Shoogie's eyes got big. She gulped, stretched her neck, and beat herself on the chest. In trying to answer, she nearly choked!

"We're dipping snuff," I told Huldie, as soon as I could swallow.

"Good Lawd 'a mercy!"

Huldie grabbed for Shoogie! She caught her arm, but she was having such a time trying to get the basket down from her head that Shoogie snatched away. The basket tipped over, spilling cabbages all over the well lot.

Huldie whirled around and grabbed Shoogie with both hands. She started screaming. I hid behind a tub.

"I'll learn you! I'll learn you! Cuss your black hide, young'un, I's gwine to break you from this snuff-stealin' and dippin'."

Shoogie wasn't listening. She was shrieking and kicking as if her grandma were tearing her apart, and Huldie still hadn't hit her the first lick. The next second, though, she bent Shoogie over her knees, yanked up her dress tail, and started giving her pink bloomers and her bottom one hard "whap, whap, whap" right after another!

"What's going on out here?"

Mama had come flying out the kitchen door!

"Is somebody hurt? Bandershanks, where're you at? Huldie, what's wrong?"

Huldie slacked up on beating Shoogie, but Shoogie didn't slack up on bawling. She got louder and louder!

"Miss, these chillens done stole my snuff!"

"Stole your snuff? I declare to my soul! Bandershanks, come here!"

"Yes'm. They both been dippin' hit up! See all on their faces? This Shoogie brat, she so black snuff don't show on her'n, but just look 'round that baby's mouth!" Huldie pointed at me and began spanking on Shoogie again.

Mama pulled me toward the garden fence, where she jerked up a Jimson weed!

"Mama! It's chocolate, Mama! Just chocolate!"

But Mama couldn't hear me for all of Shoogie's loud bellowing! She started stinging my legs to pieces!

"Mama! It ain't snuff!" I screamed louder. "It ain't! It ain't! Mama! Mama!"

She kept flailing my legs.

Shoogie, still bucking and rearing like a young colt, broke loose from Huldie and ran streaking toward the wagon shelter. All I could do was dance on one foot and then the other and cry, "Chocolate, Mama! Chocolate!"

"Come back here, you little heifer!" Huldie screamed at Shoogie.

When she whirled around to see which way Shoogie was running, she stepped on the sugar bowl. She didn't break it, but she bent the handle of the spoon and kicked over the chocolate box.

"Law, Miss, how come your pretty sugar bowl settin' down here in this dirt? And here's your chocolate, all spillin' out!"

Mama stopped switching my legs.

"I declare to my soul! Bandershanks! Huldie, they was just playing like they had snuff. See? It's sugar and chocolate!"

"The Lawd help! What chillens won't do! That Shoogie can drive me outta my head!"

Mama used the hem of her apron to wipe away the tears and grit on my face. She got off all the smeared sugar and chocolate, too, while she was at it. Then, she kissed my cheek and told me to run on and play.

As soon as Shoogie came slipping out from behind the wagon shelter, we settled down in the sand and made frog houses until we heard Mama calling me.

"Ma'am!"

"Com'ere, hon."

"What you want, Mama?"

"Papa's coming home to eat his dinner now in a few minutes. After dinner, you can go back to the store with him."

"And ride Jake? And help Papa sell stuff?"

"He might let you do that. Come on in here in the side room. I want to get you on a clean dress. My, you look like you've been playing with the pigs, instead of Shoogie!"

"Is Shoogie going to Papa's store?"

"No. Just you."

"Mama, you going somewhere?"

"Yes, hon. I want to drive over to see some folks and try to get them to come to preaching this Sunday, and to Protracted Meeting, when it starts."

"Who you gonna go see?"

"Nobody that you know. Come on, let's get you ready."

"Mama, lem'me stay here and play with Shoogie."

"No, no. You've got to be with me or Papa one all the time now."

"'Cause Mister Ward wants to shoot me?"

"Bandershanks, just hush about that! We're not gonna talk about it any more!"

After dinner, Papa and I rode Jake back to the store. "Papa, my bonnet's choking me! It won't come undone!"

"I'll untie it for you soon as I hitch Jake. Where'd you get that fancy bonnet, anyhow?"

"Grandma Ming made it."

"It's so blessed hot this evening I think I need a sun bonnet! I know Jake ought'a have one! Look how he's sweating!"

"Do horses wear bonnets?"

"I was just talking. Now, here we are. Jake, boy, I'm gonna put you on the East Side of the store, and in about an hour you'll have yourself a good shade."

As soon as Papa had looped Jake's bridle over the hitching rail, he lifted me straight from the saddle to the store porch, without my feet even touching the ground.

"Lemme see if I can help you with that bonnet, Bandershanks. Shucks, these little strings tied under your chin are plumb wet. There you go! Now, if I can just find my key, we'll unlock the doors and be ready for business."

"Lemme twist it!"

"All right. No, Bandershanks, turn it the other way."

The lock clicked. Papa turned the knob and gave the thick double doors a shove.

Inside, it was much cooler, but I could hardly see a thing. I rubbed my eyes good, and still the room was black and I couldn't half see.

I could smell plenty of stuff: hoop cheese, chewing tobacco, coffee beans, musty sacks of chicken feed, and Papa's coal-oil drum with its old pump that always squeaked so loud. All those smells were mixed up with the good smell of the leather harness and the big pretty saddles hanging across the back wall.

"Papa, let's light the lamp."

"Your eyes will get used to the dark. I'll go open up the back door. That'll help."

I followed Papa around behind the counters and down the aisle as far as the candy showcase. I stopped to see the candy, but he kept going--and talking.

"If we don't have any customers this evening, Bandershanks, I tell you what we can do: we can sweep and clean up and start taking inventory. It's a good day for that."

"Take what, Papa?"

"Inventory. We'll count things. Go from shelf to shelf to see how much flour and salt and all such as that we've got on hand. Then, next week when I'm in town, I'll know what all to buy. That's taking inventory."

"Oh."

"For one thing, I've got to lay in a good stock of sardines and soda crackers. Lots more cheese, too, 'cause when cotton ginning starts, men will be flocking in here at dinner time--'specially on days when they have to line up their wagons to wait their turn at the gin. That's when I make my money, Bandershanks."

I wasn't half listening to Papa. I had already lifted the lid of the candy showcase and poked my head inside so I could see all the boxes of good candy.

"Fact is, Bandershanks, fall of the year is the only time folks in the settlement have any cash to speak of. See, when they sell cotton, they can settle up what they owe me. 'Course I have to turn right around, get on Jake, and go to town to straighten up my own debts. Most times, there's not much left. But thank the Good Lord, looks like crops are pretty good this year. I'm expecting to come out even--maybe better."

"Papa, we gonna count candy?"

"Gal! I see what sort of inventory you'd take! Get your head out of that showcase, hon, before you break my lid!"

"I ain't gonna break nothing, Papa."

"It'll be one piece of candy today! That's all. You want an all-day sucker or a gumdrop?"

"I want a jawbreaker!"

"Which color?"

"I can't see 'em."

Papa held me up so I could poke my head farther into the wide glass case.

"Give me yellow!"

"One yellow jawbreaker coming up!"

"Papa? Lemme have a green one too? Please?"

"Good grannies! Just this one time, now mind you."

Papa started laughing as soon as I popped the hard candy balls into my mouth.

"You look just like a little fox squirrel toting two big hickory nuts!"

My mouth was so stretched I couldn't answer a word. I could move my tongue, but not my lips. And I wanted to tell Papa the candy tasted so much like lemonade that I didn't mind my cheeks being funny as a squirrel's.

"Want to do a little dusting for me now?"

I nodded my head.

"The feather duster's right over yonder in the corner, hanging on a nail. See it?"

I nodded my head again.

"Start up there at the front window, hon. And while you do that, I'm gonna be back in the back straightening up the sacks of oats and cow feed."

I began brushing up and down on the window panes. A feather broke off the side of the duster and fluttered to the floor. I stooped to pick it up, but I didn't know what to do with it, so I just put it on the windowsill. Then, I looked out the window--down toward Mister Hansen's gin, on past Mister Goode's grist mill, and up the road toward home.

"Pa--" I had to grab both candy balls out of my mouth. "Papa, yonder comes somebody riding on a little bitty mule with a dog following him."

Papa came over and looked out between the window bars.

"That's Ned Roberts, Bandershanks. I don't reckon you know him. He lives over across the creek on Mister Ward Lawson's place. Or I should say the old Crawford home-place. Ward's just renting it. And that's not a little mule Ned's riding. That's a jack, a donkey. Some folks would call it a 'jackass.' But you don't say that, Bandershanks. It don't sound pretty."

"Ooh, Papa, look how fat that dog is!"

We watched Ned and his donkey and the bulged-out dog come on up the slope. It took them a long time. They stopped at the edge of the porch, where Ned tied the fuzzy, slow-walking donkey to one corner of Jake's hitching rail, but he was careful not to let the donkey stand close to Jake. A good thing, Papa said, for Jake could, and would, kick him.

"I see Ned aims to buy coal oil."

"How come he's got that old wrinkled Irish 'tater sticking on the spout of his can, Papa?"

"To keep his oil from sloshing out when he starts home."

The dog clambered up the steps behind Ned and followed him inside. As soon as she could spread herself out in the middle of the floor, she took a long, deep breath and closed her eyes.

"'Evenin', Mister Jodie."

"'Evening, Ned."

Papa looked back down at the tired, fat dog. "'Pears to me like you're in the dog-raising business, Ned."

"Yes, suh. Sylvie, she gwine t' find puppies pretty soon."

"Is she any 'count?"

"Yes, suh, Mister Jodie. She sho' is. Sylvie 'bout the best coon hound I's raised yet. She sho' know how to tree 'possums, too. Folks done a' ready askin' for the puppies. But I saves one for you, Mister Jodie, iffen you wants hit."

"I wouldn't mind having two, Ned. 'Course I've got five or six young dogs, but a man can't hardly get too many good dogs. Well, what can I do for you this evening, Ned?"

"I needs me a nickel worth o' coal oil, Mister Jodie. And I wants to talk with you. I wants you to 'vise me, Mister Jodie." Ned let his talking go down low. "Hit's Mister Ward. He don't act right. I's uneasy."

"What's he done? Does he want you to move?"

"No, suh. I wish he did. I wish he'd run me off. He don't do that, 'cause ain't nobody else gwine t' move on his place."

"You could leave, couldn't you?"

"No, suh. Not 'zactly. You see, I owes Mister Ward a right smart money. And I ain't movin' off owin' a man. That ain't right. 'Tain't right, no more'n it's right for a white man to run off a colored man when the crops is half made. You knows that, Mister Jodie."

"Yeah, I know, Ned. Still, we see a good bit of both. It's like Doctor Elton says: 'Rascals come in all colors, 'specially black and white.'"

Ned didn't say anything.

"Mister Ward drinks considerable, don't he?"

"He sho' do, Mister Jodie. I tell you the big trouble. When Mister Ward's drinkin', he say one thing. Then when his head's clear, he do somethin' else."

"That's the way with a drinking man."

"Mister Jodie, you knows that white folks has got their ways, and us blacks has got our'n. We all works the ground together; then our roads just naturally parts at the field gate. That's awright. Everybody knows where he stands. A man likes to know where he stands."

"Yeah, Ned."

"When a white man wants to talk crops and such, he sends for you. He don't come to your house. Mister Ward, he funny. One time, he come and say his wife sick and want my Eulah to come do the wash. Eulah, she gets up there, Miss Ophelia not sick! She not to home. Miss Dink, she gone, too. And he come 'bout this and 'bout that all the time. Yestidy he done brung a hoe. Wants me to sharpen hit with a file. Mister Jodie, there just ain't no call for sharp hoes here this time o' summer. Crops is near 'bout laid by. Gardens, they's dried up. There ain't no hoein' to do!"

"Well, Ned, I--"

"I's uneasy, plum uneasy, Mister Jodie."

"Well, to tell you the truth, Ned, I don't hardly know how to advise you. I reckon about the best thing would be to sit tight one more year, try to pay out next fall, then find you another man. I know a Mister Taylor down on the State Line Road. He's looking for a good family with plenty of big boys, like yours. If we have another good year, and you don't owe Mister Ward too much, Mister Taylor might pay you out and move you down to his place."

Ned didn't answer. Instead, he eased over closer toward the counter so that he was standing right in front of Papa.

"I ain't telled you the worst, Mister Jodie."

"Yeah?"

"This mornin' Mister Ward show me how he gwine t' start makin' whiskey! Say I gotta help him! Say he gwine t' put in the biggest still you ever seen. I's plain a-feared, Mister Jodie! He say my chillens gwine to help chop and tote the wood!"

"He can't--"

"He say he shoot me 'tween the eyes iffen I tells hit, Mister Jodie! But Lawd, Mister Jodie, I's got to think 'bout my chillens. Little Stray, too. He that pitiful one what's not mine. I calls him my chicken coop stray boy."

"Chicken coop?"

"Yes, suh, Mister Jodie. Years back I finds that chile--one freezin' mornin'--all scrooched up in my chicken house. He near 'bout starved to death and shakin' like a leaf--he can't talk. Me and my wife, we warms him up and feeds him. And we tries to take him back to his mammy. She don't want him. So we keeps him. That's 'fore I comes to Mister Ward's place, and--"

"Papa! Look! Yonder comes somebody to buy stuff!" I dropped my duster and ran to the door to get a better look at the man and horse up the road. "He ain't got no coal oil can, Papa. He's got a shotgun!"

"Oh, Lawd, Mister Jodie! That's him! That's Mister Ward! He follow me!"

"Yeah! Can't see his face from here, but it's him. He's the only red-headed man anywhere around."

I grabbed hold of Papa's pants so I could hide behind his legs.

"Is he gonna shoot me now, Papa?"

"Mister Jodie, don't tell him nothin'! Don't tell that man what I say!"

"Bandershanks, hon, you come back here to the back of the store real quick. I want you to do something--play a game for Papa. Come on!"

Papa thought I wasn't walking fast enough, so he scooped me up in his arms and ran with me to the back corner.

"What we gonna do, Papa?"

"We're gonna have a cat and mouse game. It's fun. You scrooch down right here behind this sack of oats and make like you're a little mouse!"

"A sure 'nuff mouse?"

"Yeah! You be a little bitty one, hiding from a cat! Be still, now. Don't make a noise. A mouse is real quiet when he thinks there's a cat coming. Just a minute, I'll bring you a whole handful of jawbreakers. A store mouse likes to nibble on candy."

"Mister Jodie, come look at the man! He gwine t' fall own his hoss. He drunk. That hoss, he know when Mister Ward's done been at the bottle. He walk easy with him. I's done seen him afore