Almetta of Gabriel's Run

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I Gabriel’s Run 1

II Gran’s Schooling 19

II Grants Schooling

J IMMY^S prophecy of fair weather was fulfilled, and between getting ready for the crop and making the garden it was a busy season for all. ’ '

Jimmy and Gran and the tenant, Bill Price, ploughed the steep hillsides and the narrow strip of bottom-land and the banks almost to the water ^s edge, where scrubby little waterbirches had been set out to hold the earth in time of high water.

‘‘The crop’’ in the mountains means corn, and to have one is an invariable and essential thing; the making of it is gone about quite in the spirit of a festival by whole families.

When the brown earth is warm and soft under foot, after the winter freezes, and the air is mellow with warmth and light and blossom sweetness, the women and children come teeming from their dark little homes in the valleys, like children let loose from school, to make a play of work on the hillsides and by the watercourses.

The trees of the forest, for the most part, are still bare of foliage, save where an elm-tree shows a greening top among them; and the smoke from the burning brushheaps in the 19 clearings settles over their brown tops, a murky blue. The purple judas-trees bloom at the end of Lent with dogwood, and the white and red fringes of the sarvis berry and sugar maple make gay the fence-rows where the cardinals blithely call — Sugar sweet ‘‘Sugar sweet!’’

The grain is planted when the “oak-leaves are as big as squirrel paws” (and much resemble them), and corn-hoeing begins when the young plants are a few inches high and show plainly in green rows across the fields. The hoeing is more than all a family affair, and it is no unusual sight to see from six to eight members of a family each taking a row around a steep hillside, with the fastest hand leading, while the baby lies on a quilt under some convenient shade and the other small children play about. Small wonder that so much of the work is not well done, and the yield too often small.

Making the crop is not all a spring festival, however. The whole must be gone over at least three times with the hoes, chopping out grass and weeds and hilling the earth up to the plants. It is delving hard work for women and children before the last plantings are “laid by” to grow without further cultivating in the intense heat of middle July.

Orlena Ingold, like many of the better-off women, had not gone to the fields to work since middle life, except to plant beans and squashes to run over and among the corn, or occasionally for the pure love of it ; but she was accustomed to make her own garden, with little masculine assistance, after the ploughing. (It was 20

GRAN'S SCHOOLING

a poor stick of a woman who did not.) She and Almetta planted onions and potatoes and beans of many varieties — bunch-beans, stick-beans, corn-field beans, soup-beans, hickory-sticks, and the great fat ^^fall beans,’’ in exact succession, with cabbage, beets, and mustard for salad.

Gran showed a disposition to help the women between field work, declaring that if Almetta could work in the field he could work in the garden.

One May morning when the first hoeing of the corn was over and the second not quite ready to begin, Jimmy Ingold remarked to Gran that he could make up the sweet potato hills ^Gf he wanted to,” an expression in general use for ‘Gf you please.”

Gran, whose full name was Granville, was a well-set-up young fellow of nineteen, not quite six feet in height, but rather above the average, strongly built and sure and quick in his movements. He was dark and good looking, with hair not quite black, and eyes which, though generally taken for black, were greenish gray and somber in repose, but with gifts of kindling in laughter or anger (the latter not often seen). He had a quiet self-respecting manner, with fine courtesy to all, and Orlena described him as being ‘^mighty civil turned” but ‘Gndependent ef pranked with. ’ ’ There had never been a better worker on the place, and Jimmy, easily guessing his independence, showed him a man’s consideration and received fine service in return. He was just finishing his breakfast when Jim m y suggested the potato hills.

^‘All right, he answered, and as he rose and pushed his chair under the table he feaid to Almetta, who was just sitting down to her breakfast, reckon you’ll help, won’t you, Almetty? You and me can make ’em up in a day.”

‘‘Yes, I’m a good little hand to make tater-hills,” she said complacently. “You take along that little light goose-neck hoe for me, 'Gran, and I’ll be down arter I do the things.”

“Well, then,” said Orlena; “I’ll plant some beans in the corn right above the potato patch. ’ ’ The patch was to be in the lower end of the nearest corn-field, in a bend of the creek, where the ground was soft and sandy.

Gran had made a dozen hills, carrying two rows along together, when Almetta arrived. She took one of the rows and worked along by his side for some time, keeping up by doing her work much less well. He made no comment on this, but occasionally reached across, drawing more dirt up to one of her hills, making it more shapely — ^his own were perfect little mountainpeaks of finely chopped earth. After a while she abruptly returned to the shade of the willows and perched upon the fence.

Gran carried the two rows along for a long time in silence, but when she seemed to be resting over long and the work was carrying him quite away from her, he called out : ‘ ‘ Almetty, I want you to come f ’m under the shade uv them willers and he’p me make these tater-hills. ” “These willers ain’t castin’ no shade to hurt nothin’,” she responded ; “an you don’t need no help nohow. Gran.” But she slipped down 22

GRANTS SCHOOLING from the fence and came to his side, saying, ‘‘You make the prettiest sweet tater-hills I ever seen/’

“Pretty don’t spell nothin’ ef they hain’t saft inside where the growin’s got to be done,” he said, as he drew the sandy earth deftly to the top of the hill and shaped it otf with an artistic flirt of the hoe. “An’ how you calculate taters is goin’ to grow in all them hard clods you’ve got kivered up in them hills of your ’n is more ’n I can see. I want you to make ’em right ef ye goin’ to make ’em with me.”

“’Tain’t what ye want hurts ye,” said Almetta, “it’s what ye git; an’ I ain’t aimin’ to make no great amount uv tater-hills with ye nohow. Who did ye say lamed ye to make sich good uns?”

“I never said,” replied Gran dryly. “But ef ye must know, the old man lamed me. ’ ’

“Who? Yerpap?”

“Shore.”

“Did he make good uns?”

“I never seed him make none. He was a whole lot like Jimmy; he didn’t consider gard’nin’ man’s work.”

“Well, then, how did he larn ye?”

“Well, he just told me to make ’em right.”

“Air ye goin’ to quit makin’ ’em when ye git as big as yer pap?”

“I’m as big now as my pap was,” he said; “I’m as high as he wuz; course I ain’t as heavy; but I hain’t a-goin’ to quit makin’ tater-hills — at times when hit’s my place,” he added after a pause. “I been to school some and lamed a 23 whole lot that pap never knowed, ef he wnz jist nacherly smart. The fashion in idys is changin^ some.’’

‘‘I hain’t noticed no great change ’round here,” said the girl.

‘‘Naw, the fashions hain’t rech here yit. There’s Orleny now over there in the field plantin’ beans in the corn, an’ Jimmy settin’ at home in the shade whittlin’ a piece uv poplar, apt as not, or rid off somers tradin’, ^^en I marries, I’m goin’ ter help my woman with the gyarden an’ a heap o’ things.”

‘‘Hit ain’t the style to marry tell ye gits a chanct, ’ ’ said Almetta.

“Well, I dunno ’bout that; I’ve seed some ready married that hadn’t never had no good chanct; and some willin’ that ain’t yet had no good chanct.”

Almetta laughed good-naturedly, picked up her hoe and made two hills without speaking, breaking the clods carefully and frankly imitating the work of the boy.

“Now,” he said, “ Almetty, you an’ that little goose-neck hoe ain’t ekal to full work. You jest skip every other space; I’ll make three to your one and you make hit good and saft and full size, and then the taters’ll grow a sight better.”

The arrangement proved satisfactory.

“Did yer daddy ever give yer a whoopin’, Gran?” the girl asked in a pause of the work.

“Naw, he never give me nothin’ ye’d call a whoopin’; but he give me a pyore skinnin’ onct.”

GRANTS SCHOOLING

‘‘What did he skin ye fer?’^

“Well, hit mont er bin fer my hide f’m the amount he tuck off ^n my hack.’^

“Well,’^ said the girl, “you must er bin up to some turrible meanness; I allow you sassed him.’’

“Naw, I nuver sassed him nuther. I never knowed what he whooped me fur ; but I drawed , an idy,” he said wisely. The girl scented a story, and pausing with uplifted hoe she asked interestedly, “What idy did ye draw?”

Seeing that her good-natured banter had given place to sympathetic interest. Gran began the story with a reminiscent air as if the incident had occurred a man’s lifetime in the past. They both unconsciously stopped hoeing, and Orlena, who was just out of earshot, but in plain sight, smiled to herself and wondered what they were talking about as she saw them standing so long between the potato hills, leaning on their hoes.

“Well,” he said, “I wuz just a little chunk of a boy, an’ we wuz livin’ up on Bear Cave, where we allers lived. We had a world uv fine land layin’ up between the main head dreens uv the branch. Some uv the coves wuz as rich as they ever wuz, but others wuz considerable wore out with corn, and most uv the dreens was perfect dry in summer; but they wuz one holler that trickled a right smart all the time. They wuz deep crevices in hit, an’ some uv’m had been said to be bottomless, but they wan’t in reason, though animals had got lost in that holler an’ bin mighty hard to find. Hit wuz right on the edge uv our boundary an^ a moughty hard place to keep the fence up in. In fact, it were moughty nigh onpossible to keep hit up in the main head uv the holler, an’ old man Sizemore’s property wuz allers breakin’ in on us, and pap an’ him had come in a pea uv havin’ a fray over hit a time or two. They had been a world uv fine timber left in hit, oaks and chestnuts an’ beech, an’ ole man Sizemore’s hogs, that wuz turned out on the mast, wuz allers a-rootin’ through.

Well, that spring, the old man took a notion to plant in a patch uv new ground — right over ag’in’ that holler. He took two uv the big boys an’ went an’ fixed that line uv fence to his satisfaction, an’ put three or four uv us young ’ns to burnin’ brash-heaps an’ grubbin’ the field. Well, we got the field cleared an’ planted atter so long a time, an’ one mornin’ just as the corn wuz sproutin’ good, pap went up to the field, and there wuz two uv Sizemore’s shoats rootin’ up the young corn. Well, he found the hole where one uv the boys had nailed a slat to a pawpaw saplin’, an’ the wood bein’ saft, the shoats had pushed the slats off an’ come through. Well, he driv ’em out an’ fixed up the fence good and strong. Next mornin’ he stepped out ag’in, an’ he found the very same two spotted shoats rootin’ up the corn. He was moughty mad, but he never said nothin’.

‘^Well, gentlemen, jest pime blank five mornin ’s hand runnin’ he found the same two hogs in the field an’ a new hole ever’ time. They wuz cute uns !

GRANTS SCHOOLING

‘‘The fift mornin’ he nuver driv ’em out nor let on to nobody. He jest stepped back into the house and tuck down the gun and handed her to me an’ says, ‘Son, go run them hogs up the holler. ’ That wuz ever ’ word he said.

“Well, I wa’n’t nothin’ but a little chap, an’ I jest run the hogs a little way up the holler, behind the ivy bushes where the fyerns wuz high an’ thick, an’ shot ’em, an’ come back to the house an’ put the gun over the fireboard where she belonged. Mam an’ the least ones wuz battlin’ dost at the wash place an’ pap had got on the mare an’ rid off, so I wuz the only one that pintedly knowed who killed the hogs ; an’ I never let on.

“Well, hit want many mornin’s before we could see old man Sizemore ramikin’ around in that holler, apparently lookin’ fer something. Me an’ my little sister wuz mindin’ ground-squirrels out uv the corn an’ we seed him goin’ up. He stayed a long time in the main head on’ arter while he came on back down, close by our fence. I wuz moughty busy throwin’ clods at the ground-squirrels, but I could see him, an’ the nigher he come to them ivies, the weaker I felt an’ the stronger I throwed. He come right on down by ’em and stopped what you might call a minute, or not so long, but I knowed in reason th’ old fox had seed the shoats. He come on down furder an’ leant acrost the fence an’ axed me wuz the ground-squirrels pretty bad, an’ I ’lowed they wuz. Then he ’lowed the corn wuz coming up moughty pretty, an’ I ’lowed hit shore wuz.

‘^Atter a while lie said he^s been looking for a couple uv sboats that hadn’t come up fer a few days, but he reckoned they wuz in the calumus holler on t’other side. I said ‘they mought be’ an’ went on, but I knowed in reason he never thought them shoats wuz in the Calumus Holler.

“Shore ’nough, next day Jake Singleton, the depity, wuz there with a warrant uv arrest fer pap. The old man never denied a thing, jest went on to town an’ give bond to ’pear at the next term uv court, an’ come home. In a day or two Jake wuz back and subpoenaed all the family as witnesses, but mam and us three least uns, an’ then everybody lit into hoein’ corn an’ waitin’ fur court. Pap never had been convicted uv nothin’. He tole mam an’ the young ’ns that the less folks said about what they knowed nothin’ uv, the better.

“Well, one way an’ another the case was put otf till fall, an’ two or three days before the trial Pap ast me ef I didn’t want to go over on Eoarin’ Fork to my granny’s an’ go to school. Course I wuz keen to go, an’ mam wuz willin’, hit bein’ her mammy’s.

“Well, pap started me out next mornin’ an’ I stayed all fall an’ lamed a sight. Hit wore a sight to hear the teacher talk an’ tell the young ’ns how to act. She didn’t ’low ’em to handle no kind uv bad talk, ner fight, an’ she teached ’em a heap uv manners. She made the boys stand back fer the gals, an’ two er three uv the big boys stopped on account uv hit.

“I never seed nobody frum home that whole fall. But I could hear tell that the old man 28

GRANS SCHOOLING had come cPar at the trial, an’ that folks wuz sayin’ that they would shore ’a’ convicted him ef I had ’a’ be’n there to ’a’ swore.

‘‘One uv my uncles that lived with granny went over to pap’s ’twixt that an’ Christmus, an’ when he come back he said that pap swore that he never shot the hogs, that he never told nobody to shoot ’em, an’ that he didn’t ’low he wuz on the place when they wuz shot, ner he wan’t. They axed him who he ’lowed did shoot ’em, an’ he told ’em ’lowin’ wa’n’t ’lowin’, but that Sizemore mought er shot ’em hisself to get his neighbor in trouble. Sizemore wuz a moughty mean man, an’ he had been accused of that very trick onct. The young ’ns all swore that they nuver knowed nothin’ about hit tell Jake Singleton come with the warrant, ner they didn ’t.

“Hit were just about hog killing time when Uncle Jim come back frum over home, an’ one frosty Saterday mornin’ he says to me an’ granny, ‘Children,’ sez he, ‘that fattenin’ hog in the pen is shore eatin’ hits head off an’ I’m willin’ to kill hit ef you’uns air.’ So granny had me start a fire under the pot, an’ we got ready to kill the hog. Uncle Jim handed me the gun, an’ says, ‘Here, Gran, you shoot the hog while I grind the butcher knife ; I ’m a master hand to grind a butcher knife,’ sez he.

“I tuck the gun an’ shot the hog. I shot him a pretty shoot right behind the year, an’ he fell over an’ never kicked nor squealed. Well, we got hit cleaned an’ cut up an’ salted away, an’ while I wuz blowin’ up the bladder to bust I 29

ALMETTA OF GABRIEUS BUN liyeard Uncle Jim say to granny^ bin wonderin’ a right smart while what made his pap send as smart a boy as that away fer six months, but ’tain’t no secret to me now sence I seed him; shoot that hog.’ Uncle Jim laughed, but granny looked moughty solid an’ sad.

‘‘I went home when the school wuz out, an’ that fust night mam wanted to know all about granny an’ Soarin’ Fork an’ the young ’ns wanted to know all about the school an’ so on.

‘‘Finally pap spoke. ‘Well, son,’ he sez, ‘do ye ’low ye have lamed a right smart!’ I ’lowed I shore thought I had.

“ ‘Well,’ he sez, ‘do you ’low yer eddication is finished! ’ I spoke right up an’ told him that Miss Sally said I had just begun an’ that they wuz a heap yet fer me to learn.

“ ‘Well,’ he sez, ‘Miss Sally, as you call her, is shore right, an’ I ’low maybe I can larn ye somethin’ myself,’ he sez. He spoke very civil an’ I never thought o’ nothin’, an’ pretty soon we all laid down.

“The next morning atter breakfast th’ old man called me out, an’ me an’ him walked over to that ivy thicket, him a-leadin’ the way. The frost had killed the fyerns, an’ there wuz the bones uv them two shoats right in plain sight to ever ’body, right again Sizemore’s fence on our side. Pap never said a word, but he cut a hickory Caplin’ an’ he come closest to me with hit that anybody ever did, before er sence — er ever will an’ be safet.”

Gran suddenly resumed work, as if action 30

GRAN’S SCHOOLING

were a necessity, and made a potato hill with quick strong strokes.

^‘Well,’^ exclaimed Almetta, who had scarcely moved from the beginning of the story, ‘‘ef that wnzn’t the masterest pass!’’

‘‘Well, he shore graduated me from his school that mornin ’, ’ ’ continued Gran ; “ an ’ hit alters seemed easy to stay away from home arterwards. When I got back to the house mam watched a chanct an’ says to me, ‘Son, who killed them hogs?’ an’ I says, ‘Now, mam, you got nothin’ to do with them hogs, an’ the man that shot ’em has paid fur it. ’ She nuver said another word. She just looked solid and sad, an’ I never had noticed till that minute how much mam had the favorence of granny. I alters felt moughty nigh to mam.”

“But I want to know what yer pap whooped yer fur? He as good as told yer to shoot ’em,” expostulated the girl.

“Well, I never rightly knowed what he whooped me fer,” drawled Gran ; “but I drawed an idy hit wuz because I never driv them hogs furder up the holler. An’ hit were unthoughted. ’ ’

Ill

THE STRAIGHT OF THE STOBY

A LMETTA angel, since her father ^s death, had lived about and about’’ from one place to another, on the headwaters of ‘‘Gabriel’s Run,” and “Creely Creek,” and even over on “Little Bear,” all of which had their origin in “dreens” from “Indian Head” hill; and she knew and loved the people well, but the river and the river people were new to her and of great interest.

By June she had become quite well acquainted with the neighborhood, from Jimmy’s place, at the mouth of Gabriel, to Joe Bentley’s, a mile and a half above, where they traded, and to Pepper Ike Ingold’s, a mile below, where the postoffice was generally kept during Republican administrations.

Jimmy’s renters, the Prices, were the nearest neighbors living in sight, and had come in for the first share of interest after her arrival.

It was a rather tatterdemalion family, of five generations, with “Yaller Bill” Price at the head. Bill’s nickname had come naturally, indeed almost unavoidably, on account of a very sallow complexion, showing even in the whites of his black eyes. This, with a tall, stooping, lean figure, gave him a very delicate appearance, belying the perfect health and iron muscle that were his, even as a gloomy countenance belied his cheerful disposition.

He did not mind being called ‘‘Yaller,’’ the name being neither ugly nor approbrious to him. He said simply enough that he ‘‘shore could not deny bein' yaller," and so he was thus generally called by everybody but his wife, his mother, and Orlena Ingold. The first two called him Bill out of respect to him, Orlena out of respect to herself.

The senior member of his family was his mother's mother, a granddaughter of Nathan Angel. She was usually addressed as “great-gran." Bill received $35 a year from the county in quarterly payments for her keep, and this would have been enough to have made Orlena Ingold, who was born an Angel herself, ignore the relationship, had it been the custom in the section to use the term cousin, which it certainly was not.

Great-Gran and Bill's wife, Sarah, a small, frail woman, scarcely middle-aged, sat about the hearth the greater part of the year, smoking dry leaf-tobacco in long-stemmed stone pipes; the pipes, when not in use, were carried in the deep pockets of their calico dresses, with the loose tobacco. They carried colored handkerchiefs in the deep patch pockets of their voluminous aprons. They were no blood kin, but the age of one and the ill health of the other, with the same habits of mind and body, had made them as much alike as two dried peas. They never allowed the fire to go out upon the hearth.

On the hottest day a shovel full of embers could be found in the ashes.

BilPs grown daughter, Teacy, a good-natured, swarthy, homely woman, was much older than his other two children, Loretta and Chunky. They were respectively twelve and thirteen years old, and it was their coming which had permanently invalided the mother.

Teacy was not Sarah Pricers daughter, but that of a woman,’’ and had been ‘^laid down” to Bill when he was just grown. His mother had reared her and she had come to live with her father as a young girl, when Sarah ’s health failed. Teacy was a hard worker on occasions though usually easy-going, and she and her pap ran the place.

When she brought a son into the family in her eighteenth year, being still unmarried, and so far as anybody knew not even ‘Halking” to a sweetheart, it caused no great disturbance in ^Waller Bill’s” family, and little Joe was loved and petted by them all, and great-gran taught him to smoke her pipe when he was five years old.

Bill’s mother, known as Granny Pop — her name being Polly — had come to live with them only recently, after the disappearance of her youngest son with whom she had lived. She brought with her the only child of this son, little lame Heppy, who had visions, and ^‘handled quare talk” when excited, prating of Heaven and Hell, and the ^‘two roads” leading thereto.

Granny Pop was hale and hearty and could turn her hand to any kind of work, and when 34 she and Teacy were both in the field or elsewhere, Heppy could get about on her crutch and beat Loretta frying corn-cakes and fat meat, and so they found their own places and were welcome in the heterogeneous family, which, with all its five generations, was not as large as many a one with neither grannies nor grandchildren.

The Joe Bentleys, who kept the store, were rather a young family, the two oldest children being girls, ten and twelve, named Jettie and Eettie ; and Almetta liked them very much.

Their father’s store at the mouth of Creely was familiarly known as Joe’s,” and was the only one for miles around. It was, like all in that region, a general store, a modest prototype of the modern department store, with dry goods, groceries, patent medicines, millinery, etc., in the main room, which was about twenty by forty feet in size. A box of salt fat bacon and one barrel of brown sugar and another of coal-oil, with some of the simpler forms of hardware and harness, were kept in the shed room at one side, and here also were the hides, wool and roots taken in trade. Any line of goods, supposed to be kept, might be out of stock at any ^ time, and remain out for weeks and even months.

The bringing in of a wagon-load of goods from the far-off station, or better still, a boatload up the winding river, were marked events.

It was a great excursion for Almetta to take a sack or a pair of saddle pockets on Jimmy’s horse and go to Joe’s” for salt, sugar, coffee, soda, or calico for a dress or apron and a visit 35 with Jettie and Eettie. Occasionally, too, she went to the postoffice at Pepper Ike^s and brought Orlena a letter from one of the children, perhaps the son in the Philippines, or one of the daughters in the West; or it might be a package of seeds from Washington for Jimmy. Gran got letters occasionally, but she herself had never received one.

She enjoyed the transient boarders who stopped occasionally, especially the drummers and outside folk, who called Jimmy and Orlena ‘‘Mr. and Mrs. Ingold.’’ She thought this very fine and sometimes tried it herself, and made Gran blush at the table by saying demurely, “Mr. Duke, let me give you another cup of coffee.”

While she was making so many new and interesting acquaintances she was unconsciously revealing herself, especially to Orlena, who had a mhture woman ’s appreciation of a “ straight ’ ’ girl, and to Gran, who had a young man’s appreciation of one who was not only pretty but independent.

June came in with a little tip-tilted “wet” new moon, and was hot and showery. Orlena ’s garden grew apace and was ready for use and the great rosebushes were clumps of pink and red.

Almetta came in one morning with an apron full of peas, a rose pinned on her bosom, and the exclamation, “It is going to be another sweltersome day.”

“Yes, hit’s good growing weather on a body’s truck too,” said Orlena. “These hot 36 mornin’s with the rain cornin’ ever’ arternoon is hr ingin’ the stuff moughty fast.”

^‘But hit’s bringin’ the weeds too,” said Almetta; ‘‘an’ I ’low I’ll have to help to hoe com in the cove to-morrow.”

“Yes, Jimmy ’lowed him and the boys could finish the second hoein’ in the bottom an’ on the banks by noon to-day, but the blackberry cove is so steep hit can’t be ploughed, and hit ’ill take pyore hoein’. We must finish skelpin’ the weeds out o’ them bean rows to-day. Fetch a pan out’n the kitchen, honey,” she advised; “an’ I’ll he’p ye shell yer peas.”

Almetta brought a pan from the kitchen and set it in the older woman’s lap, so she herself would make the long reach, and divided the peas with her, piling handfuls in her lap behind the pan.

Pulling up a chair for herself, they began shelling peas into the pan and dropping the hulls b^ack into their aprons. They worked rapidly and in silence for a few minutes.

It was a quiet, peaceful scene. Orlena’s home consisted of two log rooms known as the “upper house” and the “lower house” (as they stood with the river) with a wide stone chimney between.

Each “house” had a good “loft” overhead, and the outside chimney corners, which had resulted from the ‘ ‘ houses ’ ’ having been built with the chimney between, and not inside of either, were called wardrobes, and were used as storage places for saddles, tools, or anything needing protection from the weather.