A Far Piece to Canaan (3 page)

The first day of school, Naomi and me didn't know what time the bus came, so we left the house at seven o'clock and walked to the end of our lane. About halfway there I could see someone waiting and took off to meet them. I climbed the gate and when I got to the top, I saw this girl and almost fell off. She was the most beautiful girl in the world, with kind of blondish hair and blue eyes. When she smiled and said hi, I tried to speak but couldn't. Pretty soon Naomi got there and she and the girl got to talking. Her name was Rosemary Shackelford, and she lived just up the road. She and Naomi were both sophomores.

“Is he your brother?” Rosemary asked Naomi, glancing toward me.

“Yes,” Naomi said. “Didn't he say hello?”

“No,” she giggled. “He hasn't said a word.”

“Well, Samuel?” said Naomi, frowning at me. “Don't you say hi to neighbors?”

I tried, but I still couldn't talk. Most I could do was nod.

About that time, tires squalled, and this rickety old yellow bus come roaring down the hill and passed us, then picked us up on its way back about ten minutes later. We went near a mile, then turned down a blacktop lane called the Dry Branch Road. It stopped at the west side of a big hill which I figured was Cummings Hill because Fred and his two sisters got on. From there, we belted on around the bottom rim of Cummings Hill, over the wet spot in the road where the culvert was too small to carry the load of the Dry Branch Creek that was flooding from melted snow and rains, then screeched through more curves to where the blacktop run out. A gravel lane went on from there, but we turned around. A bunch of kids got on. One boy nodded to Fred, who said, “Hi, LD.” Then the boy sat down next to another boy called Lonnie who had got on wherever the bus had gone when it passed our gate.

About this time I began to get over meeting Rosemary and moved next to Fred. Nobody said much to me, which I understood being new, but nobody said anything to Fred either. He just looked out the window and chewed his thumbnail, every now and then spitting out a chunk. I didn't know where it come from because his nails was already eat back to the meat.

At one stop, four redheaded kids got on. One of them spotted Fred and grinned. “Hey, feed sack!” he yelled.

Fred's eyes blazed, and he whirled. “Who you callin' a feed sack, John Flickum?”

“You, that's who. Mulligan's a feed sack, Mulligan's a feed sack, Mulligan's a . . .” Then all the Flickums took it up.

It wudn't true. The clothes the Mulligan girls had on were made of Purina feed sacks with big yellow flowers, but Fred had on denim pants and a blue denim shirt.

“Mulligan's a feed sack, Mulligan's a feed sack . . .”

“You leave him alone,” screamed Fred's big sister, Annie Lee. “He ain't no feed sack. You all sonamabitches, alla you,” and she swung a book at one and grabbed the hair of another, fighting like a she-devil alongside Fred. I figured I was going to have to fight today anyways, so I picked out the skinniest Flickum and socked him in the mouth.

“Hey, you kids, set down back there!” the driver yelled, but the fight kept going. “
I said set down back there! Now set down!
”

We all set down. Fred was so mad, he was crying and yelled toward the driver, “He called me a feed sack. I ain't no feed sack! I'm a-wearin' as good a stuff as—”

“
And shut up!
” yelled the driver.

Fred quit crying and looked out the window, then his whole body got tight and squeezed like a shriveled lemon. “Ain't comin' back here n'more,” he said, under his breath. “Told 'em I wouldn't . . . hate th' sonamabitches . . . alla them!” and tears poured down his face. LD and Lonnie had kept out of it, but you could tell they didn't like what had happened. I took time to study the bunch that was riding Fred. It was some of these I'd have to fight. I hated fighting, but wudn't nothing else to do when kids rode me about Jew.

School was pretty much the same as the one I came from except it only went to the sixth grade. Naomi had to go on to Middletown High, which left me by myself for the first time. I was lonesome and a little scared. Fred and me wudn't in the same class. I was in the third and he was in the second so we didn't see much of each other at school.

Outside was still cold and wudn't nothing to do at recess but run around the big open-field schoolyard. I kept waiting for the skinniest Flickum to show. I must've got in a good lick because he didn't. Nobody else bothered me so I didn't have to fight that day, but I did the next.

It happened with Lonnie. At the start, I thought I might win because Lonnie was no bigger than me and just as skinny. Neither of us wanted to fight, but some of the older boys egged us on until there wudn't nothing else we could do. It didn't take long to find out why they wanted to see us fight. Lonnie's fists went so fast you couldn't see them. I fought back and got in a couple punches but it didn't make any difference.

Lonnie's last name was Miller, and he lived on the Little Bend bottoms. We didn't say nothing to each other for a few days, even though we rode the same bus. One afternoon the teacher picked us to dust erasers. I kept wondering how he'd act alone, and was hoping we could make friends because he seemed quiet and nice. When we came to the rock fence that surrounded the schoolyard, I nodded for him to dust first.

“Naw, you go ahead,” he said, shaking his head so hard his shaggy black hair moved about. “I dusted first last time I was out.”

“You sure can fight,” I said, beating the eraser against the rocks until the chalk dust went up in a cloud. “Bet you don't lose many.”

“Ain't never lost,” he said. “Not even with them big ones. I don't like fightin'. Wish we hadn't of fought . . . wudn't no reason.”

It was real honest the way he said it. “I don't like fightin' neither,” I said.

Lonnie kind of raised his chin. “We won't do hit n'more. You fight purty good, Samuel. We'll just tell them old boys from now on they want some fightin' they can try us together!” Then his blue eyes lit up. “You like fishin'?”

“Yeah!” I answered, which somehow I knew even though I'd never done it.

“Let's go fishin' this summer at your place. You can catch newlights a foot long out of your pond down by Fred's.”

“Well, sure, come on down. That's a far distance from th' Little Bend, ain't it?”

“By the road, yeah, but I cut across and hit's only about three mile. One day I caught thirty-nine brim and five big newlights at your place. Hit made a good mess for th' seven of us.”

“Well, we'll sure go this summer,” I said, and I knew I had another friend.

I saw Fred maybe three times a week on the school bus, which was about all any of the Mulligans went except for Annie Lee, who was the oldest. We got together on Saturdays and Sundays when he'd wander over with his dad, Alfred. It was real nice living on Berman's. The folks in the hills were the first people I'd ever been around that didn't ride me about Jew. One boy did, and I won that fight. It turned out to be a good one to win because nobody liked him since his folks wudn't croppers. Nobody held losing to Lonnie against me either. Everybody lost to Lonnie.

M
arch and early April crept by in their wet, cool, blustery, miserable way, and real spring come on with its bee-buzzing sounds and warm-wind feeling. The brown hills turned dark green and the apple trees busted out in pink-white. The creek in the hollow below the tobacco barn settled back inside its banks and it was a great feeling to belly down beside it and listen to its sounds and let the sun beat down on my back and smell the grass and warm, black, soft, moist ground.

Fred come over almost every evening to help me with chores so our dads could work late in the fields. There was a lot to do and he showed me how a lot of the tools worked. I'd never used a corn sheller before and he could really make ours fly. It made getting corn for both families' chickens quick and easy. One day when we finished feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs, he said why didn't we go down by the creek and make some plans. I could see our cows heading toward the barn and wanted to get one milked before Dad come in, but I figured we had a few minutes to spend making plans.

“It's gonna be a great summer, idn't it, Fred?” I said as we sat on the bank.

“Aw, yeah, hun'ney. First thing we got to do is get a real good old inner tube.”

I kind of looked at him, not knowing what he was driving at. “Why?”

“Can't make slingshots without one. What'd you think we was gonna use?”

“I didn't even know we were gonna make slingshots.”

“Aw, yeah. Hit ain't summer without a new slingshot. Broke my old one t'other day. Makin' one's about as much fun's shootin' one. Problem is, with th' war on all th' inner tubes is bein' sent t' th' army.”

I thought about it, then said, “Bet I can get one. Dad's got a friend who runs a junkyard. He's got lots of inner tubes. I'll ask Dad t' get one from him.”

“Hot dog!” Fred yelled. “When you gonna ask?”

“Tonight,” I said. “What else we gonna do?”

“Gonna fish our eyes loose and maybe tempt that old ghost down't th' Blue Hole.”

Everything sounded good except the ghost part. “What's th' Blue Hole?”

“Hit's a water hole by th' river down't th' Little Bend bottoms,” Fred said, and then he leaned toward me and his voice got low. “Hit's about seventy, eighty foot across and fed by this underground river, see, and no matter how little hit rains, hit's always full and blue. Nobody's ever found th' bottom, and them what swims in hit dies somethin' awful.”

“How so?”

“Ghost gets 'em. This big old skeleton hand comes up and gets your leg and pulls you down and you don't never come up.”

That scared me. “We ain't swimmin' in it, are we?”

“Lordy no! We just gonna tease th' ghost. You know, stand back where th' hand can't get us and throw rocks. I done hit couple times. Didn't see no hand, but Johnny Flickum said he seen it. Course, you can't never believe a Flickum.”

That was true. Nobody in those parts ever believed a Flickum. A Flickum could come in the house and say the barn was on fire and wouldn't nobody move.

We swished our feet in the creek awhile more, then I said I had to get going. We climbed the hill toward the stock barn and on the way, Fred kept talking. He said he might get a bicycle on account of things going so well for his pa.

“Th' acre of strawberries we put out ought t' bring us in some money and Pa says we're gonna buy a bunch of shoats. We got us a good show this year.”

When we got to the barn, Fred climbed the hog lot gate, then put his hands on the top slats and grinned. “Samuel, hit's gonna be great this summer. We just gonna have a big time.”

“Yeah,” I said, grinning back. “S'long, Fred.”

“S'long, old buddy,” and he walked off whistling and dragging his no-heels in the dust.

It took us three weeks to set the tobacco. We had fourteen acres and swapped work with the MacWerters, who had twelve acres across the Cuyper Creek Pike from us on Mr. Charlie Cornwall's place. Mr. MacWerter's name was George, but folks called him Mr. Mac. He had a boy named Edwin who he called Babe. Edwin didn't like being called Babe since he was about thirty-five, but wudn't much he could do about it. I learned how to set tobacco on the setter with my sister Debby while she was home on leave from the Army Nurse Corps. We finished the last part of May and I was free, which meant having fun with Fred.

It was really a fine morning to learn fishing the day I did. Clear blue sky, warm sun, a little dew, and a honeysuckle smell in the air. Fred come over early so we could walk together, this being my first time across country to his place, it being a lot quicker than taking the roads. I was excited as we climbed the rickety, half-slung gate where I first met him, waded the creek at the bottom of the slope, then skipped along a dusty path through the big field that rose gentle toward a hickory and locust thicket. The thicket was dark green with lots of bluegrass and ended at a gap that was made of three strands of barbwire tied to a pole. It was saggy unless it was hooked up right, which we did by putting the bottom and top of the pole into loops of smooth wire that were lashed to a line post. It looked flimsy, but it kept the cattle in and if you ever fooled with barbwire, you know why.

On the other side of the gap was another big field that stretched to a wooden farm gate everybody called the hog lot gate because it was next to the Mulligan's hog lot. About thirty foot on the other side was their house.

The house was small and covered with black tar paper and had a porch in front and back. It didn't have a yard, just kind of set in an acre space made by fences. The front of the house was maybe fifty foot from the Dry Branch Road. The backyard had a chicken house and a privy. Tin cans lay everywhere and a few Dominicker hens wandered around clucking.

We climbed the hog lot gate and walked to the kitchen window where a shovel was stuck in the ground. Fred picked it up and started digging. Pretty soon, Fred's sister Thelma Jean, who was eleven, come out and helped us by smacking clods against the side of the house and collecting worms to put in our can. We were all set to go fishing when Mamie, who was Fred's mama, come strolling to the window and leaned her skinny chest and elbows on it. Her eyes shined in her thin, brown, hill-woman face, and her mud-colored hair hung straight down.

“You Mr. Simpsky's boy?” she asked, shooing the flies away from her face.

“Yes, ma'am,” I answered, figuring it wudn't going to do any good telling her my last name was Zelinsky because she'd never say it that way. Hill people never could.

“What's your Christian name?”