Fair and Tender Ladies (2 page)

Then my daddy come to Rich Valley and she took up with him, and her and him set to walking out together of an evening like you do.

Mister Castle said NO I forbid it, he has no prospects, and said he wuld send my momma to her mothers sister in Memphis Tenessee where my momma never had been or even heard tell of, to learn her some sense and how to act like a lady at last. Instead my momma packed up her own mommas silver brush and comb which was all she took, and lit out in the dead of nigt for Sugar Fork with my daddy John Arthur Rowe. He is a redheaded man he had been over ther in Rich Valley with his brother trading mules. My momma and him rode double astride on daddys horse Lightning. She was glad to leave, she said, and never looked back nor cared for a thing but my daddy.

They carried a pine knot that burned in the nigt to show them the way. They passed throgh Squeeze Betsy in the Pound Gap it is so black at nigt the rocky-clifts is so high they nearabout black out the moon. And then you come up on Bethel Mountain wich is high and lonesome and a hoot owl screeched out in the nigt it like to have scarred my momma to death she was a town girl she like to have plum lost hart then and ther, Daddy says. He says the pine knot was burning yaller and you culd see little critters eyes all shining yaller in the ligt from the edge of the woods. They is still bears and catamounts up on Bethel Mountain, to this day.

Well Momma and Daddy come on to Slate Creek and follered it down to Home Creek where they forded it at the grist mill and Momma got down in the dark and wetted her face with the water, she said her face was burning as hot as fire she was all atremble from what she had done and they never knowed at that time if Mister Castle wuld of sent a posse out after them or not. My daddy a Batcheler was considerable older than her. Momma said she seed her face in the still black pool by the pine knots yaller ligt and she looked so wild, she culd not of said who she was, she culd not of called her own name. But she said that the water in Home Creek was so cool, and tasted the sweetest of any she ever had. And Daddy kissed her, and they got up agin on Lightning thogh Momma was so sore by then that she like to have died, she said she was down in the back atterwards for days and days.

So they rode on alongside Home Creek and by then it was getting ligt, on the prettest path you have ever seed, it is still rigt here, it runs throgh sprucey-pines and he-balsams and past three little old waterfalls. When you get to that third one you start looking out for them two big cedar trees and you leave Home Creek rigt ther where Sugar Fork comes into it and foller Sugar Fork up and up, you will ford it twicet, its the loudest and singingest little old creek you ever dreamed of, and direckly when you cant go no further youl be here, here in my daddys house which was his daddys house afore him way up here on Blue Star Mountain.

And it aint nobody up here but usuns.

Daddy had lived up here farming all by hisself since his own daddy died of his hart and his momma died of the bloody flux and his sister had maried and gone off and his brother Revel had took to helling around so. Sometimes Daddy wuld go down the mountain somewhere and holp Revel with his buisness, which is mules. But then he wuld come back up here direckly, Daddy wuld, he dont love noplace in the world he says like he loves Sugar Fork.

Well it was getting on for daybreak when my daddy and my momma come riding up there plum wore out, and Lightning so puny he is going on dead, he never was the same horse after that nigt Daddy said, you can see for why. Uncle Revel wanted to trade him after he got so puny but Momma said NO and she fed him out of her own hand and wuld not let nobody ride him but her until the day he died, wich was not long in coming. That ride had used him teetotally up.

The sun come peeping up then over the top of Hell Mountain like a white hot firy ball rising up from the fog that always hangs on the mountaintop of an evening. It will burn off in the day.

Momma looked around.

She saw Sugar Fork sparkle in the sun like a ladys dimond necklace.

She saw Pilgrim Knob rise up direckly behind the house, and Blue Star Mountain beyond. They call it that because of how blue it looks from down below, along Home Creek and Daves Branch, why you can see Blue Star Mountain clear from Majestic on a pretty day. And you can see the Conaways and the Rolettes and the Foxes cabins, coming up Home Creek from the schoolhouse like her and daddy had done that morning, now you can see all them neghbor peoples houses fine but you cant see ourn, nor get to it nether, without wanting to. You are not going to happen upon us, is what I mean. And Blue Star Mountain dont seem so blue nether, when your up here. But it is the prettest place in the world.

And so my momma looked all around, and she seed all of that.

She seed the shining waters of Sugar Fork go leaping off down the mountain into the laurel slick. And she seed that this is a good big double cabin here with a breezeway in between where it is fine to set and look out and do your piecework. And she seed the snowball bush in the yard and the rosybush here by the porch all covered with pink-pink flowers. It was June. And Momma looked up in the sky she said and she seed a hawk gliding circles around and around without never flapping his wings, agin that big blue sky. She said that hawk made three circles in the sky, and then Daddy turned to her real formal-like and cleared his throat and said Maude, it is what I have to give you. It is all I have. But she knowed this, she had knowed it all along. It will do, John, is what she said. Then she busted out laghing and my daddy picked her up and carried her in the house wich is where I live today, in Virginia, in the United States of America. But you must put Majestic, Virginia, U.S.A. and many stamps on the outside of your letter Mrs. Brown said or it will not come here.

Now I am glad I have set this all down for I can see my Momma and Daddy as young, and laghing. This is not how they are today. For I have to say they did not live haply ever after as in Mrs. Browns book. I reckon that migt even of been the lastest time my Daddy ever lifted her up, or lifted ary thing else heavy. Because before long a weakness was to come upon him, from the hart.

Now this is Daddys bad hart, wich he has to this day, he is the disablest one up here rigt now. You can hear his bad hart for yourself iffen you come over and put your ear up agin his chest, it goes dum-DUM dum-DUM like our banty rooster that goes coo-COO coo-COO of a morning on Pilgrim Knob. You can hear Daddys bad hart just thumping away irreglar in his chest. He is little now too, hardly no meat atall on his bones, but his hair is still thick and red and his eyes are so blue and just as lively as Sugar Fork. He will still tell a story. He is little thogh like a brownie in Mrs. Browns McGuffey Reader.

Do you have a reader? Do you like to read? I love it bettern anything and mostly poems such as Thanatopses and the little toy soldier is covered with dust but sturdy and stanch he stands and the highwayman came riding riding up to the old inn door. I love that one the bestest.

Mister Brown is a forren preacher from the North but does not preach he is the husband of Mrs. Brown my teacher. He says to her, what is your substance whereof are you made? and other poems. He carries bunches of flowers up from the creek for her and one time it was about a month ago he brung them rigt into the schoolhouse and give them to her with a funny little bow like a Prince you ougt to of seed him, we was all rigt ther when he done it. Her cheeks turned as red as a apple, I wuld of had a fit if it was me.

For I take a intrest in her and Mister Brown and in what I have told you, the story of my Momma and Daddy. I take a intrest in Love because I want to be in Love one day and write poems about it, do you? But I do not want to have a lot of babys thogh and get tittys as big as the moon. So it is hard to think what to do. My momma was young and so pretty when she come riding up Sugar Fork, but she does not look pretty now, she looks awful, like her face is hanted, she has had too much on her. Too much to contend with she says.

So next I will write you about my Life, it is what Mrs. Brown said to do, I want to be a writter, it is what I love the bestest in this world. Mrs. Brown says I have a true tallent she thinks, she gives me books to read but Momma gets pitched off iffen I read too much, I have to holp out and I will just fill my head with notions, Momma says it will do me no good in the end.

My hair is long and yaller-red it comes down to my waist and Silvaney holps me to wash it, we spread it over a chairback to lift it to dry in front of the fire. Momma come in last night when we was all drying our hair, Silvaney and Beulah and me and Ethel. Silvaneys hair is real long and curly and wellnigh white, and Ethels is real ligt yaller, and Beulahs hair is as red as that sourgum tree rigt now up on Pilgrim Knob, she takes after Daddy the mostest. Momma just set to starring with her eyes as big as a plate and then she commences to weeping out loud.

Now Maude whats the matter, Daddy said to her from his pallet up next to the fire, we keep him up there so close but he cant hardly get warm even thogh it is not but October and we aint yet had a killing frost. Whatevers the matter now Maude, Daddy said.

These girls is all so pretty she said theyd be better off ugly, these girls is all so pretty theyd be better off dead.

Hush now Maude you just hush she dont mean it girls, shes just wore out, Daddy said to us. She is all wroght up dont pay her no mind now girls, Daddy said.

He is there on his pallet pulled up by the fire we are all in a row with our hair spreaded out on the chairbacks to dry.

So this is the members of my Family, I will tell you as Mrs. Brown said. And of my Chores and our Culture too. I wuld like to see your face, I feature your face as white as ice and your eyes so blue, like the Ice Queen but smiling with cherryred lips. I know you have windmills and big pieded black and white cows in the flat green fields. Well we have got a cow too her name is Bessie but she is close to give out at this time.

We grow nearabout all we eat, and mostly the corn wich will work you to death. So I cant go to school sometimes in the spring when we plant it or later on you have got to get out there and hoe it to beat the band, and the side of Blue Star Mountain is so steep youve got to hill it good or it wont grow atall. And we used to grow us a patch of cane too and then we wuld make molasseys, folks wuld come from all around and holp, but we have not got no cane this year as Daddy is poorly, he has to lay down.

And we grow cabbages and sweet taters and white taters both and shucky beans and we have got some apple trees too but Bess as I said is sick, this is fidgeting Momma to death what to do, for the twins is so little yet, we need the milk for Danny is always weak. They is chickens and turkeys grabbling out in the woods and guinea hens up by the house. They say pot-rack, pot-rack. I hate it when Momma kills them, you dont want to get you a pet hen, you will be sorry, nor a pet pig nether like Lizzy that was mine.

But we raise what we need, we dont go to the store for nothing but coffee and shoes and nails and to get the mail, we do not get any mail much but sometimes a letter from Daddys sister in Welch or Mommas friend Geneva Hunt from childhood or a pattern Momma sent off for. Momma can sew anything. She culd sew so pretty if she had the time. Beulah and Ethel sews too now. The store is at Majestic it is the P.O. too. This is where Mrs. Brown will take my letter to you, then Bill Waldrop will put it in his saddlebag and carry it over the mountain, a ship will carry it over the sea. Does this seem magicle to you? It seems so to me.

I wish you culd see Stoney Branhams store at Majestic, they is a woodstove at the back where all the men gathers round and spits tobaccy and waits for Bill Waldrop to come, and lays bets on what time he will get ther. They talk and talk about who has seed a bear or who is laying up in the bed sick or who has been bit by a snake or where lightning has struck last, or they will tell a tale, and the womenfolks that is in ther will be looking at thread or may be some flowered piecey-goods. Stoney Branham sends tobaccy back to Daddy who coughs so deep now it is just like thunder over Hell Mountain when he coughs now it is relly terible. They is more wrong with him now than his hart.

Do ye reckon John Arthur will make it throgh the winter, Stoney said to Granny Rowe it was a week ago Monday I heerd him myself, anybody culd of heerd him, that had ears. Wich means Silvaney who got all wroght up something awful, she run out back of Stoney Branhams store and cried, she knows a lot more than you think.

I will tell you of my Family now and she will be first, I love Silvaney the bestest, you see. Silvaney is so pretty, she is the sweetest, all silverhaired like she was fotched up on the moon. She takes after a Princess in a story, Silvaney does. Her and my brother Babe was twins, wich runs in the Family. Silvaney is five years oldern me.

But something is wrong with Silvaney, she had brain fever as a baby, now she will never be rigt in the head. It dont matter, shes so sweet, but she scares easy, sometimes she will put her apron up over her head and start in crying and other times she will get to laghing and she cant stop, you have to pour a gourdfull of water down over her face. Momma says she run a fever for days and days it has burned out a part of her brain. So Silvaney dont go to school to Mrs. Brown but you cant tell it just to see her, she is the prettest thing. So Silvaney is bigger and oldern me, but it is like we are the same sometimes it is like we are one. We have slept in the same bed all of our lives and done everything as one, I am smart thogh I go to school when I can and try to better myself and teach Silvaney but she cant learn.

Lord me and her have had some fun thogh, just usuns, we get a piece of tin sometimes and some rocks and sneak off and build us a little stove rigt out in the woods and gather up sticks and make us a little cookfire under the tin then we have got a little stove. Then I will take out the meal I have stole from the chest on the porch and wound up in my skirt, and get some water from Sugar Fork, and we will make up some little pancakes and have us a play-party rigt there in the woods by the creek in our secret place. We put black6eye susans and Queen Annes lace in our hair.