Manly Wade Wellman - John the Balladeer SSC (7 page)

           
Finally little Calder said,
"Maybe we can finish the song after a while," and his voice was a
weak young voice now.

 
          
"I
recollect about another song from here," I said. "About the fair and
blooming wife."

 
          
Those
closed mouths all snapped open, then shut again. Touching the guitar's silver
strings, I began:

 
          
There was a fair and blooming wife

 
          
And of children she had three. She sent them
away to Northern school

 
          
To study gramaree.

 
          
But the King's men came upon that school,
And when sword and rope had done,

 
          
Of the children three she sent away,
Returned to her but one. . . .

 
          
"Supper's
made," said Mrs. Millen from inside.

 
          
We
all went in to where there was a trestle table and a clean homewoven cloth and
clay dishes set out. Mr. Loden, by the pots at the fire, waved for Mrs. Millen
and Vandy to dish up the food.

 
          
It
wasn't smoke meat and beans I saw on my plate. Whatever it was, it wasn't that.
Everyone looked at their helps of food, but not even Calder took any till Mr.
Loden sat down, half-smiling.

 
          
"Why,"
he said, "one would think you feared poison."

 
          
Then
Mr. Tewk forked up a big bait and put it into his beard. Calder did likewise,
and the others. I took a mouthful and it sure enough tasted good.

 
          
"Let
me honor your cooking, sir," I told Mr. Loden. "It's like witch
magic."

 
          
His
eyes came on me, as I knew they'd come after that word. He laughed, so short
and sharp everybody jumped.

 
          
"John,
you sang a song from this valley," he said. "About the blooming wife
with three children who went north to study gramaree. John, do you know what
gramaree means?"

 
          
"Grammar,"
spoke up Calder. "The right way to talk."

 
          
"Hush,"
whispered his father and he hushed.

 
          
"I've
heard, sir," I replied to Mr. Loden; "gramaree is witch stuff, witch
knowledge and magic and power. That Northern school could be only one
place."

 
          
"What
place, John?" he almost sang under his breath.

 
          
"A
Massachusetts Yankee town called
Salem
, sir. Around 300 years back—"

 
          
"Not
by so much," said Mr. Loden. "In 1692, John."

 
          
I
waited a breath and everybody stared above those steaming plates.

 
          
"Sixteen
ninety-two," I agreed. "A preacher man named Cotton Mather found them
teaching witch stuff to children. I hear tell they killed twenty folks, and
mostly the wrong folks, but two, three were sure enough witches."

 
          
"George
Burroughs," said Mr. Loden, half to himself. "Martha Carrier. And
Bridget Bishop. They were real. Others got away safely, and one of the young
children of the three. Somebody owed that child the two lost young lives of his
brothers, John."

 
          
"I
call to mind something else I heard," I said. "They scare young folks
with the story outside here. The one child lived to be a hundred years old. And
his son had a hundred years of life, and his son's son had a hundred years
more. Maybe that's why I thought the witch school at
Salem
was 300 years past."

 
          
"Not
by so much," he said again. "Even give the child that got away the
age of Calder there, it would be only about 270 years."

 
          
He
was daring any of Mr. Tewk's family to speak up or even breathe heavy, and
nobody took the dare.

 
          
"From
300, that leaves 30 years," I figured. "A lot can be done in 30
years, Mr. Loden."

 
          
"That's
the naked truth," he said, his eye-knives on Vandy's young face, and he
got up and bowed all around. "I thank you all for your hospitality. I'll
come again if I may."

 
          
"Yes,
sir," said Mr. Tewk in a hurry, but Mr. Loden looked at Vandy, waiting.

 
          
"Yes,
sir," she told him, as if it would choke her.

 
          
He
took up his gold-headed cane and gazed at me a hard gaze. Then I did a rude
thing, but it was all I could think of.

 
          
"I
don't feel right, not paying for what you all gave me," I allowed,
getting up myself. From my dungaree pocket I took a silver quarter and dropped
it on the table, almost in front of Mr. Loden.

           
"Take it away!" he
squeaked, almost like a bat, and out of the house he was gone, bat-swift and
bat-sudden.

 
          
The
others sat and gopped after him. The night was thick outside, like black wool
around the cabin. Mr. Tewk cleared bis throat.

 
          
"John,
you're better brought up than that," he said. "We don't take money
from nobody we bid to eat with us. Pick it up."

 
          
"Yes,
sir," I said. "I ask pardon, sir."

 
          
Putting
away the quarter, I felt a trifle better. I'd done that once before with a
silver quarter. I'd scared a man named Onselm almost out of his black art. So
Mr. Loden was another witch man, and so he could be scared, too. I reckon I was
foolish to think it was as easy as that.

 
          
I
walked outside, leaving Mrs. Millen and Vandy doing up the dishes. The
firelight showed me the stoop log to sit on. I touched my silver guitar strings
and began to pick out the
Vandy, Vandy
tune,
soft and gentle. After while, Calder came out and sat beside me and sang the
words. I liked best the last verse:

 
          
Wake up, wake up! The dawn is breaking,

 
          
Wake up, wake up! It's almost day. Open up
your doors and your divers windows,

 
          
See my true love march away. . . .

 
          
Calder
finished, and then he said, "Mr. John, I never made out what divers
windows is."

 
          
"An
old time word," I said. "It means different kinds of windows. Another
thing proves it's a mighty old song. A man seven years in the army must have
gone to the war with the English, the first one. It lasted longer here in the
south than other places, from 1775 to 1782." I figured a moment. "How
old are you, Calder?"

 
          
"Rising
onto ten."

 
          
"Big
for your age. A boy your years in 1692 would be 90 in 1782 if he lived, what
time the English war was near done and somebody or other had served seven years
in the army."

 
          
"In
Washington
's army," said Calder, to himself.
"King Washington."

 
          
"King
who?" I asked.

 
          
"Mr.
Loden calls him King Washington. The man that hell-drove the English soldiers
and rules in his own name town."

           
That's what they must think in that
valley. I never said that
Washington
was no king but a president, and that he'd died and gone to rest when
his work was done and his country safe. I kept thinking about somebody 90 years
old in 1782, courting a girl with her true love seven years marched away in the
army.

 
          
"Calder,"
I said, "don't the
Vandy, Vandy
song
tell about your own folks?"

 
          
He
looked into the cabin, where nobody listened, then into the black-wool
darkness. I struck a chord on the silver strings. Then he said, "Yes, Mr.
John, so I've heard tell."

 
          
I
hushed the strings with my hand and he talked on.

 
          
"I
reckon you've heard lots of this, or guessed it. About that witch child that
lived to a hundred—he came courting a girl named Vandy, but she was a good
girl."

 
          
"Bad
folks sometimes come to court good ones," I said.

 
          
"But
she wouldn't have
him,
not with all his money and land. And when he
pressed her, her soldier man came home, with his discharge writing in his hand,
and on it King Washington's name, he was free from soldiering. He was Hosea
Tewk, my grandsire some few tunes removed. And my own grandsire's mother was
Vandy Tewk, and my sister is Vandy Millen."

 
          
"How
about the hundred-year witch man?"

 
          
Calder
looked around again. Then he said, "He had to get somebody else, I
reckon, to birth him a son before his hundred years was gone and he died. We
think that son married at another hundred years, and his son is Mr. Loden, the
grandson of the first witch man."

 
          
"I
see. Now, your grandsire's mother, Vandy Tewk. How old would she be,
Calder?"

 
          
"She's
dead and gone, but she was born the first year her pa was
off
fighting the Yankees."

 
          
Eighteen
sixty-one, then. In 1882, end of the second hundred years, she'd be ripe for
the courting. "And she married a Millen," I said.

 
          
"Yes,
sir. Even when the Mr. Loden that lived then tried to court her. But she
married Mr. Washington Millen."

 
          
"
Washington
," I said. "Named after the man
who whipped the English."

           
"He was my great-grandsire and
he feared nothing, like King Washington."

 
          
I
picked a silver string. "No witch man got the first Vandy," I
reminded him. "Nor the second Vandy."

 
          
"A
witch man wants the Vandy that's here now," said Calder. "Mr. John,
I'm right sorry you won't steal her away from him."

 
          
I
got up. "Tell your folks I've gone for a night walk."

 
          
"Not
to Mr. Loden's." He got up, too. His face was pale beside me. "He
won't let you come."

 
          
The
night was more than black, it was solid. No sound in it and no life. I won't
say I couldn't have stepped off into it, but I didn't. I sat down again. Mr.
Tewk spoke my name, then Vandy.

 
          
We
all sat in front of the cabin and spoke about weather and crops. Vandy was at
my one side, Calder at the other. We sang—
Dream
True,
I recollect, and
Rebel Soldier.
Vandy sang the sweetest I ever heard, but as I played I couldn't but think
somebody listened in the blackness. If it was on
Yandro
Mountain
and not in that valley, I'd have figured
the Behinder sneaking close, or the Flat under our feet. But Vandy sounded
happy, her violet eyes looked at me, her rose lips smiled.

 
          
Finally
Vandy and Mrs. Millen said good night and went into a back room. Heber and his
wife and Calder laddered up into the loft. Mr. Tewk offered me a pallet bed by
the fire.