Marrying Stone (13 page)

"Why, I was jaybird naked, and he hadn't even the decency to look away!" she complained out loud.

Still, through her self-righteous indignation shimmered a certain immodest thrill at the sound of the words. He'd got an eyeful of her and had promptly fallen off the roof for it.

Was that what Granny Piggott spoke of when she talked of knocking a man off his feet? A little satisfied smile curved Meggie's lips.

Then, fortunately, the practical side of her mind took a turn at ruminating. She reminded herself that J. Monroe Farley was no more interested in her than a snake in a stump. She'd shared talk with Eda and Polly and Mavis and other girls on the mountain. Just because a man wanted a woman, didn't mean he wanted to marry her. And Farley had made it more than clear that he liked kissing her, but he surely didn't want to marry Meggie.

Certainly she wasn't the first woman to make a fool of herself over a man. But, most women didn't have to be reminded of it on a daily basis.

What must he think of her boldness yesterday? Certainly he thought her reaction to be shock. But what if she slipped again? What if she let him see that he could make her heart flop over like a wormy hog with only the slightest word of kindness? It was the biggest humiliation of all to be rejected by a man and still want him.

Meggie finally managed to work out the errant threads in the loom. She ran her hand assessingly along the completed part of the pale linsey-woolsey. It was not truly linsey-woolsey, of course. There wasn't a sheep within miles of the Best place. Meggie blended her flax with cool, lighter cotton. Still folks called it linsey-woolsey. Linsey-cottony sounded foolish and besides it was hard to say. But looking at the length of it, she decided that despite her inattention and mistakes, it was going to be a good piece of cloth. She set the shuttle through again.

The narrow, dark weaving shed was warm in the afternoon sun. Even with the door open to the breeze, beads of perspiration gathered at her forehead and the fringed homespun collar of the work dress clung damply to her neck. Most women left weaving for the dark days of winter. But Meggie weaved year-round, whenever she had a spare moment.

She loved weaving. Its rhythmic routine movements allowed her to enjoy the solitude, giving her imagination free rein to explore whatever strange and frivolous paths it might choose to take. Once the loom was threaded, the rest was simple. Occasionally, of course, she made mistakes. But unlike in cooking, on the loom mistakes could always be fixed or lived with. And sometimes they gave a piece of cloth its character. The Best cabin was filled with covers and quilts, curtains and rugs. And there was always fabric for clothes. Unlike cooking, she never had to throw a length of fabric to the hogs.

As she reset the threads on the warp Meggie thought about herself and her dreamy nature. It was not a trait common to her family or, for that matter, anyone on the mountain. At times she thought that perhaps the same unsettled humor that left her brother dim-witted flowed in her mind also, just with less severity; although Granny Piggott insisted that Jesse's simplicity was not something carried in the blood, but was caused by having the cord wrapped around his neck when he was born.

"Came into the world near hanged," Granny had said.

Beulah Winsloe said that God had tried to strangle the child to rid the devils from his nature, born out of wedlock like he was.

Granny Piggott had disagreed. "It's 'cause his mama raised her hands above her head when she was carrying him. Everybody knows that each time you reach for something overhead, you twirl the cord around the baby's neck."

Meggie didn't know who was right, but whatever troubles had weakened her brother's mind, she suffered in some way with her own.

How else would she have been so eager to make a fool of herself about Roe Farley?

Not that Farley was bad. He was, Meggie believed, truly Jesse's friend. And although her brother was well loved by her father and herself, everybody needed a friend. Just the thought of Jesse's childlike eagerness for acceptance made Meggie worry. Jesse was so innocent, so sweet, even when he was up to some no-good prank there wasn't a smidgen of evil in him. He was always looking for the good in people and finding it. That's probably why Monroe Farley looked so good to her. Because Jesse just brought out the best in him.

That was all it was, she assured herself. Farley was no prince or hero. He was simply a fast-talking city man that had the good fortune to meet up with her brother.

Meggie gave herself a slight nod of self-approval and a mission of determination. She suspected he might want her body, but he'd made it clear that he didn't want her. The sooner she got that straight in her mind, the better. She wasn't under any illusions. She was not some kind of silly scatterbrain.

As she watched the shuttle speed through the threads, her cheeks reddened.
Scatterbrain
was exactly the word that Granny Piggott called her. And most of the women on the mountain said the same, though most had the good sense to say it behind her back.

She did have trouble keeping her mind to daily life. And, truth to tell, the mundane routine of daily life was forgotten completely when she'd kissed Roe Farley.

It wasn't her first kiss, of course. Abner McNees had kissed her at a Sunday picnic when she was only fourteen. Lots of other fellows had tried since then. All last winter Paisley Winsloe had called on her, and he'd even declared his intention for her in front of Pa. But she was not too scatterbrained to know she wanted no part of Paisley Winsloe.

No matter how firmly Meggie had told him she wasn't interested, he'd trudged through the cold and snow to sit in the cabin with them after supper nearly every night.

The last night he came, Jesse was sniffling with a cold and had gone up in the loft early. After a quarter of an hour of boring farm talk, Pa was snoring in his chair, so Paisley had made his move.

When he came toward her she ran away, but he followed. He grabbed her, pushed her against the wall, and held her there while he smeared his warm, damp lips all over her face. He said that he loved her. He said that he wanted to wed her. When he finally let go, she slapped him so hard the noise woke Pa up.

Paisley left that evening and hadn't darkened their door since. When she saw him at church or gatherings, he barely nodded. Good riddance was Meggie's reaction. Paisley Winsloe was nobody's prince.

But if Meggie had been angry at him, she was furious with Pa.

"How could you just go to sleep like that and leave me unprotected!"

Onery merely chuckled. "I walked my tail off yesterday hunting that rascally bear," he claimed. "Besides, it was time for that mangy Winsloe bull calf to make his move on ye or get out of the pasture."

"He forced me to kiss him!" Meggie scolded. "If you'd been doing your duty as a father that wouldn't have happened."

"Meggie-gal, I'm being the only father I know how to be. I'm trying to let you find your own way in the world, just like my father did for me."

"I am never going to find my own way if some crazed hornet like Paisley Winsloe drags me off into the bushes."

Pa had actually chuckled at that. "I don't expect that you'd be going easy."

Meggie was mad enough to spit, but her father's next words consoled her somewhat.

"You're like your mama, you know. You're gonna do exactly what you've a mind to and all the rules and reasons and papas in the world ain't gonna stop that. It'd be like telling the river not to run over the rocks."

Meggie had felt a fleeting moment of pride. Mama had been the most sensible, strong-minded woman Marrying Stone Mountain had ever seen. She'd died of the pneumony when Meggie was only six, but Meggie knew most of her mama's story, or the "scandal" as some called it.

Onery Best had come to town, a liquor loving itinerant fiddler, just passing through. Her mama, in blossom of her prettiness at seventeen, had taken to the good-looking fiddling man right off.

Meggie didn't know much about what had happened between them that summer, but she did know that by the next winter, after Fiddlin' Onery was long gone, Mama's belly had swelled up like a mule eating baneberries.

Her Uncle Jess threw her mama out of his house. He had a low toleration for sinning of any sort. Young, pregnant, Posie Piggott had lived in an old barn up on the mountain for several weeks before Granny Piggott had taken her in.

Just before the spring thaw she had given birth to Jesse. When Onery returned to take up where he left off, he found himself with a ready-made family. Surprisingly he had been more delighted than dismayed, but Meggie's mother would have nothing to do with him.

"I ain't going to be the sometime wife of a traveling man," was the way Pa told it. "My boy ain't right in the head," she said. "He's gonna need a man by his side all day long for the rest of his days. If you ain't a-fixin' to be that man, then you'd best move along so I can find another."

Pa had not been dissuaded so easily. Uncle Jess had sold him this plot of rocky upland for a pittance, and Onery had taken to working it. Although farming was something he was never really very good at, he did try and his efforts were eventually rewarded.

During the harvesttime Posie Piggott had finally agreed to marry up. And the two had pledged themselves at the large, white Marrying Stone as soon as the winter stores were in.

Plenty of folks on the mountain thought less of Mrs.Onery Best for her past. But Meggie admired her tenacity and bravery, and she'd always considered comparisons with her mother to be wonderful. In the same situation, Meggie hoped that rather than crying and grieving and throwing herself in the big river to drown—which was the expected solution to unwed motherhood on the mountain—she would also be as brave and determined as her mother had been. But of course, she reminded herself she wouldn't go looking for that kind of trouble.

Up to now Meggie had spent her days "swimming close to the willows," never venturing even near to sinful wickedness or breaking the rules of society. Resisting Paisley Winsloe and the other randy fellows on the mountain had been as easy as chewing apple butter.

Immediately the memory of Roe Farley's soft, sweet lips, his warm open mouth, and the enticing masculine smell of his thick black hair overcame her. She'd finally met with temptation. She set the shuttle down and placed a trembling hand against her heart as if to hold it inside so it wouldn't fly away. Roe Farley's kisses were not the kind that a woman could forget easily. But forget them she would. That strange city man was not to be her handsome prince and if she forgot that for one minute, he'd likely leave her big-bellied and ruined at the end of summer.

And unlike Onery Best, it was quite clear that J. Monroe Farley would never return.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF

J. MONROE FARLEY

April 28, 1902

Marrying Stone, Arkansas

Plowed the Best family's cornfield today. I actually enjoyed myself and was glad to make it easier on young Jesse, by teaching him a new way to plow. Of course, I realize that my education and good fortune all put me in great stead, but I never realized that I would intuitively have the knowledge to make subsistence farming easier for these backwoodsmen. Have heard several interesting songs of Celtic origin and hope to have an opportunity to record them onto the cylinders very soon. I have also decided to start listing in this journal interesting words that I have come across here that may be of Middle English origin, a logical expansion of my work here. Young Jesse used the verb villified this afternoon in terms of speaking ill of the local farmers. The use of such an undisputable Middle English term adds much credence to my premise. This morning I helped repair a cedar shake roof
.