My Children Are More Precious Than Gold (10 page)

The girls ran downstairs to find
Nannie and Lydia standing in the backyard. Jacob and the boys had
just showed up from the field for lunch, and hearing the racket,
Alma had run from the garden to see what was wrong. They all stood
with open mouths, watching the weird precession file passed
them.

Lydia, slipping her little hand into
her mother's, said in amazement, “They act jest like Pap does after
he's been over to Tutt Jone's still.”

A look came over Nannie's face as if
she were standing in the shadow of a dark thunder cloud rolling
overhead. Suddenly Nannie remembered about the wild grape jelly she
had boiled up two weeks before. “Boys, did ya all empty those two
pails of grape pulp to the hogs that was setten behind the
smokehouse a couple weeks ago when I told ya to?”

“
Well, not exactly right
then,” Lue admitted, inspecting his hoe handle.

“
When exactly did ya do
it?” Nannie persisted, turning to look piercingly at the four older
boys.

“
Was it afternoon afore
last?” Lue looked blankly from Sid to Don to Tom for
help.

“
Yep, I reckon so,”
admitted Don.

“
I see,” said Nannie,
sternly. “Did ya happen to notice ifen the geese ate out of the hog
trough with the hogs?”

“
Sure they did, Mama,”
Dillard piped up, trying to be helpful. He chose to ignore Lue's
threatening glare. “They always eat with the hogs.”

“
Ya boys know what ya did?
Ya gave my geese fermented grape pulp. Next time I tell ya to empty
those pails right away, I mean fer ya to do it!”

“
Sure, Mama. We
understand,” answered Sid, meekly.

Suddenly Lue's eyes twinkled with
realization about what had happened to his mother's geese. “Ya mean
them geese was drunk?”

“
They was dead drunk
yesterday was all,” giggled Don.

Nannie's face took on the look of the
darkest of storm clouds when she turned to her sons. Trying to keep
a straight face, the boys decided it was time to retreat to lean
their hoes against the back of the smokehouse. If she heard the
muffled giggles from that direction, Nannie never let on. She
headed back to the house with Jacob and the girls tagging quietly
along behind her.

It took some time for the geese to get
back to full dress and about that long for Nannie to get back her
usual good humor when it came to the subject of her geese. She
dreaded the thought that her mischievous sons would try feeding
fermented grape pulp to every fowl and animal on the place to get
them drunk.

It was always a sore enough reminder
that the boys had did just that to her geese when the neighbors
stopped by and noticed her geese covered with fuzzy down as if each
bird had just hatch out of a gigantic egg. The question always came
up as to why the geese looked that way. With a warning glance at
her grinning sons to stop them from relating their detailed,
exaggerated version of the drunken geese, Nannie would quickly
reply,Theys been feelen puny lately. That's all.”

Chapter 7

The Thanksgiving Turkey

“
Mama, Mama!” Lue yelled,
bursting through the screen door with Don on his heels.

“
Mercy sakes, we's in the
bedroom. What's the matter now?”

Breathlessly, the boys hurried to the
bedroom door. Standing around the bed, Nannie, Cass, and Bess
studied the layers of fabric they had stretched out across the bed.
They were getting ready to baste the layers together and place them
in the quilting frames at the end of the bed. Whenever any of the
girls had a spare moment, they would be expected to sew on the
quilt stretched in the frames. This top happened to be a simple but
colorful nine patch pattern. There was no way to keep to a certain
color scheme in those days. All Nannie’s quilt tops were cut and
hand sewen from the lest faded pieces of discarded clothes in the
rag box.

“
Mama, if we could catch a
wild turkey that's nesten in the timber could we keep it? We'd have
turkey for Thanksgiving dinner for sure without tryen to hunt one
if the eggs hatched,” said Lue.

“
I don't know about that.
I doubt y'all could get close enough to catch a wild turkey,
besides ya'd have to try to catch her jest right to get her to
finish sitten on her eggs. Where is this turkey?” Nannie asked,
smoothing the top with her hands.

“
Up behind Tutt Jones's
place on the ridge. We jest spotted her under some rhododendron
bushes while we was mushroom hunten. She's sitten pretty tight
cause she hunkered down and didn't move a lick,” answered
Lue.

“
What would we have to do,
Mama?” Asked Don.

“
Y'all would have to move
her after dark while she's in a roosten stupor. The eggs would have
to be handled easy and kept warm til ya got back home. There's no
certainty that the turkey will set again once ya move her. She's
wild, and wild things don't like to be fooled with.”

“
We kin do it. I know we
kin,” said Don, dancing from one foot to the other. “Where kin we
put her?”

“
My box coop is empty.
Make a straw nest in it and put in plenty of corn and water. After
ya stick her on the nest, ya cain't go near her for a few days til
she has a chance to set tight. That's how I'd do a cluck hen
anyways.”

“
We'll fix the nest right
now. Don, y'all see if ya can catch Jasper and tie him up. We don’t
want him going with us tonight. He’d be after coons and make too
much noise,” Lue said over his shoulder as he vanished with Don
right on his heels.

“
Mercy sakes, gals. I wish
I had the energy ya younguns do.” Nannie shook her head in wonder
as she watched her two sons leave.

Lue and Don could hardly wait for
darkness to arrive so they could start after the turkey.

“
Mama, we’s goen to take a
torch from the stack behind the cookstove with us. ' That all
right?” Asked Don, looking at his mother cleaning the supper dishes
off the table.

“
Yep, but I don’t have too
many torches left so somebody’s going to have to get busy rounding
me up another stack,” suggested Nannie.

“
We will be on the lookout
for some more. Promise, Mama,” replied Lue.

The pine torches were used like a
flashlight when the family walked to a neighbors or the church
after dark. Also, the torches lit the cabin up at night when they
were out of coal oil for the lamps.

The fuel end of the torch was a knot
on a dead limb cut from a pine tree. As the limb died the resin in
it went toward the knot. The size of the limb determined how large
the knot would be. Of course, the bigger the knot the longer the
torch would burn.

Carrying a cloth lined pail, Lue
walked beside Don who held the lit pitch pine torch. A full moon
dusted the pasture with a hazy, yellow shimmer. Under the ridge's
dense tree cover, the boys would have found walking in the dark
difficult. The glow from the torch made it easier for the Bishop
brothers to tread through the carpet of dry leaves and fallen
twigs.

Finally, the boys edged close to the
clump of thick, green, leafed rhododendron bushes. They could
barely make out the dark blob flattened on a nest of dried leaves
and grass woven together, hidden near the base of the
bush.

“
Don, stick that torch in
the ground back there a ways and grab the turkey. While ya hold on
to her, I'll get the eggs,” whispered Lue.

Don jabbed at the hard ground with the
pine torch, then turned loose to see if it would stay upright. Then
he edge toward the rhododendron bush, leaned over and dove at the
large, brown bird. He flattened himself on her. Startled, the
frightened turkey struggled to get out of her predator's grasp. Her
strong, long wings flapped profusely, flogging Don on the head and
shoulders while the two of them thrashed about in the
underbrush.

Ignoring the battle going on near him,
Lue concentrated on gently placing the nest full of large tan and
dark brown speckled eggs in the pail, one at a time.

“
Help me -- ouch -- hold
onto this -- ouch -- turkey, Lue! She's beaten me to -- ouch --
death with her wings -- ouch!” moaned Don.

“
I've got to get all these
eggs picked up easy and covered like Mama told me. She said not to
let them get cold or they won't hatch. Member?”

“
They'll get -- ouch --
cold ifen I let loose of this -- ouch --. Get over here
now!”

Lue covered the eggs with a dish
towel, then turned his attention to the shadowy figure thrashing
about in the bushes. In the distance, coon hounds bayed from their
pen down at Tutt Jones's house. Tutt's voice carried in the
darkness up the ridge as he yell at the dogs to shut up. Lue was
afraid that Tutt might become curious enough to investigate what
was upsetting his coon hounds if Don and the turkey didn't quiet
down.

By the time Lue set the pail down, Don
penned the turkey to the ground with his body. He rolled over
slightly to let Lue grip the turkey's body to keep her still until
Don could slide his hands down to her legs and slipped an arm
around her body to secure her wings. Lue had to help Don struggle
to his feet then he made his way back to the pail of
eggs.

“
Let's go afore Tutt comes
to see what the ruckus is about up here.” Lue grabbed the pine
torch and shone the light in Don's direction. He couldn’t help but
chuckled. “Look at that poor turkey. She looks as bad as Mama's
geese did. Ya almost plucked her clean.”

“
I couldn't hep it. I
couldn't see to hold onto her, and she put up one heck of a fight
with em wings. I'm smarten in more than a few places,” Don
grumbled, looking around at the wallowed down underbrush covered
with a mass of brown, speckled feathers.

Three days later after they'd finished
their morning chores, Lue and Don flattened their noses against the
screen door to look into the cabin.

“
Mama, will ya check the
turkey for us now?” Asked Lue.

“
All right, I'm curious to
see if she’s setten, too. Cass and Bess, finish these dishes while
I go with the boys.” Nannie dried her hands on the end of Bess's
dish towel then reached into one of the crocks on the work counter.
Cupping her apron tail, she tossed a handful of yellow cornmeal
into it to feed the turkey.

Just then Tutt Jones rode up,
dismounted at the hitch rack by the yard gate and secured his
horse. He greeted Jacob who came to meet him from the direction of
the barn. The men heard the screen door bang and turned to look
toward the cabin.

“
Howdy do, Misses. Hey,
boys. Nice day, ain't it?” Tutt's stained lips parted in a crooked
grin. His lower lip stuck out like the pouch of a chipmunk. He
turned to spit an amber stream of chewing tobacco at the rocks
beside his feet.

Nannie nodded curtly, continuing to
walk toward the coop. Lou, carrying a pail of water, walked right
behind her, and Don followed him.

“
I declare, Jacob,
sometimes I get the feelen yer Misses don't like me none.” Tutt
drawled slowly. As he scratched his head, the skinny, unkempt man
looked mystified by the thought.

“
Nonsense, Tutt. She's
jest quiet around some folks,” said Jacob, defending
Nannie.

The men watched Nannie squat slowly,
trying not to spill the cornmeal in her gathered apron tail while
she opened the coop door. The sudden light from outside caused the
turkey to flattened in the nest to protect her eggs. Quickly,
Nannie refilled the feed and water pans then closed the
door.

“
Well, Mama?” Asked Lue,
softly.

“
She's setten. I sure
didn't think she would,” acknowledged Nannie, turning to head back
to the house.

Curious about the attraction of the
coop, Tutt watched Nannie and the boys bent down around the coop.
“Jacob, what's yer Misses got in that coop? A cluck
hen?”

“
No, the boys caught a
wild turkey, and she setten on a nest of eggs,” bragged
Jacob.

“
I declare! Never heard
tell of setten a wild turkey,” Tutt said, scratching his head. “I
got some tame turkeys. I jest let em run. Fact is one of em came up
missen the other day. Em dang thieven coyotes carry 'em off, and I
jest about know when they got this one. A few nights ago my
coonhounds set up a fit at a ruckus up on the ridge behind my
place. Pect that turkey and a coyote were goen at it
then.”

Nannie overheard Jacob and Tutt’s
conversation on her way back to the porch. She turned to Lue and
Don and whispered hoarsely, “Ya two get in the house with me right
now!”

Sitting at the table, she clasped her
hands tightly together and frowned crossly at the boys. Nannie
waited to speak until they had slipped into chairs across from her,
sliding down under the table so just their heads showed. “Does that
turkey belong to Tutt Jones?”

“
I don't know, Mama,” Lue
declared. “We thought it was a wild one.”

“
Ya did say it was nesten
near Tutt's place. I thought it was mighty funny that a wild turkey
would set that tight after moven it and it nearly plucked bald,
too.”