On Agate Hill (40 page)

Our wedding will be very simple as his mother says it does not pay to advertise it.

I feel like I am about to jump out of my skin. I am going crazy here waiting, you know I have never been good at waiting for anything.

Oh my God how are you? Are you dead? I wish you could write me back and tell me what you think. For I am still your

Molly

Saturday, April 12, 1883

Dear Mary White,

Last night I rode up to Red Hill with Martha Fickling because her niece’s husband was clearing a new ground and they were having a house party afterward. “It’ll do you good,” Martha said. “Get you out some.” Also, I have always liked Roxy, Martha’s “niece” — just one of the girls she has hired and taken in and raised over the years.

Martha rode out ahead on her big gray horse Valentine with me following on Chattie’s little white mare. You would be surprised how well Martha sits a horse, even at her age, upright and light as a girl, skirts thrown up, riding astride. “None of this sidesaddle shit for me!” she said, and I had to laugh, for I feel the same way about it. I thought of Eliza Valiant as we rode along through the dripping woods, remembering how she looked in that race, up out of her saddle leaning forward as she came around the turn with pink cheeks and hair flying out behind her. I wondered what her life is like now, and what mine will be like from now on. I wonder if Ben is happy.

“Molly!” Martha was saying as our horses picked their way through the old wet leaves.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m sorry, Martha, I didn’t hear you.”

“I said, You know you don’t have to do nothing you don’t want to, Molly. Nothing is wrote in stone.”

“I know that.” I am sick of people telling me what I ought to do or not do.

“Well, just as long as you do,” Martha said, and we rode along in silence as the sun came out, changing everything. Now the woods went from being a dark woodcut landscape in a Grimms fairy tale to the fairy tale itself. Suddenly the black trees stood swathed in a pale green mist made up of their own tiny new leaves and the rising ground fog, with here and there a cluster of purple judas or white dogwood or red sarvis blooming like a giant corsage. Freshets of water had burst out everywhere — running along the ditch beside us, spurting down the rocky cliff on our right, coursing across the road to run down the mountain on our left. The whole earth seemed to be stretching and yawning, waking up. A robin, back early, sat perched in the crook of a tree ahead, then flew away at our approach. I gulped in the cool moist air like I was drinking the Spring.

Roxy and Merle have a nice big two-room cabin with a plowed garden beside it, and beyond that we could see the new ground already cleared too, with men still gathered around a pile of burning brush.

They had hauled all the furniture out into the yard, filled with darting children and standing groups of people talking. Dance music poured out of the house, with every window and door wide open. It looked to me like the house itself was moving, literally shaking on its cornerstones.

“Why you don’t mean it’s them old Jarvises, down from Plain View!” Martha said.

“Who is that?” I asked, but she did not answer for then we were surrounded by people glad to see her. “Light and hitch,” they said, and helped to unpack the peach brandy and ginger cakes we had brought in our saddlebags. Roxy ran up and hugged us, big again, dragging a tiny little boy by the hand. “Say hello to Martha now, Troy,” she said, but he would not, hiding behind his mother’s skirts.
Oh Lord,
I thought.
In three weeks I will be married.
Martha carried Troy into the house where cornmeal had been thrown down on the wooden floors and both rooms were full of people dancing in the old style, stiff and mannerly above the waist but stomping and shuffling their feet too fast to see, flat-footing they call it up here.

An old hunchback fiddler crouched on a chair in the wide doorway
between the two rooms, grinning fiercely as he thumped his foot on the floor and sawed away on “Rock about My Saro Jane.” The words to this song are

Rock about my Saro Jane
Rock about my Saro Jane
We’ll lay around the shack
Till the mail train comes back
And rock about my Saro Jane.

I had to laugh — Agnes would NOT have approved! And Chattie doesn’t hold with dancing in any form. Martha Fickling set Troy down and jumped right into it, wagging one foot way up in the air while those around applauded, for she was a famous dancer. The old fiddler nodded and winked at her. A fair-haired young boy stood behind the old man, shy but obviously determined, singing right out. Now the floor was full.

“Come on in, Molly,” Martha yelled, and I joined them, for I have loved to dance ever since I was at Gatewood. I am good at it. They did “Goodbye Girls, I’m Going to Boston.” They did “Shady Grove” which I love even though it has such a mournful sound to it, like all the music does if you really listen to it.

Shady Grove, my little love,
Shady Grove I know
Shady Grove, my little love,
I’m bound for Shady Grove

Cheeks as red as a blooming rose
Eyes of the deepest brown
You are the darling of my heart
Stay till the sun goes down.

The sun was already down by that time, and they were building a great big fire out front when all of a sudden there was a commotion out in the yard and then in walked a man in a wide hat with a banjo slung across his
shoulder. “Hey, Jack! Yellowjack! Hey Jack! Jacky-O!” Everybody called out and fell back to make way as he crossed the dance floor. “Where the hell have you been?” the old man grumbled, but the man just grinned as he flung his buckskin coat down on the floor and started right in picking his banjo, jumping all around. He appeared to have no bones at all in his body. He was tall and skinny with yellow-red hair that fell forward into his eyes and a big nose and a wide crooked reckless grin, the kind of a face that you couldn’t quit looking at. He played that old knockdown two-finger way, and had a loud clear singing voice. He was the kind of man that made everybody feel better just because he had walked into the room. The dancing picked up, with several people whooping out now. The music went faster and faster. Martha had long since stopped, and stood fanning herself, but I wouldn’t have quit for anything.

I don’t know what got into me, Mary White, but it has
still
got into me!

After a while I noticed he was looking at me, I mean Jacky Jarvis, and he was still looking at me when he sang

I’ll tune up my fiddle and rosin my bow
And make myself welcome wherever I go.

I’ll buy my own whisky and make my own stew
If it does make me drunk it is nothing to you.

I’ll eat when I’m hungry and drink when I’m dry
If a tree don’t fall on me, I’ll live till I die.

They set lanterns in the windows and stirred up the fire in the hearth while I danced on, now with one, then another. Up there on Red Hill, there was nobody that knew I was engaged, nobody to whisper to each other that I should not be dancing. The old man called out the dances in a high singsong voice. “All hands up and go to the left. Corners turn and sash-i-ate. First couple cage the bird with three arms around. Bird hop out and hoot owl in, three arms around and hooting again!” I didn’t know what I was doing but it
was all right and it was the most fun I have had since Henderson went back to Salisbury.

Finally they quit playing, and I was dying for air. I pushed my way outside where the cold night was filled with the smell of smoke and coffee. The big fire blazed. “Here, honey.” Somebody handed me a tin cup with coffee and whisky in it. Now they had put a table of food out there too, but I couldn’t eat for the stitch in my side from dancing. I stood back in the trees away from the fire and sipped at the cup. My hair was falling all down my back and my blouse was wet clear through from dancing.

“My name is Jacky Jarvis,” he said into my ear, “and I’ve been looking for you all my life.”

I whirled around. “That’s a lie,” I cried. “You never even heard of me before.” His breath on my neck gave me the shivers.

“But I been dreaming about you every night,” he said. “So I knowed you right off. Maybe I just dreamed you up.” His face was real close to mine, he was grinning such a wide devil-may-care grin that he made me dizzy.

“Oh, is that a fact?” I said, stepping back from him. “Well, too bad, you’re too late.” I held up my hand and my ring caught the firelight, winking at him.

He gave a long low whistle through his teeth. “Mighty fine ring,” he said. “Who is the lucky feller?”

“Nobody you know.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said, looking at me. He kept on looking at me until I couldn’t breathe.

“Molly!” Martha called, peering across the fire. “Come on, honey, we’ve got to go.” I knew she couldn’t see me back there in the dark.

He touched my elbow. “Listen, I’m coming to see you tomorrow.”

“You are not,” I said. “You haven’t been invited. You don’t know where I live. You don’t even know who I am.”

He smiled out from under the brim of his hat. “I’ll find out. I’ll give you your own private music show.”

“Molly,” Martha was calling.

I turned to go, then turned back. “Don’t come tomorrow,” I said. “Come Sunday.”

Then I ran around the circle and grabbed Martha and said, “Here I am,” and we set off through the night on our horses with a burning pine knot to light our way. Martha rode ahead with it flickering. “That Jacky Jarvis is a natural antic, ain’t he?” she said over her shoulder. “But them Jarvises are purely no good. They never have been any good, the whole lot of them. They run a store up there on the Tennessee line, there is a whole bunch of them up there. It’s a sight. Folks come from all around for dances. Why I used to go up there myself, time was . . .” and then she was off and running, giving me the lowdown on everybody else who had been at the dance but I didn’t even listen after she quit on the Jarvises. “Oh, is that right?” I said, riding, or, “I’ll swear,” whenever she slowed down. I was humming under my breath all the way, my whole head full of music. It was real late when we got in.

Oh Mary White, he is insolent. I like him and I don’t, I feel like running down the mountain drooping trees the way we used to at Agate Hill but you know I am always still your

Molly

Monday, April 14, 1883

Dear Mary White,

On Sunday I lay in the girls’ bed and watched them all pack up to go to the annual Association meeting. This would take place down on the river at the Pine Swamp Church near Windfall, with dinner on the ground and singing afterward. They would take the wagon, and Cicero Todd was to come with his wagon too, as they were carrying food, and quilts, and all the children, and picking up old Memorable Jones on the way. “Oh, I hate for you to miss it!” Chattie cried, for it was the highlight of her year. She had been cooking for days.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay here with you?” Agnes asked, though she had already put on her hat.

“Oh no, I will be fine,” I told her. I was claiming female troubles. But in all truth, by then I couldn’t decide if I really was sick, or just acting sick, I felt so “strange-like,” as Hattie would have put it. “Don’t worry,” I told them as they went out the door. “I’ll make sure Granny Took gets something to eat while you’re gone.”

The minute they left, I jumped up and heated some water on the stove and washed my hair and sat down to let it dry over a chairback near the fire.

“Good morning, Granny,” I said to Granny Took, who was watching me out from under her pile of coverlets. She has not spoken for months now.

I knew he wouldn’t come but I was nervous as a cat anyway, watching out the window. I could hear the grandfather clock ticking, and the crackle of the fire. Pale sun slanted across Chattie’s bright rag rugs.

“Hidy.” Suddenly he was behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders. I had not seen him come out of the woods, nor heard him open the door.