Pamela Morsi (12 page)

Eulie stared at him in thoughtful silence.

“Texas?” she spoke the word finally, almost in disbelief. “I don’t want to go to Texas. I don’t want to go anywhere without my family.”

Moss felt as if she had slugged him in the gut. The pain of the bite on his face was nothing to what he felt at the loss of his dream.

“Don’t set your heart against it right away,” he pleaded. “Give yourself some time to think about it. We can’t leave any time soon anyway. I’ve got to see Uncle Jeptha through and your brother and sisters have got to get out and make their way in the world. It’s not as if I’m asking you to leave tomorrow.”

“No,” she told him. “I couldn’t leave tomorrow.” She considered the idea thoughtfully. “I couldn’t leave my family, not never.”

She looked over at him. He saw the truth in her eyes.

“But you could leave,” she said, her expression
lightening as she became infused with enthusiasm. “You could leave tomorrow.”

“What?”

“It’s a perfect idea, perfect,” she said. “We’re your family now, so you won’t have to stay here.”

“What are you talking about?” Moss asked, totally confused.

Eulie dragged up the other chair and seated herself excitedly.

“You’ve been waiting here, unable to leave because you have responsibilities,” she said. “You are the only kin Jeptha Barnes has in the world.”

“That’s right.”

“But you are not anymore.”

“Not anymore what?”

“Not his only family anymore,” she said. “We’re your family, so he’s our kin.”

“What are you saying?”

“I was honest with you about why I … why I forced you into this marriage,” she said. “I needed a place for me and my youngers to be together and I thought that I could work hard to make you happy. And now see how well things have worked out?”

Moss didn’t see at all and said so.

Eulie explained. “Us Tobys, we can tend your place, your oh-so-pretty place here by the river. And we can take care of your uncle, provide for him just as you would, while you go west.”

Moss looked at her, stunned, not quite believing what he was hearing.

“Everybody gets what they want,” she said. “And we’ll all live happily ever after.”

E
ULIE
made her family eat a cold breakfast. She brought the leftover ham and greens from the party. The pone was so hard it crumbled like crackers, but they used it to sop up what they could.

“Nine eggs,” Nora May said with a sigh, referring to the morning’s gathering.

“And we don’t get to eat a one of them,” Cora Fay chimed in.

“Those eggs will be just as good for midday or supper and you’ll enjoy them just as well.”

“I don’t see why we can’t go to the kitchen,” Rans complained. “Just ‘cause your husband’s crapulous we got to eat cold vittles.”

“Mr. Collier is not crapulous,” Eulie said firmly. “He … suffered an injury last night.”

Rans looked up, stunned and defensive. “I didn’t know where he was walking. I had nothing to do with it.”

Eulie was puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer.

“What’s crapulous?” Little Minnie asked her. Her sausage curls of the night before were still bouncing on the right side of her head On the left, however, they
were completely flat, giving her a strangely off-balance appearance.

Rans answered for her. “Crapulous means he got drunk last night and he’s sick this morning.”

“That’s enough,” Uncle Jeptha said firmly. “Your sister is too young to need to know everything you do.”

Eulie was surprised that the older man’s admonition had the effect it did. Typically anytime Rans was ordered to do something, he commenced immediately to do the opposite. This morning he accepted the setdown with respectful silence.

“Well,” Little Minnie said, “if he’s sick abed, at least he don’t got to eat no cold greens and compone.”

Eulie expected further protest from her sister. To her surprise the child began to giggle to herself.

“I got a secret. I got a secret,” she began in a singsong taunt. “I got a secret. Nobody here knows but me.”

“What kind of secret?” Cora Fay asked.

“I cain’t tell you,” Little Minnie said. “I cain’t say nothing at all. Nothing at all, yet.”

“You cain’t say nothing
yet
?” Nora May asked with heightened curiosity. “What does that mean? That you will say something soon?”

Little Minnie gave her a tight-lipped grin designed to be especially annoying.

“It means I know and you have to wait to find out.”

“So when are we gonna find out?” Cora Fay demanded.

Little Minnie ignored the question. “What’s my name? Puddin’ Tane. Ask me again and I’ll tell ye the same.”

“You could give us a hint,” Cora Fay told her.

Little Minnie thought about that for a minute.

“All right,” she said. “The hint is: I won’t ever eat cold ham and greens again.”

“What kind of hint is that?” Nora May asked complainingly.

“The kind that you’ll never guess,” her younger sister replied and stuck out her tongue.

“None of that, Minnie June Toby, or I’ll be cutting a switch!” Eulie threatened.

“Better not,” the child replied. “They’s some folks that really wouldn’t like that.”

Clara touched Eulie’s arm and gave a little shake of her head as if to say,
Just ignore her.

Eulie decided to do just that. She couldn’t imagine a brighter, happier day. She’d always heard that a woman’s wedding day was the best. For herself, she decided the best was the day she lost a husband and gained a farm.

“Twins, I need you to visit Miz Patch today,” she said.

The two girls exchanged a delighted glance.

“We get to see her again today!” Nora May said.

“And we only saw her last night!” her sister chimed in.

“I need you to borrow some chervil,” Eulie told them. “I used the last of it. And tell her that the herb box is nearly empty, so I’ll take anything she’s got abundant to part with.”

The twins were clearly pleased and excited, almost too much so to finish their breakfast.

“Maybe you should go with them, Uncle Jeptha,” Eulie said. “It would do you good to get away from the cabin. You could get to know the twins a little better.”

The man looked at her dumbfounded.

“I never go places,” he said.

“Well, that was before. That harness we used to get Old Hound to draw the plow would work just as well with the twins to pull you,” Eulie said.

“Of course we can,” Nora May assured him. “And the weather’s fine and the wildflowers in bloom.”

“No,” the man said, simply.

“You should get out, see people,” Cora Fay said. “Don’t you like to go a-visiting?”

“No, I sure don’t,” Jeptha said with certainty. “There ain’t a soul in the world that I want to see.”

“That’s why you should start with Miz Patch,” Nora May told him. “She’s real easy to talk to. Folks say she don’t never meet a stranger.”

“And she ain’t even a stranger to you,” Cora Fay pointed out. “Miz Patch said last night that she knows you.”

“She did, did she?” Jeptha shrugged. “She ain’t so much as laid eyes on me in more that twenty years. I don’t expect she knows me too well.”

“She admired your weaving,” Nora May said.

“That’s right,” her sister agreed. “She said she couldn’t believe that Jeptha Barnes could do such painstaking work.”

Clearly that statement didn’t set well with the man at all. His eyes narrowed angrily. For a moment Eulie feared he would snap at the twins. But his fury was directed elsewhere.

“Then that proves how long it’s been since she’s seen me,” he said. “And if she is thinking me lazy or slothful, then she never did know me at all.”

“Oh, I think she was just surprised, Uncle Jeptha,”
Cora Fay said “It’s really fine and tight. I don’t suspect she could do no better herself.”

“Won’t you come with us?” Nora May begged. “We are very strong and we can be real careful with your cart.”

“No, girls,” Jeptha said. “But I thank ye for the invite. Today I’m going to wheel myself on down by the river and catch me a big old trout.”

He turned to Rans. “What about you, boy? It’s too wet to hoe that garden today. Want to help me catch us some supper that your sister cain’t feed to us cold?”

Eulie watched her brother’s face. His expression went from half-sour to nearly ecstatic. It was such a small thing, a polite gesture from one man to another, but it meant so much to him. Eulie didn’t really understand her brother. His need for respect and his craving for other people’s high opinion was the kind of thing that she’d never wanted for herself. But then, all she’d ever needed was a home of her own and all her family around her.

The men went off together, Uncle Jeptha on the worn-flat pathway propelling the wheeled cart forward with the two wooden oars against the ground, Rans near him at the side of the path. They headed to the storage shed where, Uncle Jeptha assured him, fishing poles hung in the rafters.

The twins finished up their meals hastily and hurried to wash hands and faces and put on their bonnets.

“Do you want us to take Little Minnie with us?” Cora Fay asked.

“I’m not going,” their sister stated flatly. “That old woman is always trying to put me to work. I don’t have to work. I’m a princess.”

Eulie exchanged an exasperated look with Clara, who rolled her eyes.

“You twins go on by yourself,” she told them. “I’m sure you’ll have more fun without your sister along.”

The last she added with a pointed glance toward Little Minnie. But the child was beyond caring what any of her sisters thought. She’d already retrieved the doll that Mrs. Pierce had given her and she was devoting all her attention in that direction.

That was all right with Eulie as long as the child kept herself occupied and out of trouble. She and Clara gathered up all the dishes and piled them into the dishpan. Eulie didn’t want to take them into the kitchen for fear that she would awaken the husband-man.

She was so excited about their new life. But still she felt terrible about biting him that way. It all just happened so quickly and she was only half-awake when he’d asked her to obey her husband. He’d told her that he wasn’t going to do any of that. Eulie shook her head. Miz Patch must have been right: Menfolk do find a way to forgive.

It hadn’t been so dreadful, really. It had hurt some when he’d tried to put his big thing inside her, but not so bad that she would have stopped him if it hadn’t been for his words about the youngers.

In a way, though, she regretted stopping him. He was her husband, till death to part. It was kind of sad to think that he’d be leaving for Texas in a day or two and she’d never get to find out for sure what obeying her husband was truly like. Perhaps it was better. What you never have, you never miss, she reminded herself. Already she thought she might miss that kissing and the feel of his hands on her.

She sighed.

“What are you thinking about that has you sounding so melancholy?” Clara asked her.

“Oh, I’m not dreary at all,” Eulie answered quickly. “I’ve never been happier in my life. Really. I’ve never been happier.”

Clara seemed unconvinced, but Eulie didn’t even try to persuade her. Her own thoughts kept her occupied.

He had been so sweet about the bite. She didn’t know herself if she would have been that kind about it. Preacher Thompson had worried that he might be one of those beating men. If ever such a temperament were tested, it was last night. And except for a few words of near-cursing, he’d been a saint. Just exactly the kind of man that she would have liked to marry if she’d been in a position to marry whomever she liked. But then, she did like him. And they were married. He was leaving. So they’d both be happy. Her thoughts were a little confused.

She shook her head and glanced over at her sister. Clara appeared to be as deeply lost in thought as Eulie had been herself.

“We sure cain’t sit here ruminating the morning away,” she said.

Clara looked up and blushed, almost embarrassed at getting caught with her mind so far away.

“Let’s get started,” she agreed.

Working side by side, the two commenced the weekly wash. They laid a fire in the outside pit on the narrow bar of rocky limestone that extended out into edge of the river and began the task of filling the big black cauldron with water. Eulie, the end of her skirts
tucked into her apron sash to keep them dry, dipped the wooden bucket and then handed it up to her sister, who poured it in and handed it back. It took better than thirty buckets to fill the wash pot.

Lifting the buckets up out of the river caused considerable strain on Eulie’s arms and back. Clara offered to trade places with her when the cauldron was half-full, but she declined.

“I don’t mind, truly,” Eulie said. “The joy of working with my sister instead of some stranger makes any work seem light.”

Clara rolled her eyes skeptically at that remark. But there was no arguing that it was fun for both of them to be together again.

Clara was more shy than her sister. Eulie’s forceful personality and sunny disposition had always made her stand out. Clara was the quiet, pretty one, folks said. Most remained unaware of her very dry sense of wit. She rarely told anything that could be considered a funny story. But she knew exactly how to add the right word or the right phrase to an ordinary situation to have those closest to her doubled over in hilarity.

There was a lot of laughter between them this morning.

As the required water heated over the flame, they began to gather up the wash. The day looked sunny and fair, so they decided that anything would have time to dry. And because they had no idea of when the last thorough washing had occurred on the Collier farm, and the evidence suggested it wasn’t recently, they determined to wash every stitch of clothing, linen, and bedding they could lay their hands on. With her husband leaving for the West in the next few days,
it was paramount that everything be cleaned and ready for him to go.

The women divided the tasks required. Each item was boiled with lye soap for several minutes in the hot cauldron. Clara rapidly punched the clothes with a wooden paddle. Anything with spots, stains, or dirt that resisted this treatment was lifted over to Eulie’s washtub, where it was scrubbed on the rub board. Eulie worked methodically. She laid the dirty item on the board, lathered a spot with soap, and gave it a half dozen rapid passes up and down the board before she turned it and lathered up a different place.

After washing, the clothes had to be thoroughly rinsed of soap residue, which tended to irritate the skin and wore out the fabric before its time. The swishing was the easiest part, except for the necessity of standing in the water and the danger of having clothing get away and float out into the river.

The two women wrung out the clothes together, each taking the end of a garment and twisting it in the direction opposite the other. There was no clothesline on the Collier farm, so the women hung what they could on the bushes around the bank and carried the rest of the heavy wet wash up the slope to dry on the garden fence.

The lengths of damp clothes drying in the morning sun grew longer and longer. Eulie smiled with some self-satisfaction. It was important for a woman to keep her family clean. The husband-man had even expressed concern about that yesterday. He would be so very proud of her and Clara this morning. He would be so impressed by how much they’d managed to get done.

“I saw some blackberry in bloom over near the stand of hemlock,” Clara told her.

Eulie was delighted. The bushes, eye-catching in bloom, were notoriously hard to spot at berry-picking time, when they became a tangle of overgrowth and vines protectively concealing their fruit.

“We’ll go by and mark it,” Eulie suggested. “Then we’ll know exactly where to head in summer, with our pails in hand and our mouths watering.”

Clara giggled at her.

“With all the apple trees and cherry and plums around here,” Eulie pointed out, “we are going to live very sweet. There will always be something to savor.”

Her sister nodded in agreement and gave her a big hug. “It’ll be a lot different than our place on Timber Top,” Clara said, referring to their very worst sharecrop residence several years earlier.

Eulie laughed and shook her head, recalling the abysmal condition. “I’ll never forget Timber Top,” she said. “I still can’t imagine what Daddy was thinking, taking us to live there. I couldn’t decide if we were going to freeze to death or starve first.”