To Make My Bread (18 page)

He left Emma to think it over.

In the morning to John's surprise Basil got out of bed in a long white shirt that he must have put on the night before to sleep in. John ducked his head under the quilt to hush up a laugh. For Basil looked very queer with the white garment hanging around him, and his long legs showing through the slits in the sides. What else, John thought, would they find Basil had learned at that school?

The day before Basil left, Emma took the picture of Kirk from the trunk where she had laid it after the funeral. Around it was wrapped a piece of black cloth. She unwound the cloth and gave the picture to Basil who held it to the light.

“I wrote Granpap,” he said.

Emma had thought Basil would never speak of Kirk. She had waited for three days. At last she had to bring out the picture to remind him.

“Yes,” Basil said. “Granpap knows.” He looked at the picture again. “He could have done what I'm doing, if he'd wanted,” he said.

“He was a good boy,” Emma answered quickly. She found herself defending Kirk against Basil. And feeling so she took the picture out of Basil's hand.

“He was a good boy,” she repeated.

“Yes, he was good,” Basil agreed. “But he didn't have any ambition.”

John was looking over Emma's shoulder at the picture. He heard the word that Basil used. It was one he had never heard before. At the moment he wished very much to ask Basil the meaning, but, like Emma, he stood in awe of his brother. So he repeated the word to himself and laid it up to remember at another time when he could find out the meaning from someone else.

When the first frost came, John felt a new sensation. It was a fear and dread of winter. He had known before what it was to lack food in the cold days. But there were the all powerful grown-up people who could somehow replenish the meal sack and fill his belly again. Now, since Basil had refused to stay and was back in the school, the responsibility was on the boy. Emma knew how to work. Often, like all the women she knew, she did a man's work while the men sat and talked. But Jim McClure and Granpap after him had taken the responsibility of filling the meal sack and the fatback box. So for these things Emma, without knowing she was doing so, leaned on John. And John felt her. At first he had wanted to shake her off and shake off the responsibility she put on him. But he found this could not be done, and all at once he accepted the burden that lay on his shoulders as if it was a hump that had grown there. Each day that carried them further into the winter took some of their food. The meal bag was flat. John went about looking quiet and thoughtful. Emma had given in to Basil about selling the land, but the money had not come from Swain.

“What would ye do, John?” Emma asked. They had only Basil's statement when he was there in the summer that he meant to sell, and that Hal would give them a first payment. That was very little to go on. It would be hard to go up to Hal and say, “Hand us the money, Hal,” for Swain might well tell them he had decided not to buy, or Basil might not have sold. It was all very vague.

They still had potatoes and a few cabbages, though these were half rotten. If the winter had been severe, with heavy snows, there would have been no hope for them except in going to Hal. And toward the last of the winter when the food was gone this became their only chance to survive. The potatoes were down to the last layer in the trench. Emma showed them to John. Then John knew he must go to Hal. He must stand up to Hal and ask for the money. There had been much hesitation in him. And it was so easy to put off an unpleasant thing. Emma had been expecting John to go and talk with Hal. Perhaps even she herself did not know that she was expecting the boy to take the responsibility. But there it was. And John knew that he must make the effort. He said to himself, “The day the last potato's in the trench I'll go.” That would be two days, perhaps three, in the future. And the future was a long time ahead.

On the second day of John's waiting Hal Swain sent word by Frank McClure that Granpap was free. He would get back on the third day. But Granpap came on the second day. Bonnie and John were on the hillside getting wood, gathering up rotten pieces that had fallen from the dead trees. Emma was down with the baby in the cabin. The young ones had a pile of dead sticks and logs not far above the trail. Bonnie wiped her sweaty little face on her dress skirt. Though the air was cold they had been exerting themselves to get in a large pile of wood for Granpap's coming.

“I'll tote some wood to the cabin now,” Bonnie said. “Hit's time for supper.” She kneeled down and picked up an armful. “Lay on some more,” she said to John.

“That's all you can carry,” John told her.

“Hit's not all,” Bonnie insisted. “Now, John, you lay on some more.” When he had piled up some sticks clear to her chin he had to steady her while she staggered up. He saw her go off down the hill pretty evenly for the load she was carrying, and went back to get an armful for himself. He heard a kind of groan, a queer sound come from Bonnie, and looking down he saw the wood fall out of her arms. She was standing near the trail. He ran down, thinking she was having some kind of woman's spell. He might have known she was taking too much on herself. At the trail he stood behind her and looked where she was looking, up the trail. Coming toward them was a tall old figure. It stooped and walked slowly.

“Hit must be Granpap,” Bonnie said. Still they hung back behind a laurel bush until they could be sure. The person did not walk with Granpap's fine stride. As he came nearer they saw it was Granpap, and broke through the underbrush onto the trail. They stood waiting until he came up.

“Why, hit's John and Bonnie,” Granpap said and laid a hand on each of them. Except for his slow movements it was as if he had been gone only a little while. His voice at least was familiar, though it had the familiar sound of Granpap when he was smoking before the fire, and not of Granpap who walked in the woods.

Emma saw them from the cabin. She had the baby in her arms and without stopping to put it down, came fast along the trail. She met them at the spring. There they stood, Emma and Granpap, and looked at each other. Emma felt at Granpap with her eyes. She saw that his head drooped and he looked up as a child does when it is ashamed or angry.

“Hit's a long time,” Emma said. She was heavy in herself because Granpap was thin and pale as white clay, and his manner was listless.

“Yes, hit's been a long time.”

At the cabin when they had got Granpap into a chair, Emma took John aside. “Go to Ora's,” she said, “and ask her for the loan of some meal, and a mite of coffee, if she has it.”

Granpap had come a day too early. The neighbors had planned to meet him at the store on the next day. He had half expected this, and had fixed his mouth for a drink or two. But when he reached the store even Hal was not there. Hal was up the valley looking at some land, and only Sally was in to welcome Granpap. At the Martins' cabin in Possum Hollow it was the same. Jim Martin was up the valley with Hal. But Jennie gave Granpap a welcome, and a drink of cider.

Emma saw Granpap watching the baby as it lay in the log cradle. In a way, because of its mother, it had been the reason for Kirk's death. But she knew that Granpap would not blame this child for its mother's sins, and would no more think of turning it out than he would think of cutting off his finger. The child needed care, and circumstances had given it to them. So they took it as naturally as they would have taken a child of Emma's.

She knew Granpap was thinking of Kirk. “Kirk's in the burying ground by Jim,” she told him.

“Sam McEachern must pay for that,” Granpap said. It was what the others had told her, and she answered Granpap what she had answered them.

“He's a long way off.”

“Yes,” Granpap answered, but not as if he believed this. For when he left Sam McEachern was very strongly established in the community.

Emma took the picture of Kirk wrapped in the black cloth from the trunk. She unwrapped the picture and showed it to Granpap. Along with it she took Basil's letter. This she knew by heart, and though she could not read, she said the words to Granpap as if she was reading the ink-writing on the paper.

Granpap looked at Kirk's picture a long time. Emma waited for him to speak of Kirk, but he gave the picture back without a word. She told him of Basil's visit in the summer, holding back the principal thing that had happened. She could not tell Granpap that Basil had wanted to sell the cabin.

When John returned he found Granpap and Emma sitting together before the fire. Bonnie was on the floor beside Granpap. She would not leave his side. Behind John came Ora and Frank with all their young ones. Ora had the baby in her arms. John and Young Frank carried some provisions.

“We have all had our supper,” Ora said. “This is for Granpap and nobody else.” She had brought coffee enough for everyone, that is, if plenty of water was added to the grounds. Best of all Frank brought Granpap a bottle of drink. It was lucky, he said, that he had been to Barren She Mountain the day before. He had gotten the stuff then to take down to the store for Granpap's homecoming. It was just as well for Granpap to have it a little early. Granpap thought so, too. And Emma was glad it was there. The drink made Granpap lift his head. His eyes sparkled and a flush came into his cheeks. It was good to see him look like his old self, or near to his old self again.

Granpap had his good meal that Emma cooked. And what he did not eat the young ones disposed of very quickly. Ora's youngest were everywhere until Bonnie got them onto the bed, lined up in an orderly row. She enjoyed telling them what to do, and making them comfortable on the bed with a quilt thrown over them. She seemed to have a knack for making people comfortable.

No one spoke of prison. They had all shut down their mouths on the prison and swallowed it up. Later when Granpap was ready to talk of it, they would bring it back and chew on his experiences there, along with Granpap, as a cow chews on her cud. Now it was down out of sight.

There was a sound of footsteps outside the door, and in came Jennie Martin and Jim. Later Fraser McDonald and Jesse came. Until everyone got settled in chairs or on the floor, there was a bustle in the cabin, a sound of people moving around that had not been there for a long time. Granpap became livelier every moment. Jim and Fraser had brought their jugs along, too.

John saw Granpap look up at the back wall where the fiddle hung.

“Hand me the fiddle and bow,' Granpap said. And John reached up easily for them, he had grown so much in the last year. While the men talked Granpap sat there feeling out on the fiddle. Sometimes he touched a string. Then he twisted a peg and bent his ear to hear better.

Bonnie and Ora's Sally were perched on the trunk. They looked rosy and hearty in the light from the fire.

“Sally's getting to be real pretty,” Granpap said. “She'll be having beaus before the year's out.”

“Sally's already a-courting,” Young Frank said.

“Shet up,” Sally called out to Frank. This was too much, with Jesse sitting in the same room.

Granpap spoke to John. “Give me that rosin off the shelf, Johnny.”

The rosin was covered with dust. Granpap wiped it on the seat of his jeans, and when he had rosined the bow tucked the fiddle under his chin. Emma put her cup of coffee down on the table and watched. It seemed they were living as they had before, and maybe Kirk had just stepped outside and Basil was in the other room.

The Martins and McDonalds left early. Ora and Frank, who lived nearer, stayed longer to hear Granpap play the fiddle. It was late when Ora got all her young ones roused and was ready to start out. Bonnie and Sally were in a corner giggling.

“Come on, Sally,” Ora said. “What devilment are you two a-making up?”

There was another spell of giggling and some whispers in the dark corner before Sally came out and followed the rest. A little later, Bonnie, lying in the bed, half listened to Emma and Granpap talk, and thought her own thoughts. Sally had told how Jesse McDonald had kissed her on the cheek the other night just outside the door. And Ora and Frank were sitting inside. She was afraid they heard the smack, it was so loud. Bonnie thought, “I'm a woman almost.” She wondered how it would feel to get a smack on the cheek. Half in her sleep she made a silly little rhyme, “A smack on the cheek is better than to eat.” The next moment she was ashamed of this thought and hid it far down in herself. The shame waked her up.

In front of the fire Granpap spoke to Emma. “Frank says ye've sold the place.”

“He told me he wasn't sure it was sold,” Emma said. “I asked him. I'm not sure yet.”

“He's sure, now,” Granpap said. “For he sold his own to-day.”

“I thought ye wouldn't be out till next year,” Emma said. “I needed the money for the young ones.”

“Was hit Basil persuaded ye?”

Emma was silent.

“Ye needn't answer. I know it was Basil.”

“It was McClure land, Pap. And Basil the oldest.”

“And he's sold his birthright,” Granpap said loud and fierce, “for a mess of pottage. What if ye are poor, Emma, if ye have your own land?”

“Basil said so long as Hal Swain owns the land here we stay rent free.”

“And what Basil didn't say was this. There's a big saw mill a-coming . . .”

Emma broke in. “We've heard saw mill talk for a long while, and nothing come of hit.”

“This time hit's true,” Granpap insisted. “Hit's true as I'm living, Emma. Hal Swain and Sally together have bought up all the land around. And they're selling out to the saw mill. Hit's to be on Laurel Creek just below Fraser McDonald's. And nobody knew. Hal Swain began buying up quiet, promising everybody they could stay on the land. Have you got your money, yet?”

“Not yet. Basil's t' send it soon as he gets hit from Swain. I aimed to have it for winter, but it hasn't come yet.”