To Make My Bread (2 page)

She did not learn until later that the steer and cow were lost, for as soon as her anxiety for Granpap and the boys was over, Emma felt a first sharp pain and knew that her time had come. Inside the cabin with the door shut she crouched over the fire trying to get some of the warmth of it into her body. The icy wind had reached the very marrow of her bones.

The hickory log fire shone on her twisted face, and on the form that protruded from her belly in an oval shape. It seemed as if the child in her womb had already been born and was lying wrapped up in her lap asleep.

On the floor at Emma's right eight-year-old Kirk lay and stared into the fire, and between them in a poplar log cradle Bonnie, the youngest, whimpered in her sleep. On the other side of the fire, Basil, who was a year older than Kirk, sat against the chimney, his legs spread out before him on the floor.

The wind sniffed at the doors and blew gusts of icy breath through the cracks of the log cabin. Clothes hanging to pegs on the walls flapped out into the room, making strange balancing movements. If the wind died down for a moment they suddenly collapsed against the wall as a man does who gives up the struggle to keep on his drunken legs.

In the half darkness of the small space between the circle of firelight and the end wall of the cabin, John Kirkland walked the floor. His boots stamped on the split-log flooring regularly, hesitating when he turned at the wall and again when he turned just behind Emma's chair.

Granpap Kirkland's life had been full of varied experiences. A fight with a she bear had left three long scars across his right cheek, and there was a scar on his side from a wound received in battle. He was not a fearful man by nature. But he had known fear and dread in the last few moments since he knew that some time in the night he must deliver Emma of her child.

Emma instructed Granpap. She took his thumb for a measure. The cord must be cut so far from the child. Neither of them had much fear for Emma. She was a strong woman. A few months before, just after Jim McClure died of fever and before Granpap had come to stay with her, Emma, then five months gone with child, had carried the best part of a thirty-pound shoat the twelve miles over steep mountain trails to Swain's Crossing. Nevertheless her children always came hard, and Emma knew there would be plenty of pain even before the child made its final struggle.

Bonnie cried out loud. Emma walked to the wall where the clothes hung and took down a pair of old jeans. She tucked them into the cradle around the child. Back in the chair with her foot against the cradle she set it rocking slowly, and the child quieted for a moment.

The old man came and stood behind Emma. His shoulders were bowed a little, but he was very tall, and stood high above her.

“Do you think it'll be soon, Emma?” he asked. His voice was anxious and querulous.

Emma did not answer. She knew he wanted it over and done with. But so did she. There was no way to hurry the child.

“Are you going to bed?” he asked. She straightened up.

“When hit's time, Pap. Hit's s' cold there.”

The wind slapped against the cabin and snarled down the chimney. Snow blew in under the north door and spread over the floor in a hurry and flurry like an unwelcome guest who is trying to make himself at home.

During one of the quiet times between the pains Emma took the coffee pot from the fire and poured out a drink for each one in the tin cups. Above the kerosene lamp on the table strings of dried apples hanging from the rafters stirred and as the lamp flame gutted and flared up the apple strings made long crooked shadows across the bed in the corner.

“Hit'll warm up our backs,” Emma said and handed the cups. She walked over and picked up the water bucket that was in a dark corner behind Kirk.

“Here, Kirk,” she said. “Hold the pan.”

The water was frozen. Emma broke through the ice with her fist. When she poured it out of the bucket it clinked against the bottom of the tin basin. She set the basin down in the ashes against the live embers.

“You'll need the hot water,” she said to Granpap. As she gulped down the warm coffee she wished in herself there was a woman who would know what to do without telling. And she wished the men were where they belonged when a woman was in travail—somewhere out on the mountains or at a neighbor's. There was a shame in having her sons near, and Granpap must see her as he had not seen her since she was a naked baby in her mother's arms. Soon, maybe, it would be over. The pains had begun to get worse, as if it was the end.

In the bed away from the others, Emma let go. She was shaking with cold yet the quilts and her cotton flannel skirt were too much and she pushed them off. Sitting up in bed she pressed down slowly with her hands over the great lump stirring inside. Others had done this for her before to help the child come. She found that she could not do it for herself. The hot pulling cramp forced her to lie back and scream again. A bear was gnawing at her belly, pulling at the muscles with its strong teeth. She felt its fur on her face and beat at the fur with her arms.

It was Granpap's beard. He was trying to tell her to keep covered as long as she could. She pushed him off. It was not possible to bear the agony of one hair touching her. There was no Granpap and no children now. Nothing mattered but herself and the pain.

Bonnie kept up a fretful wail, and Granpap walked up and down the room. Outside the storm brushed against the cabin as if all the trees on the mountains had been uprooted and their dry branches were scraping over the roof and against the outside walls.

Kirk was quiet. Now he stood with his back to the chimney, watching the comer with frightened eyes. Suddenly Emma cried out sharply to Granpap. He stooped over the bed and peered down.

“Bring the lamp, Kirk,” he ordered. “And you, Basil, put that pan of water and bucket on the table.”

He rolled up his sleeves and walking quickly to the fire leaned far over to rub his cold hands in the flames.

Kirk held the lamp over the bed and kept his eyes on Granpap. On the bed was a woman he did not recognize as his mother. She was a stranger, a sort of beast. Granpap stood between him and the new thing, and he kept his eyes on the wide back where Granpap's old shirt and patched jeans were familiar and safe. Kirk saw the old man bending over working with his hands at Emma's body and he smelled blood. It made a familiar shudder run over him. Granpap bending over the bed was like a man bending over at a slaughtering and Emma's last cries were the same as those of a pig with a knife at its throat.

For a while Kirk had not heard the storm because Emma's cries were closer than the sounds outside. But when they stopped there was the storm again, wheezing around the cabin and pushing at the door. When Granpap at last stood up he held in his hands something that looked to be a mass of blood and matter. But it was really a living thing. For as Granpap shook it the mass made a wailing sound—a sort of echo of the storm outside.

There was washing to be done, and Kirk stood and held the lamp until the old man finished. At last Granpap covered Emma where she lay exhausted on the dry side of the cold bed. Then he put the washed baby in the cradle with Bonnie to keep it warm until Emma would come to and let it suck.

T
HROUGH
the summer of 1906 Granpap made mysterious journeys across the mountains. He was absent for days at a time. With the bags of corn the McEacherns had sprouted on his back, the old man climbed South Range and down again into another state. On the other side at a certain place the corn was ground and Granpap walked back again with the sweet meal. Here the mash was made into ferment and distilled.

The revenue men were thick through the mountains. If Granpap was caught with the sprouted corn he would be arrested. And he got very little money for the risk. The McEacherns took most of the money because they owned the still and peddled the liquor. That, of course, was most dangerous, for it meant going down into the outside. They had tried to persuade Granpap to peddle. But they had offered him little more money than he got for carrying the sprouted corn and mash. He had insisted that if he took the greatest risk he must get at least half the money. And they had refused. Only they promised him half a jug of liquor. This was not to be sneezed at, for the McEachern liquor was the best made in that part of the country. But Granpap enjoyed walking over the hills, though sometimes it meant climbing in the night across South Range. And he hated going to the outside, into the towns. If he did that part he must be properly paid for the risk and discomfort.

Emma knew the risks Granpap was running and each time he left the cabin for his journey she became weary and cross. For the smallest reason she threatened John with a hickory. Or she said to Bonnie, “I'll slap ye over.” She never carried out her threats, but they made the cabin an uncomfortable place.

Hoeing time was over and it was not yet the season for shucking corn and getting the potatoes in. John and Bonnie played in the cove. They used moss and rocks for a house. Under a large walnut tree they outlined a room with rocks, and left an open space for a door through which they carefully walked each time they wished to go in or out. There was a bed made of moss. Later John added another room. Granpap was planning to add a room to their own cabin in the fall. He had promised that John might help to get the logs down from the mountain. And when the room was finished, instead of sleeping in the bed with the women while Granpap slept on the floor with Kirk and Basil, John was to sleep in the new room in one of the two homemade beds with Granpap. Emma was already preparing the tops for some new quilts from pieces she had accumulated in the old trunk. The money Granpap was earning would buy cotton for the inside of the coverings.

Whenever John thought of the two new experiences ahead of him a feeling of excitement ran through him. In anticipation of the events he outlined the other room under the tree with rocks and made a large bed of moss for himself. While he was building he spat frequently, like a man.

Something happened about this time that made the two children keep close to the cabin. They had lost interest in the play cabin and went further away from the clearing. Emma had warned them about rattlers, and both knew the sound of a diamond back. A skin hung on the wall of the cabin beside Granpap's fiddle. There was a long finger's length of rattles. If the skin was shaken hard enough the queer shaped little compartments made their peculiar sound.

Stories of people getting snake-bit were swapped across the hearth when Ora and Frank McClure were at the cabin, or Jennie Martin and her husband. There were discussions about the best cure. Ora said rattle-snake plant would cure, if the juice was put on with the right words. Strong whisky applied inside and out was good. Granpap had known people in Georgy to use equal parts of tobacco, onion and salt made into a poultice. The best thing to do was to cut the bite criss-cross with a jack-knife and suck the poison out—that is, if the person who sucked had no sore in his mouth. And he must be sure to make the cross straight over the wound, just as a person, when he forgets something and returns to the cabin for it, must make a cross with his heel and spit straight into the middle. Granpap knew about this cure for a snake-bite from experience. For he had made a cut on Fraser McDonald and sucked the poison out. The skin on the wall of the cabin was the skin of the snake that had bitten Fraser.

In spite of Emma's warnings the children often forgot to think of snakes, especially when the blackberries were getting ripe. There was a large patch of these up the side of the mountain on a rocky bald spot. John and Bonnie were making for that patch one morning. Below the berry patch some large gray bowlders pointed out over the hill and flattened along the side of the slope. John walked ahead of Bonnie. He was anxious to reach the berries first. Up above the rocks the light green leaves of the berry patch shone in the sun, and between the leaves he could already see the red berries hanging.

He was concentrated on the berries, and his mouth was already watering for a taste when the ugly rattle sounded in front. The snake must have been lying out beside the rocks sunning itself. It was just above him on the slope, hardly a man's length away. Bonnie saw it, and stepped back. John did not move. Bonnie wanted to run, but John seemed not to realize danger. He simply stood with his back to her, facing the snake. She could not see his face, but she could see the snake that was curled in rings, ready to strike. Its scales gleamed in the sun. The clumsy, rounded head on the neck that was raised from the coiled part swayed toward the boy. The head was almost as high as his own head, for he was on a lower slope. The little eyes of the rattler watched him closely. The tongue stuck straight out from the open mouth and quivered. The evil little eyes and the tongue menaced and fascinated the boy. He could do nothing. And Bonnie saw that he could do nothing. In another second, she knew, the snake would strike. She caught the back of John's jeans and clumsily jerked him against her. The impact of his body on hers brought them down on the slope together, and they rolled downhill until a rock stopped them.

When they had untangled themselves and stood up the snake was not in sight. They did not stay long to look, for Bonnie had a bad bruise over her right eye where she had struck a sharp edge of the rock. A large drop of blood was oozing out of the puffed-up place. And on the way to the cabin it began to turn blue and yellow. It was very curious to see Bonnie's flesh turn the different colors. It was curious to John. Bonnie was only interested in the fact that the bruise hurt. And under their interest in the bruise they were both badly shaken by the experience.

But they kept it to themselves. Emma took it for granted that Bonnie had fallen down and hurt herself on a rock, and they let this part truth rest in her mind. For some days after the experience they stayed close to the cabin. And because Granpap, who was the most important person in his world, was away, John missed him and wondered about the places outside.