Smoke on the Mountain, page 8
She got up and went to her lean-to, to take stock of her provisions. She wished she had some flour for biscuits. She hadn’t had biscuits in so long and they would go so good with that sorghum.
“Hello, Grandma.’’
Grandma let out a squeal of fright and Dr. Mayberry patted her shoulder, apologizing.
“I thought you must have heard us coming. We made so much noise.”
“I guess I’m gettin’ deaf along with everything else, Doc. What did ye come fer?” Grandma looked into the doctor’s face, hunting an answer she must find, not knowing her questions were written deep into the wrinkles that covered her own face.
“That depends on you, Grandma. Might be too big a dose for you, I don’t know. You been sleeping better?”
“Sure have. That’s fine medicine you give me. Wish I had some more.”
“I can fix that all right. Got a tooth doctor with me out on the porch. He’s ready to yank ’em all out and make you some store teeth.”
“You mean you ain’t goin’ to do it yourself?” Grandma was astonished.
Dr. Mayberry laughed and, taking Grandma’s hand, he pulled her to the porch.
“This is Dr. Green, Grandma. He’s a doctor that knows just one thing to cure and that’s a fellow’s teeth. He looks after mine and he can make you the prettiest set of false teeth you ever saw.”
Grandma glanced at the young dentist and from him to the woman walking up the path. She was a pretty woman, but she was almost naked.
“Who is that?” Grandma asked, pointing.
“That’s my wife, Mary, Grandma. Want you to meet her.”
“Huh!” Grandma sniffed. “Why don’t you put some clothes on when you git out? Ain’t ye got no shame a-tall?”
Mary walked up the steps, laughing. “I’ve heard so much about you, Grandma. Heard about your furniture, too. You mind if I go in and see while the doctors look you over?”
Grandma had not expected all this. She had thought Dr. Mayberry would come about her teeth and about the furniture. Except for her needs, she would order them all out of her house. Her neighbors had forced her to this humili-
ation! To think that a long life should end in this fashionl Yes, it was going to end, so why should she worry so over preparations? That naked woman had walked right into her house without so much as by your leave; didn’t even wait for an answer to her question. She was the one who wanted the furniture, not the doctor. Huhl She’d make her pay well for it; that is, if she decided to sell it. Grandma turned to Dr. Mayberry.
“When ye plannin’ to pull them teeth?”
It was the dentist who spoke. “Suppose you sit here and let me examine your mouth, Grandma.”
“Only six.” She turned and spoke to Dr. Mayberry, who opened his case and took out a stethoscope.
“I’d like to examine your heart again if you don’t mind, Grandma,” he said.
“Go ahead,” she answered, anxious to get it over.
“It won’t hurt you a bit,” the dentist said, awhile later.
Grandma didn’t believe that, but when all the teeth were out and she was spitting over the porch, she had to admit the wonders of the valley medicine and doctors. She asked so many questions and was so intrigued with the process of an impression of her gums being taken for the teeth; it was slow work.
“How long will it take before I get them teeth? How ye expect me to eat?”
Dr. Mayberry laughed. “You didn’t have much to eat with anyway, Grandma. I’d say to eat mush and milk and soft-boiled eggs for a few days. I’ll send the teeth up and it won’t be long.”
Milk and soft-boiled eggs, nothing. She could manage
the mush, for she had some meal on hand.
“How about lying down for a while?” the dentist suggested.
“What fer? I ain’t sick. Ain’t that woman in there messin’ around my house? Go in there and see what she’s doin’, Doc.”
“I have some medicine here I’d like for you to take right now,” the dentist said.
“What’s it fer?” Grandma asked.
“It will make your gums heal faster for one thing.”
Grandma took the pill in her hand, weighing it. “It won’t make me go to sleep, will it? I don’t want to go to sleep. I got things to do.”
The dentist smiled and reached for his pipe and tobacco tin. “No, it won’t put you to sleep, Grandma. Like some tobacco?” he asked, seeing her eagerness. Grandma reached to her apron pocket and held out her pipe.
“I ain’t had time to smoke all morning.” Grandma leaned back in her rocker and, for the first time, glanced down the road. There was a large truck pulled back of the doctor’s car and two men sat there, looking toward her house.
“What is all that?” she asked, pointing.
“You will have to ask Dr. Mayberry that question, Grandma,” the dentist answered.
Grandma remembered then Dr. Mayberry’s words: “Your furniture is worth a whole truckload of food.” She got up and without excuse walked into her house. Dr. Mayberry was leaning against the mantel smoking a cigarette and Mary was examining the bed. Grandma stood there watching her out of eyes that were distrustful and
calculating.
This was the first time Grandma had ever seen a modern woman of the valley. Dr. Mayberry was thinking, perhaps he should not have put so much on Grandma in one day. The effects of the novocaine would wear off presently and she would not feel so well. Perhaps she should not even be left by herself. If he could get that bed in and placed, and the food on her shelves, then give her a sedative. . . .
“Grandma.” He walked over and took a chair close by. “You’ve known me for several visits now and you know I wouldn’t take advantage of you in any way. I tell you again that your furniture is valuable, and sooner or later somebody is going to come up here and try to buy it.”
“No Government feller has come about my land yet, Doc. Why you reckon they ain’t been up here? They been to everybody else, exceptin’ Bud Latham and my place. Tom Jenkins says they’ll take your place away from you anyhow, and move you out. That ain’t right, Doc. If I was a man, not an old woman. . .
Dr. Mayberry interrupted. “Have you any kinfolks to claim what you leave, Grandma?”
“Nobody but me. I was goin’ to will my place to Tom Jenkins if he’d stayed on up here, but seems all th’ folks around has turned against the land.” ,
Dr. Mayberry considered words to explain the Park project, but he knew nothing he could say would offset the hurt of the people’s disloyalty. It was this side Grandma saw, and it was the Government act that had brought it about.
“If this were my place,” he said, “I’d not refuse to take money the Government offers. I’d take that money and
buy some things I wanted, while I could use them. Darned if I’d die and let somebody else walk in and take what was due me, and that’s what will happen, Grandma. If you die without a will, the Government will take over your place, bag and baggage.”
‘‘But that ain’t right, Doc. You don’t think it’s right, do you?” Surely somebody agreed with her, Grandma thought. She could not have this feeling and be wrong entirely.
Dr. Mayberry was evasive. “Grandma, I’m just a plain healer like you. There are a lot of things in life that don’t suit me, but I’ve found it best not to fight about them.”
“I’m not goin’ to move off th’ mountain, Doc! Nobody can make me move!”
“I don’t blame you, Grandma. But tvhat about this? Suppose everybody in this cove does move to the valley, had you thought of what it will mean to be entirely alone up here?”
Grandma began to rock vigorously, unwilling to admit even to Dr. Mayberry that these very thoughts were bearing down upon her, keeping her awake at night.
“I been thinkin’ to see Bud Latham. I don’t believe Bud will move, not even if his wife is bent on th’ valley. Bud ain’t young like the rest. He’s nearin’ seventy.” Grandma got up to spit in the fire, then she stood there looking over her cabin. “No,” she said, firmly, “I ain’t goin’ to move, even if I’m up here by myself. I can’t do nothin’ but die and after I’m dead, bein’ by myself won’t make a bit of difference.”
“And you’ll agree to my bringing in that truckload of food and putting it on your shelves, setting up that nice
bed, fixing up your house comfortably for winter?” The doctor spoke gently.
Grandma looked over at the cherry bed, the bed in which she had been born. Now that the time of giving up her things really had come, something tore at her heart, filling her chest with an emotion that was stifling. Yet she must make this trade, for only through it could she possibly retain her independence, stay with her home. It would not be the same home anymore, and when she closed her door against the night, she would turn and find herself in a strange atmosphere. Best not to think too much, just go on and get it over with. She felt tired and a little bit sick. If they would only hurry and leave her alone.
“All right, Doc,” she said, “go on about bringin’ in th’ grub. I’ll pile my quilts in a corner and empty them chest drawers.”
This done, Grandma walked out to the back yard and seated herself on a box next the old cellar. She didn’t want to see her things brought out of her front door. How many years? She tried to count on her fingers, then gave it up. Over a hundred years since that spool bed was placed in the corner for her mother. Queer, the old bed could be so costly.
And what would the mountain folks think when they came by and saw her things gone? She, who had fussed over the disloyalty of those who turned backs against old ways and customs, was doing that very thing herself now. But it had been forced upon her.
What was the world coming to if a person couldn’t hold on to the house and land they rightfully owned, had lived on for over a hundred years? Who was back of this busi-
ness, anyway? Well, whoever it was, when they came to her about her land, she’d deal with them! Fight in court! The law that took the land was the law of the courts, too.
She looked up when Dr. Mayberry and Mary stepped into the yard.
“Everything is all fixed now, Grandma. If you will tell me where the corn crib is, so I can get the other things.”
Grandma pointed and Mary ran across the barn lot like a girl. Grandma followed her, distaste in her glance. Dr. Mayberry smiled. “Your gums hurting you yet, Grandma?” he asked, his voice kind.
Grandma got up and started toward her front porch, holding her long skirts with one hand and pecking her cane on the ground with the other. She made no answer to the doctor’s question nor did she glance at the dentist on her porch. She hobbled up the steps into her cabin, then slammed the door behind her, setting the bar in place.
“Go on off, now!” she called out when Dr. Mayberry knocked. “You’ve done enough around here!”
“Take one of those pink pills and rest today, Grandma. Take another one in three hours. Don’t take them any oftener than that. You understand me?”
“Of course, I ain’t deef! Go on off now and let me alone!”
Grandma stood there feeling the soft carpet under her feet, a carpet covered with red roses. She laid her hand on the brass bed, a bed that shone like gold. She heard the car and truck moving down the cove road and then, all at once, it was quiet and she knew she was alone. She touched the red homespun coverlet of her mother’s. They had left
her that.
Grandma reached for one of the pink pills and swallowed it dry. Then she turned and fell upon the new bed and to her surprise she sank deep into the softness of it, felt herself sway as she buried her head in the pillows. The silence of the log cabin was broken suddenly by a hysterical laugh that rose like a storm cloud crashing against the rafters. Then it came down mercifully in drops that wet her pillow in tears, bringing release, and finally, sleep
Chapter 8
Bud latham straightened, let the hoe fall against his shoulder, then rubbed the small of his back with fingers that clutched here and there upon sore and stiffened places. He couldn’t tell if it was the bones or just the flesh that was a-hurtin’. Bud reckoned he was just sore all over. His glance went up the straggling bean rows where weeds seemed to grow overnight. He no more weeded to the end of a row than they sprung up back at the beginning again. Planting a second crop of beans for the frost to get! Made him so consarned mad he didn’t know what to do.
Pushing his hat to the back of his head, Bud leaned on the hoe and looked for the sun. Here and there, patches of sunshine pushed through the clouds, clouds that hung low, massing in great billows, pressing toward the earth, and hiding the tips of the Chimneys.
Rain, he told himself. Well, he didn’t care if it did rain.
He wished to Gawd it would rain for a week without stopping. His back would hurt worse on account of it but he could rest without feeling of guilt. There were times when he resented this new conscience of his, regretted the promises he had made. He resented most that preacher a- shoutin’ and a-cryin’ over him, pulling from Bud feelings he didn’t know he had, exacting promises no man in his right mind would have made. Trouble was, every time he tried to break loose, every time he was on the edge of forgetting, lapsing back to his former ways of living, there came a prick of remembrance that was a pain.
Sometimes in the night Bud had visions. Arms beckoned to him. He found himself rising to keep apace, running to find what was just a light, seeking what he couldn’t find and with it all, waking up of a morning as tired as a feller plowing corn all day.
Bud watched the clouds gather and bunch, then fall to one side and shadow the whole mountainside. He looked down to the valley and marked the patches of color here and there, saw cloud shadows move from one green patch to another like a monster creeping up silently. Spitting on his hands, he rubbed them together and started in once more with the hoe. No fool like an old fool, he told himself. Marryin’ an eighteen-year-old girl, and him an old man with growed children. No wonder folks laughed at him years back. No wonder young Bud run off and left all the work for him to do. Susie run off, too, and married one of them Pratts; selling whiskey and making money hand over fist for all Bud never saw no help from Susie. Oh, they’d give him whiskey if he went over for it but Bud couldn’t have whiskey any more. He’d promised that
preacher he’d not touch another drop, so help him Gawd, and if it hadn’t been for the Gawd part, he’d pay no attention to none of it.
Looking down the hollow, Bud saw smoke curl up from the washing fire. Polly had got him out before he’d swallered his vittles, gathering wood. Dad-burned luck of his! Married a woman so all-fired full of energy she made him tired just to look at her. Always a-doin’ something, never could set still. Life wasn’t meant to be lived this way. Polly was raisin’ them kids to do nothing but read books, said a little lamin’ was needed so they could do more than live like hogs. Well, he wasn’t goin’ to put up with it another day. Polly had them kids in a school down in the valley now, and so far as he was concerned she could go down there, too. Reaching the end of the bean row, he walked over to lean on the rail fence, watching Tom Jenkins trottin’ his mules down the road.
“Hey there, Tom. Light and hitch fer a spell.”
“Ain’t got much time, Bud,” Tom answered, bringing the mules to a stop. “Fine crop of beans there, but I bet the frost gets ’em.”
“Hope to Gawd it does.” Bud took out a plug of tobacco, bit off a chew.
“You don’t need all them beans, do you?” Tom asked.
“Hell, no! Got the comcrib full now. It’s Pol, wantin’ to get money to buy shoes fer them kids of hers. Say, Tom, you movin’ to th’ valley like all th’ rest?”
“Yep, we’re moving in three weeks. Goin’ to work Doc Mayberry’s farm; best land I ever seen, Bud. Now it’s all settled, I don’t feel happy about it somehow. Kinder miss things up here. Sam Acree says down in th’ valley a feller
has to work all th’ time to keep things going, and there ain’t no huntin’ down there, neither. A feller has to buy a license to own a gun and then when ye get a license you ain’t got no place to hunt.”
‘‘Is it so about ’em givin’ money for th’ land and lettin’ ye live on your place just th’ same?” Bud asked.
“That’s what they offered me.”
“Then what are you and Callie movin’ fer? You ain’t got no kids to worry over and save fer.”
“That’s goin’ to be changed, Bud. Doc Mayberry says ain’t no reason why Callie can’t have young ’uns. He’s goin’ to fix it fer us.”
“Good Gawd! Don’t know what in tarnation ye want with a trifling family, Tom, nothin’ but work and nobody satisfied with nothin’ ye do. Gawd meant for ye to have kids he’d a sent ’em to ye natural. I don’t hold with that furrin doctorin’.”
Tom smiled. “I reckon you’ve had too many young uns, Bud. You don’t know how lonesome a house is without kids. You ain’t got nothin’ to work for that way. And it’s awful hard on a woman.”
“Well, so far as I’m concerned, you young fellers can have th’ valley. I ain’t movin’ down there.”
Bud had been traveling toward these words so long, it seemed he had said them before. Now that he had said them, the decision became a fact, one he would stand back of and no matter what happened.
Tom sat there regarding Bud, thinking about Grandma Weller. If Bud was in any way dependable, to know he was staying with the mountain would bring relief to Tom about Grandma. He considered talking it over with Bud
when a voice echoed from the hollow—
“Bu-ud!” Bud spat over the fence and settled his elbows comfortably on the rails.
“Ain’t that Polly callin’ ye?” Tom asked.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if it ain’t.” Bud spat again.
“I reckon she wants something.” Tom suggested.
Bud didn’t say anything.
“Well, I got to be goin’.” Tom lifted the reins and called to his mules. “You better see them Government fellers about stayin’ up here if Polly gets the money and moves off.”
