Part 14

“She found out where Nathe kept the aperns an’ trimmin’s an’ things he wore at his lodge meetin’s. He thought more o’ them cooterments than anything he had. Nan got the key to the drawer, an’ when he come in one day she wuz all rigged out in ’em. ‘Don’t I look purty, Nathe?’ she says, walkin’ up an’ down ’fore him. An’ he wuz afraid to say a word, fer he knowed what she’d done to that cushion. ‘You won’t be wantin’ ’em any more,’ she says, ‘’cause yer lodge’ll turn ye out soon as I tell ’em what you’ve got over yander at the mill.’ Then she walked out an’ down the road with them things on, an’ Nathe never seen a stitch o’ the riggin’ afterwards. I fixed it up that she tied a rock to ’em an’ throwed ’em inter the creek.

“We’d had about seven er eight months o’ Nan when Nathe begun to look thin an’ show he wuz losin’ out. I b’lieve he got to thinkin’ that Nan wouldn’t mind heppin’ him off inter the next world ef she could do it sly. He kept Crick Sawyer hired, but I couldn’t find out what fer, he wuz so lazy an’ slept half of ever’ day. I got to teasin’ him about drawin’ pay fer gittin’ his breath, an’ he fired up an’ told me that Nathe had hired him to watch Nan at night, he’d got so skeered o’ what she might do when he wuz asleep. I felt ashamed o’ Nathe fer that, an’ I never let him know I’d found out what Crick’s job wuz. But I says: ‘Crick, ef Ponnie er Callie er Lu left here owin’ Nathe a hard time, Nan has shore paid it fer ’em.’

“She never done a thing to hep round the house, but she wuz always on time fer her meals. She’d take the head o’ the table, too, like she wuz the queen bee, though she hadn’t warmed kiver with Nathe sence the fust month she wuz there. She’d talk an’ laff an’ make fun o’ Crick, an’ wouldn’t let a soul pour the coffee but her. One day when she’d poured a cup fer Nathe, it sparkled up quare, an’ he throwed it inter the fireplace. It wuz that day that he went off to Carson an’ come back with a cousin of ourn, Lem Thatcher, who’d went out West an’ done well, an’ come back to see his kinfolks. He wuz a widower, an’ a little younger’n Nathe, an’ tolerable fair-lookin’ too. When Nan found out he had some money she put on her best dressin’ an’ smiled like a pickcher. When she wuz all flossied up an’ shiny, a man would have to look at her sort o’ easy out o’ one eye, till he found out her ways didn’t match up. We’s all past the place where Nan’s looks counted fer anything, but Lem wuzn’t, an’ when she’d plumb her eyes at him he’d wriggle an’ turn red. Nathe seen his chaince then, an’ told Lem he had to go inter Tennessee fer a few days, but fer him to make hissef at home an’ not think o’ leavin’ till he got back. He staid about a week, an’ when he come home Lem an’ Nan had been gone three days. I reckon they’s half-way to Californy by that time. She left a note tellin’ Nathe the sooner he got his divorce the better it would suit her an’ Lem, an’ he could keep the few dollars in his old sock, she said. She didn’t have no use fer ’em, an’ his boy, Baker, might need ’em. She had the note tacked up outside the front door. I wuzn’t at home the mornin’ they left, but Crick told me she made Lem tack the note up, an’ her laffin’ till you could hear her to the pasture gate.

“Nathe got a divorce soon as he could, but it wuz a year er two ’fore anybody could speak to him about Nan ’thout him takin’ out his big handkercher an’ wipin’ his for’ed, he’d got inter sech a habit of it while she wuz around. As fer his house, it shore needed a good woman in it, Nan had been sech a tear-down.”

“He got a good woman when Aunt Lindy Webb went there,” said Serena, anticipating Aunt Lizy, and making it known that the story had reached a stage familiar to her generation.

“Ay, Nan had sort o’ shattered him,” said Uncle Dan’l, “and he made up his mind he wouldn’t make no mistake the next time.”

I wanted to hear about Ann. A depression was upon me, as if she had died. Then I remembered that she was going to South Carolina with Bake. But it was a relief when Uncle Ranz uttered her name again.

“Of course Nathe went to see Ann first, but she stuck to what she’d said before, an’ Nathe didn’t take it so hard this time. He could see fer hissef that Ann couldn’t run his place, an’ he wuz shore needin’ somebody that could. Rosie had got married, but her an’ Angie Sue kept comin’ home to stir up trouble with anybody that wuz hired on the place, an’ Nathe wuz beginnin’ to show his gray hairs. Ann had been sick fer a long spell. She tuk down dreckly after he married Nan, an’ when Nathe seen her fer the fust time in nearly a year, he give right in an’ told her she could have her own way about ever’thing an’ he’d stand by her jest the same. She begun to pick up purty soon, and in a little while wuz as peart as ever. I don’t reckon it made any difference ’tween ’em when he married Lindy Webb. Lindy had been married before----”

“Twice,” said another voice, younger than Aunt Lizy’s.

“That’s so, twice,” said Uncle Ranz, “an’ she had shown clear as gospel what a good woman she wuz. Nathe ast about her from fust to last ’fore he ever went to see her. He wuzn’t takin’ any chainces. Lindy’s fust man would run away ’bout ever’ other year, an’ she would make the crap an’ take keer of it, an’ have his plate at the table ready fer him ever’ meal she set down to, in case he drapped in. Ef she had a little money saved up, he took holt of it right away. Onct she saved seventeen dollars makin’ syrup, runnin’ the cane-mill night an’ day, an’ he took ever’ dollar soon as he come in. He went off at last an’ staid so long that Jim Webb wanted to marry Lindy, so he went round ’mong the neighbors an’ called a meetin’. They voted she could marry Jim, but she couldn’t take up with any furriner that might come along an’ want her farm. She married Jim then, an’ he would ’a’ made her a good husband ef he hadn’t hurt his leg tryin’ to break a yoke o’ steers hissef, ’stead o’ lettin’ Lindy do it like she wuz used to. It didn’t heal up, an’ Lindy had to wait on him hand an’ foot fer ten years, an’ make the livin’ fer both of ’em. Jim wuz quarrellin’ all the time, an’ Lindy said he wuz fractious ’cause he wuz so disappinted in not bein’ able to hep her like he’d set out to do. He died about the time her farm wuz run through with, ’count o’ him wantin’ ever’thing, an’ livin’ on almanac medicine, but she had nice things in her house an’ she brought ’em all to Nathe’s. It wuzn’t long till she had Nathe’s place lookin’ as well as it did in Lu’s time, an’ she had more in the cellar to eat an’ drink than Lu ever had. There wuzn’t nuthin’ Lindy didn’t know how to do er to make. She wuzn’t burnin’ jealous nuther, an’ told me hersef she wuzn’t goin’ to keep Nathe miser’ble by tryin’ to change his nater. She’d leave that to the Lord, she said.”

“That wuz the only thing,” said Aunt Lizy, “that I held agin Lindy. She wuz too easy about Ann.”

“Well, Ann never bothered her. She never set her foot in the big house, an’ she told Nathe she’d never cross the doorstep after that day she met Rosie in the road, an’ Rosie mewed up her mouth an’ drawed back her skirts. Nathe come to see that Ann wuz right. Lindy had a strong hand on the girls, an’ kep’ his house so he could set in it peaceable, which wuz more’n Ann could ’a’ done. He told Ann she could always do as she pleased about ever’thing except one. He said Bake would have to go away to school. He put it that the other childern might treat him like he wuzn’t as good as they wuz, an’ Ann give in. But I had an idy he seen she wuz gittin’ all wrapped up in Bake. Nathe couldn’t stand bein’ left out like that. Anyway he sent Bake off, an’ he growed up a fine feller, comin’ back fer his vacations, an’ to hunt ’possums Christmas, an’ ever’body likin’ him same as ef he’s raised right here.

“About a month after Nathe married Lindy, somebody writ Ann from Birmingham that Curt had died down there, an’ Nathe sent me to Alabam’ to make sure it wuz so, an’ I found out it wuz. I thought Nathe would be terr’bly cut up when I told him, ’cause ef he’d waited a little, Ann might ’a’ married him with Curt out o’ the way. But he ’lowed it wouldn’t ’a’ made any difference, he couldn’t let Ann come inter the big house where the girls would keep her miser’ble even ef she’d been willin’ to try it, an’ it wuz too late fer him to go away from Silver Valley an’ begin all over. I could see he wuz gittin’ satisfied with things as they wuz.”

“Why wouldn’t he be satisfied?” said Aunt Lizy, “with pore Lindy doin’ ever’thing fer him while he rid aroun’, an’ went over to Ann’s whenever he took a notion! An’ folks never stopped him from bein’ deacon.”

“What proof did they have agin him, I’d like fer ye to tell me,” said Uncle Ranz. “They couldn’t do nothin’ without proof. It wuz his own mill, an’ ef he wanted to set around there fer a while, onct or twict a week, he had a right to. Nobody but me knowed what he’d said about Bake, an’ I never told it till to-day.”

“To-day!” exclaimed Aunt lazy. “I’ve heard it a hunderd times ef I have onct!”

“Well, I may have told _you_ a time er two, Lizy, but I never went round the settlement a-tellin’ it. I reckon folks thought ef Lindy didn’t want to act up about Ann, _they_ didn’t have no call to make trouble. Lindy had her hands full anyhow, there wuz always so many runnin’ in an’ out o’ the big house. The boys got married, too, an’ some o’ the childern wuz comin’ an’ goin’ all the time. It wuz quiet over at Ann’s, an’ she wuz a lot easier in her mind after Curt died. She growed stronger, an’ begun to ’tend to the mill hersef. When her mother died, she kept right on tendin’ it. An’ she wouldn’t take nobody to live with her. Her brother’s fam’ly wuz so close she didn’t need nobody, she said. Folks would come to the mill, an’ talk pleasant, an’ hep with the liftin’, an’ Nathe couldn’t make her give it up.”

But Aunt Lizy must add a bitter touch. “It’s a pity,” she said, “that he didn’t try to make Lindy give up some o’ _her_ hard work; she’d ’a’ lived longer.”

“I know she worked hard,” said Uncle Ranz, “an’ the gals wuz aggervatin’, but she seemed satisfied, an’ Nathe never interfered with her about nothin’.”

“I reckon,” said Uncle Dan’l, “them twenty-odd years he lived with Lindy wuz about the best o’ Nathe’s life. An’ she never opened her mouth about Ann.”

“You’re fergittin’ what she said when she wuz dyin’. Lindy wuz proud o’ her nice things--all the quilts she’d pieced, an’ counterpins an’ kiverlids she’d wove, an’ rugs, an’ table-kivers, an’ curtains. When she wuz dyin’ she ast Nathe not to let Ann come in over ’em soon as she wuz dead cold. Nathe promised her he wouldn’t. ‘Ef I bring a woman in here, Lindy,’ he said, ‘she’ll have to be as smart as you’ve been.’ That pleased Lindy better’n anything he could ’a’ told her. Nathe kept his word too, an’ married a fine widder from out around Waynesville. She wuz up in years, but healthy, an’ could turn her hand to anything. Nathe wuz proud o’ the Widder Stiles when he brought her in.”

“I knowed her boy, Zeb, out in Jackson County,” said Uncle Dan’l. “He wuz a smart feller, an’ went off an’ made two kinds of a doctor of hissef, a rubbin’ doctor an’ the other kind. I seen Doc Stiles when he went through here last summer.”

“His mother could ’a’ come inter Silver Valley without puttin’ on airs, though,” Aunt Lizy informed us, in a tone savoring of keen reminiscence.

“She had different notions from Lindy, an’ that’s what Nathe wuzn’t expectin’,” continued Uncle Ranz. “She never ast no questions, an’ nobody told her nothin’, but she looked around fer hersef, an’ it didn’t take her long to make up her mind about Ann. When they’d been married about six weeks, she told Nathe she believed she’d go fer a visit to see how her folks wuz gittin’ on. Nathe said all right, only he’d ruther she wouldn’t stay long an’ it harvest-time. He hitched up, an’ took her to Scatter, an’ she got on the train an’ never come back. Nathe went over to Waynesville after her, but he had to come home by hissef. Seemed like he wuz tuk down about it, an’ never got back his spirit. ’Twasn’t long till he couldn’t ride over to Ann’s, an’ after that he went off fast. Angie Sue left her second husband, an’ come to live with her daddy, an’ Herb’s wife wuz dead an’ him an’ all the childern wuz there, an’ pore ol’ Nathe had to die ’thout anybody in the house to make things run easy an’ peaceable.

“Angie Sue is claimin’ ever’thing her daddy had fer takin’ keer o’ him, but ef it hadn’t been fer the things Ann cooked up an’ slipped over to him by me an’ the neighbors, he wouldn’t ’a’ teched a bite fer three weeks ’fore he died. Angie Sue quit takin’ her stuff in to him, ’cause all he’d say wuz: ‘Git out o’ here with that pizen.’ The day he wuz dyin’ he sent me to tell Ann that Bake would take keer o’ her. She knowed that, but he wanted to be sendin’ some word. She wuz settin’ by the winder holdin’ something in her hand when I come inter the yard. I went to the winder, an’ she paled off a little an’ ast ef he wuz gone. When I told her what he wanted me to, she says: ‘You give him this. He’ll know what it is.’ I looked, an’ it wuz a big ol’ shiny chestnut, so light I knowed they wuzn’t nuthin’ in it but dust. ‘I picked it up,’ she says, ‘that day about a minute ’fore Lu saw us.’ I took it, but Nathe wuz dead when I got back home.”

III

At Scatter the next morning Serena and I waited for the up-train to Beebread. A little mother and her big son were waiting for the down-train going east. Serena went over to the mother, who was Ann Lindsay, and they chatted softly. I kept aside, not precipitating an introduction. Was she not a nugatory survival, who, by all laws of fitness, ought to have been on the hill ’longside the others? But the “others” would have removed their dusty skirts; and Bake had said that Jenny would be good to her. That expectation was apparent, I thought, in her quiet assurance. And suddenly, unreasonably, I felt that her departure was a desertion.

I recalled the futile Angie Sue, the innocuous Herb and Sam, the negligible Rosie, and thought of Nathe with all his vital insistence buried so “proper” in an untended grave. Then I looked at big Bake, whose resolute posterity would shoulder through, undoubtedly, to the end of a needy world. Here, for the breath-time of earth, at least, Uncle Nathe might hold oblivion in check.

The whistle of the east-bound train blew, a mile away. I had overheard enough to know that Bake and his mother would leave the train at Carson and motor over the new highway, out and down to their lowland home--that highway, monstrously magical, so rapidly obliterating the Unakasia of my intimate care and delight. Within a few years, the ways and customs of Atlantis would not be more dim in time.

While the whistle of the train was still keen in the air, Elmer Jenkins walked on to the platform. He spied Baker Lindsay, and went to him at once.

“I saw you at the funeral yesterday,” he said.

“I saw you too,” said Bake, his smile implying that no one could have missed the master of ceremonies. Mr. Jenkins was pleased, and his glance of response included the pretty, white-haired woman at Bake’s side. When he was introduced, the lawyer would have offered his hand, but Ann, unfledged in new air, was too timid to note the gesture.

“I suppose you were out yesterday, Mrs. Lindsay,” he said, and she dropped a soft negative.

“Too bad you missed the ceremony! It was unusual in a district so remotely rural. I was glad to be instrumental in getting a good turn-out from the Carson lodge, though Mr. Ponder had not been in attendance for some years. These fine old mountaineers are passing--passing. It was a very interesting funeral. Very.”

“I reckon it was,” said Ann, as Bake, gently dominant, lifted her to the train.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.