Jolene Read online

  “An’ y’all won’t hear nothin’ contrary from me.” Mrs. Holcroft nodded. “But it’s more work fer Josh, an’ he’s makin’ a good job of’t. Hopper, he wanted a big ol’ weepin’ angel, ’bout yay high.” She measured roughly five feet tall with her hand. “Josh tol’ him, sure, he could hev it, but it’d take six months or more. An’ the boy talked Hopper inter a liddle sleepin’ baby instead. A lot less money, but—I dunno how we’d’a got somethin’ thet big back inter town w’out it fallin’ over an’ breakin’. Nor how we’d’a got the stone here in the fust place. He coulda carved it in Ducktown, but I don’ like th’ notion of him spending hours travelin’ there an’ back ever’ day, an’ I like th’ notion of him boardin’ with Cavenel even less. Statue’s gonna be a purdy thang.”

  “Wall, I’d admire t’ see it,” Aunt Jinny said.

  “Then y’all will.” Mrs. Holcroft got up from the table. “He’s jest in th’ barn.”

  Their hostess led the way to the barn, which, unlike the house, was a standard, plank-built affair; a steady but irregular chink, chink sound emerged from it. From the tiny amount of information she’d heard, Anna could not imagine what it was that Josh Holcroft was supposed to be doing that involved a dead baby, but she certainly was interested to find out.

  “Joshua!” his mother called as they entered the straw-scented semidarkness of the barn. “Miz Jinny Alscot’s here t’see yore work, an’ her niece Anna Jones is with her.”

  “I’m in m’workshed, Ma!” came a light tenor voice. “Come on back!”

  At the rear of the barn was an attached shed. Full sunlight poured in through a window that had no glass, but a tight wooden shutter that was currently standing open. It had a clever little wood stove made out of metal odds and ends. The stove was cold right now, since it was warm enough in the sun to be slightly uncomfortable, but Anna thought it likely the makeshift stove would keep the small space cozy in winter. There was a wooden bench filling up most of the shop, and on the bench was a piece of white stone about the size of a yaller hound all curled up. But it wasn’t in the shape of a dog; it was in the shape of a baby, curled in sleep, one pudgy fist against its cheek. There was a suggestion of a pair of small wings in the rough rock where its shoulders were. Anna gasped to see it; it was astonishingly lifelike, even in this rough form.

  “Wotcher think, Ma?” asked the young man standing next to it. He was not handsome; his features were far too irregular for that. With a prominent nose, chin, and brows, he looked more unfinished than his creation. His unruly mop of straw-colored hair hadn’t seen a comb for most of the day and had stone dust and a couple of chips in it. But his bright blue eyes were intelligent and thoughtful, and did a lot to reassure Anna that he wasn’t as rough and ready as he appeared.

  He had big hands, one of which held a mallet, the other, a chisel. He had stone dust all over his overalls, and stout boots on his feet, to protect them from bits of stone, no doubt.

  “My!” his mother exclaimed. “I thank it’s fine! What would y’all say, Jinny?”

  Aunt Jinny examined the work with a critical eye. “I say iffen y’all showed it t’ Missus Hopper right this minute, she’d bawl her eyes out. And when y’all give it t’her finished, she might wanter hev it in her parlor t’ bawl over regular.”

  Josh tossed his head so that his hair flopped out of his eyes, and grinned. “Wall, then, thet’ll jest mean ol’ man Hopper’ll hev t’pay me t’make another, won’t it?”

  His mother looked affronted, but Aunt Jinny laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “Tha’s a smart young feller thinkin’,” she said. “This’s m’sister’s girl, Anna Jones. Anna, this here is Joshua Holcroft, an’ the best carver I ever seed, bar my Granpappy.”

  Joshua blushed, and so did Anna. They shook hands awkwardly. His hand was so big it completely enveloped hers, but he held her hand so gently, it was as if he were holding a new-hatched chick. “Please ter meetcha,” he said, then finally looked her straight in the eyes, and smiled.

  She blushed even harder. That smile had completely transformed his face, by some magic she didn’t understand. He still wasn’t handsome, but now he was—attractive. Very attractive. She suddenly found herself thinking about going for a long walk with him in the moonlight, or sitting on the porch and talking for hours. She shook herself out of such daydreams with difficulty. “I dunno wotcher doin’,” she confessed. “But thet there’s a purdy liddle baby angel.”

  “Joshua carves all the headstones fer Mister Cavenel, th’ undertaker,” his mother replied before he could answer. “Mos’ people jest want a stone, with names an’ dates, an’ maybe somethin’ t’ ’member the dead by, like y’all hev prolly seen in graveyards. An’ thet pays good. But sometimes he gets somethin’ special. Like this, which’s fer the Hoppers’ dead baby.”

  “An’ when I ain’t a-carvin’ fer graves, I carves liddle bits of this an’ thet,” Josh put in, looking modest. “Gewgaws an’ the like. Knife handles. Them panels on the sides of pocketknives. Rifle stocks. Men’ll pay good money fer carved bone ’n horn ’n ’specially mother of pearl. Wood, not so much, but if they wants somethin’ fancy in wood, they’ll still pay. Sometimes purdy liddle things fer the ladies, but thet don’t pay as good as rifle stocks an’ knife handles. Fellers like t’show thet off.”

  His mother shook her head. “An’ men say women is vain!”

  “Aw, Ma!” Joshua complained, but at the same time he made a sidewise glance at Anna, and she blushed all over again. She had no idea why she was having this reaction to Joshua. None of the boys in Soddy had ever made her feel this way.

  But then again, none of the boys in Soddy had ever taken a first glance at her, much less a second and third the way Joshua was doing. Their eyes had always slid right over her, as if she weren’t even there. Josh was certainly not doing that. He kept looking at her as if he found her as interesting as she found him.

  “Back to thet work, Josh,” his mother said. “Gotta make th’ best of th’ light.”

  “Yes, Ma,” he said obediently, and went back to tapping lightly at the stone with his hammer and chisel, considering each blow before he took it.

  Mrs. Holcroft led them back to her kitchen, with a glance into the kitchen shed where her daughter, who looked like a younger version of her mother down to the dress in the same sprigged cotton, presided over another stove, this a proper cast-iron one, made for cooking. An’ Pa thinks farmin’ ain’t wuth doin’! she thought to herself, admiring the display of such signs of success. Not one, but two proper stoves, and plenty of fuel to keep them going! Not to mention the wealth standing in the fields as a sign of admirable prosperity.

  There was more tea to be poured out, and more gossip shared; Anna kept her mouth shut and her head down over her tea. But then a question was addressed to her.

  “And how’s yore Ma, Anna?” Mrs. Holcroft asked.

  It was a commonplace question, but Anna was not given a chance to answer.

  “Maybelle’s ’xactly where I said she’d be, which’s hand-t’-mouth,” Aunt Jinny replied grimly. “Look at this chile! Skin an’ bones an’ a hank of hair! Thet no-good Llewellyn Jones cain’t even keep his own fambly fed!”

  Anna wanted to sink into the chair and vanish.

  “Niver shoulda married th’ boy,” Mrs. Holcroft agreed. “I dunno why a woman with a lick’a sense’d marry a miner, an’ a coal miner at thet!”

  “Maybelle’s jest like her own Ma. Not a lick’a sense atwixt ’em.” Aunt Jinny shook her head. “On’y smart thang that woman ever did was marry my Pa. Wall, at least she made ’im happy, so there’s thet in her favor.”

  “Wall, her Ma was a sad case, an’ I feel a liddle sorry fer her,” Mrs. Holcroft said charitably. “Weren’t her fault th’ boy she married turned out to be a gol-durned traitor.”

  Hurriedly, Anna counted backward in her head, and realized that Mrs. Holcroft must
’ve been referring to the War. “Y’all mean—” she blurted, about to say—he was a durned Yankee?

  But Mrs. Holcroft interrupted her, and said the most surprising thing, with great venom. “He was a gol-durned Reb is what he was.” So it was a good thing she hadn’t had the chance to say that last piece.

  Her face must have been a picture, because Mrs. Holcroft laughed, and actually slapped the table, she was so amused. “Lawsy me, chile, didn’ y’all know this part’a Tennessee went with the Nawth?”

  Dumbly she shook her head.

  “I was gonna tell ’er all ’bout it later, Maddie,” Aunt Jinny said, with faint disapproval.

  “Wall she might as well hear it now,” retorted Maddie Holcroft. “Ain’t no sense in lettin’ her go down to Ducktown an’ git herself in hot water on account’a ignorance.”

  “She ain’t a-goin’ to Ducktown if I have any say,” Jinny muttered, and might have said more aloud, but it was becoming evident to Anna that Maddie Holcroft at her kitchen table was a force to be reckoned with where gossip was concerned. Like a summer thunderstorm, all you could do was ride the torrent out.

  “Yore Granny on your Ma’s side was quite the beauty, so they say,” continued Mrs. Holcroft with the relish that would have been due gossip of last week, not decades old. But maybe she just liked having a brand-new audience. “An’ ’bout as much sense as a baby rabbit. She cotched hersel’ Parnel Parry, a right good-lookin’ feller with about as much sense, who was your Granpappy’s best frien’. Wall, up an’ starts th’ War, and Parnel gets his fool head stuffed full’a romantical fol-de-rol by an idiot cousin, an off he goes t’be a occifer with the Rebs iffen y’all please, an’ not even yore Granpappy can put any sense inter his haid. Weren’t nobody’d even say g’bye t’him but yore Granpappy an’ his wife. He left in the dead of night, like a thief. So th’ last thing he does afore he leaves, is get your Granpappy t’promise t’take care of th’ gel iffen anythin’ happens t’him. Then yore Granpappy goes t’fight fer th’ Union.”

  “An’ we was livin’ here, not up the Holler. This useta be my Pa’s farm, an Granny on my Ma’s side, the Root Woman, was still alive, an’ lived where I live now. My Ma was daid then, but my Granny an’ Granpappy on my Pa’s side lived wi’ me an’ my brothers, so me an’ th’ farm was tended to without Pa,” put in Aunt Jinny. “My other Granpappy was gone by then, but Granny was close enough t’this farm t’ git he’p if she needed it.”

  “She means where her an’ her brothers an’ her Pa all lived, her Pa’s farm, thet was this very farm,” said Mrs. Holcroft, helping Anna get all the relatives sorted out again. “So, yore Granpappy Alscot come back, an Parnel didn’, an’ since your Granpappy’s notion of ‘takin’ care of a pretty widder woman’ was a-marryin’ her, thet’s what he done.”

  “It weren’t as if she was gonna get a widder’s pension from th’ Rebs,” said Aunt Jinny. “Not like Pa got from th’ Union Army.”

  “But ev’body in Ducktown know’d she was married t’ a Reb, an’ plenty of tongues was a-waggin’ ’bout how she Jezebeled Parnel, then did the same t’ yore Granpappy, an’ thet she was a schemin’ hussy, an’ what with one thing an’ another, she couldn’ even buy a reel of cotton in th’ store wi’out people gossipin’ ’bout it. Thet’s why I feel sorry for ’er.”

  “I reckon I did feel sorry for ’er then,” Aunt Jinny admitted. “Mind, she could’a stiffened ’er spine an’ shame the divil, but she niver did hev much spine t’begin with, an’ Pa jest cosseted ’er. She wouldn’ leave the house, an’ setch a lotta weepin’ in corners!”

  “So yore Granpappy figgered make a fresh start over t’ Soddy way, sold th’ farm t’ Matt’s Pa, an’ we got it from him as a weddin’ present. So thet’s how we’re here.”

  “An’ yore Granny an’ yore Ma an’ Granpappy an’ me moved. He was ’bout tired of farmin’, so’s he used th’ cash from th’ farm t’rent a house offen a feller, an used the pension money fer spendin’. Arter about six months, I come back here, stayed with my Granny, an’ learnt t’ be a Root Woman. I will admit the three of them, Pa an’ yore Granny till she died and Maybelle, did live high on the hog then,” Aunt Jinny mused. “Which’s why I reckon that layabout Lew Jones thought he was a-marryin’ money. But it all went bust when Pa died. There was the bit left over in the bank from a-sellin’ th’ farm, but the pension died with Pa. Pore Pa prolly thought Maybelle was doin’ all right by marryin’ Lew. He prolly b’lieved all them stories about how Lew was a-gonna be a foreman soon. So he didn’ worry none that he wasn’t gonna leave ’er much.” Aunt Jinny sighed. “An’ thet’s how y’all ended up in Soddy, when all yore kin come from here.”

  Anna had finally gotten all the Mas and Pas and Grannys and Granpappys sorted out in her head, and just had one question. “But—how’d y’all keep th’ Yanks an’ th’ Rebs from takin’ yore stock an’ crops an’ all?” she asked—because tragic tales of farms being stripped bare by invading soldiers of both sides were prevalent enough even she had heard plenty of them.

  Aunt Jinny and Mrs. Holcroft exchanged a look. Aunt Jinny set her chin stubbornly and Mrs. Holcroft looked full of mischief. “Don’t go—” Aunt Jinny began.

  But Mrs. Holcroft bent over the table and whispered, “It were the spirit bears!”

  Aunt Jinny groaned.

  “Spirit—bears?” Anna replied, in utter bewilderment now, which was more than enough to encourage Maddie Holcroft to unleash the tale.

  “I heerd it from them as saw it for thesselves, so don’ y’all conter-dick me, Virginia Alscot,” Maddie Holcroft said firmly. Then she turned back to Anna. “Y’all knowed how long the road is t’git here t’ the Holler, ’cause y’all done been on it t’git here. Wall! Along comes a raidin’ party on th’ road. An’ afore they gets fur, they’s attacked by a giant black bear what kin run as fast as a horse! What’s more, bullets don’ even tech it! An’ when they try t’keep a-comin’, wall, there comes another! Them two bears is racin’ in an’ outa their lines, a-slashin’ up their hosses, an’ a-crackin’ haids right off their bodies. So they go back they gets more men—on account’a they’s sojers an’ they’s stupid—an’ try again. An’ the same thing happens. Then they try a third time, an’ they’s a third bear, as big as th’ other two put t’gether! By the time them bears git done, they’s mebbe one or two men left t’tell th’ tale. An’ the sojers cain’t take it out on anyone livin’ ’round ’bout here, nor blame ’em either, ’cause ev’one knows ain’t no way nobody c’d train a bear t’ do all thet, much less train three bears. Ain’t no side ever tried more’n three times t’get here.”

  “It were jest a bear with her cubs, Maddie Holcroft,” Aunt Jinny said crossly. “It weren’t nothin’ unnatural. Get a-twixt a mammy bear an’ her cubs an’ y’all might as well call th’ undertaker.”

  “I heerd these weren’t no cubs.”

  “An’ I knowed these was a buncha city boys an’ plantation sons what niver seed a bear in their lives,” Jinny retorted.

  “An’ the bullets thet bounced right off?”

  “They was turrible bad shots. Ain’t nothin’ magic ’bout thet.” Mrs. Holcroft was obviously taking a great deal of pleasure out of teasing Aunt Jinny with this story and making her cross. Perhaps Aunt Jinny was one of those people who did not like magic, because it was the Devil’s work.

  Perhaps the reason Mrs. Holcroft enjoyed telling this story was as simple as the fact that it wasn’t easy to get under her aunt’s skin, and this story for some unknown reason did exactly that.

  But there was only one really important part about the story as far as Anna was concerned, and it had nothing to do with spirits or magic.

  “Is there still bears?” Anna asked, in a small, frightened voice.

  “Not ’round this farm nor my place, chile,” Aunt Jinny said, patting her hand. “Old Raven an’ Young Raven see t’thet, don’t y’all worry none
. Bear thet gets close, ends up in they pots an’ on they smokin’ racks. An’ asides, I ain’t no city-born fool. Go out in the woods wi’ me an’ yore safe as safe.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “I’m certain-sure.” Jinny glanced out the door. “An’ I’m certain-sure thet we need t’ be gettin’ back, or there won’t be no hot supper, an’ I don’t reckon t’ et cold cornbread an’ drippin’.”

  “I’d ast all y’all t’ stay fer supper, ’cause Matt’d admire t’ see y’all an’ meet Anna, but I know better,” laughed Mrs. Holcroft. “But yore allus welcome. Both on y’all, t’gether or alone.”

  “Thenkee kindly fer th’ tea, an’ I do admire thet liddle angel o’ Josh’s, an’ I’m right glad I got a chance t’see it afore it ends up in a parlor I ain’t niver gettin’ invited to,” Aunt Jinny said with a smirk, standing up.

  Maddie Holcroft snorted. “Not us neither,” she pointed out, but her face showed her pride in her son’s talent. “But at least we gets t’see it fust.”

  The walk back was more tiring, since it was up the gradual slope. “Aunt Jinny?” Anna ventured. “Do the Holcrofts go t’church on Sunday?” Because the fact that she had not gone was wearing on her mind, and the arched vault of the branches overhead put her powerfully in mind of a church roof. It felt wrong not to go to church, no matter what Aunt Jinny said. So maybe she could walk down here and go with the Holcrofts.

  Plus . . . well, if she could go with them, it would be a weekly chance to see Josh.

  “B’lieve they do,” Jinny admitted. “They do got mules an’ a wagon.”

  “C’d I go with ’em?” she asked.

  Jinny stopped right in the path and turned to look at her. “Is this ’bout church-goin’?” she demanded. “Or is this ’bout a-seein’ Josh Holcroft?”

  “I don’ feel right, not goin’ t’ church,” she temporized, but she was afraid that her blush gave her away.