Jolene Read online

  The one thing that Anna prided herself on was her needlework—not fancy-work, because for one thing she never had time to learn it, and for another, she had nothing to spare to make it with, unless she unraveled rags for colored threads. No, it was her plain-sewing and mending she was proud of. She was better at it than Ma.

  She found white darning cotton and a proper-sized needle and went to work, and before long all the tears and small holes had been neatly dealt with. She held up one of the chemises to admire it, and noticed the little touches of white-on-white embroidery around the square yoke. Just then her aunt came out with more fabric in her hand, and paused to look over Anna’s work with a critical eye.

  “Ain’t bad,” she said. “Stand up.”

  Anna stood up, and Jinny held a plain brown canvas skirt up against her. The waist was going to fit, but it was only going to come to above her ankles, like the nightgown. “Thet’ll do,” Jinny declared. “Ma were a little shorter than you be. Won’t drag in th’ dust’n’ mud. Got shirts t’go with’t, an’ termorrer we kin cut up a petticoat fer more drawers’n suchlike.” She cast a glance at the sky; Anna had just managed to catch the very last of the light to do her mending by, and now the sun was below the level of the trees. The flaming red color painted across the western horizon proclaimed tomorrow would be a fine and sunny day. “Thet lot ye done will do fer termorrer. Iffen y’all ain’t tired, y’all should be. Bedtime fer y’all.”

  She led Anna inside—but not, as Anna had feared, to the bed in the corner, nor the bedding on top of the fireplace. Instead she motioned to Anna to go up to the loft above the fireplace. Wearing this “nightgown” was extraordinarily freeing. Since it ended just above the ankle, there was nothing she had to do in the way of gathering skirts out of the way except to climb the ladder.

  There was a small window cut into the wall beside the chimney, which let in just enough of the twilight that she could see there was an enormous box on the floor shoved up against the chimney, made up with sheets and a pillow, with quilts over one end. The box was filled with something puffy. Probably a sheet over hay, and not a proper mattress. Still, the hay in the Sawyers’ barn had been more comfortable than her proper straw mattress at home, and had smelled better too. She made her way to the box, all bent over beneath the peak of the roof, and lowered herself down—

  —only to have the surprise of lowering herself down into a cloud.

  . . . a featherbed?

  She’d heard of featherbeds, of course, as in, any time someone wanted to describe something particularly comfortable, they’d say “soft as a featherbed,” but she’d never actually lain in one.

  It was warm, probably from being in contact with the chimney all day, and just as soft as a cloud looked, and she had never been so comfortable in her entire life. Once the sun had gone down, it had started to get cool; the warmth of the bed was more than welcome, and between it, and her full stomach, it was all she could do to force herself to her knees to say her prayers. Once she had done so, she just fell over on her side into the softness, grabbed an edge of the sheet and a quilt, and pulled them over herself.

  But somehow, she didn’t manage to get to sleep. Not immediately, anyway.

  The night sounds here were very different from those in the Sawyers’ barn, much more like the deep woods where she and Jeb had camped. And there were all manner of novel sensations keeping her awake. Her comfortably full stomach, for one. The unaccustomed luxury of this featherbed. The equally unaccustomed sensation of being totally, completely clean. The strangeness of being in this loose, soft “nightgown”—it was like being naked in the bed.

  Downstairs she heard Aunt Jinny moving about—and there was one dim light down there, besides whatever was coming from the strange fireplace. That fireplace! She had never even heard of anything like that before. Who had built it here? It must have taken forever! But it certainly looked like the work was worth it. Had that been another featherbed on top of it? Imagine that on a cold night!

  Aunt Jinny certainly hadn’t been anything like she’d expected. Did Ma know she dressed like a man? If she had known, would she still have sent Anna here? Was dressing like a man what had Pa set against her? She couldn’t make up her mind if Aunt Jinny wanted her here or not. Yet Ma had said her sister had all but demanded she come here. Was that something Ma had just made up in her own mind? Or was Aunt Jinny just . . . kind of crotchety and peculiar, but really did want her here? She certainly had shown no hesitation in doubling Anna’s wardrobe, and out of her own Ma’s old clothing, to boot!

  She turned over onto her back and looked up into the roof . . . and there were dozens of eyes up there, looking down at her. Just like in the forest.

  But this time, she was not lying in an open wagonbed, vulnerable and half-listening for bears. This time she was inside, in her aunt’s cabin, a cabin so stoutly built, with every single possible crack and chink stuffed, that the light down below her didn’t even waver from drafts. Whatever was in here with her was harmless, because if it weren’t she had no doubt Aunt Jinny would have Done Something about it—whatever “it” was—a long time ago.

  Probably mice. She could tell from how the meat had been hung from those willow rods, with wooden cones on the metal hooks to prevent anything from climbing down to get to the food, that Aunt Jinny had secured every bit of the smoked stuff from the mice. And everything else was put away in stout, lidded boxes, or jars, or bottles. So they couldn’t steal food, and there was nothing in the bed to attract them.

  Maybe they were in here to be safe from owls.

  She stared at the glowing eyes, defiantly. They stared back.

  But eventually, they must have gotten bored when she didn’t do anything. Pair by pair, they blinked out, until there was nothing up there. And Aunt Jinny put out the light and grumbled her way to bed.

  And Anna fell gratefully asleep.

  5

  SHE woke to her aunt banging on the loft floor with a stick from below. “Time’s a-wastin’, girl!” her aunt proclaimed, as Anna struggled up out of a dream in which she was Pharoah’s daughter, lying back on a silk divan like she’d seen once in a Sears Roebuck catalog they’d gotten for the privy, being fed bits of bread and jam by mice wearing nightgowns. “Things t’ git done!”

  She fought her way out of the featherbed, her nightgown up around her armpits, got everything tugged down into place, and climbed down the ladder to find her aunt working at the hearth, and the table all laid. Outside there was barely enough pre-dawn light to see by, so Aunt Jinny had lit three wax candles to work by. She got to the bottom of the ladder and her aunt jerked her head at the sink. “Wash up. Do a good job of it. Y’all’s new close is on th’ bed.”

  Wax candles! Most people she knew had tallow-dips at most, maybe an oil lamp, though oil was expensive. But then, most people she knew didn’t have beehives.

  She obeyed her aunt, and made her way over to the bed, where the “new” clothing waited. The outfit certainly wasn’t going to turn any heads, but she was grateful to be able to put something clean over her clean body. Unsure of what to do with the nightgown, she folded it up and draped it over one of the ladder rungs, then went to take her seat at the table.

  “Here,” said Aunt Jinny, and plonked down a bowl of cornmeal mush in front of her. The mush was followed by a fried egg, bacon, and fried bread, all washed down with that herb tea. Jinny watched her eat with a sharp eye—but not the way Ma did, making sure she didn’t get more than her fair share. No, this was more like Jinny wanted to make sure she ate every scrap, and if she was still hungry, asked for more.

  “Dishes, then chores,” Jinny said when she was finished. “Y’all pay heed. I ain’t a-gonna show y’all twice, an’ this’ll be what y’all do ever’ mornin’ afore breakfast when I’m a-cookin.”

  “Yes’m,” she replied, resisting the urge to bob a curtsy.

  The first chore was to let
the chickens out of the roost and feed them. “Y’all ain’t niver had chickens?” Aunt Jinny exclaimed, when Anna showed confusion about how to handle them. Anna shook her head and her aunt pursed up her lips in a way that made Anna wonder what she had done wrong. “Wall . . . look, jest scatter ’em some grain, like this—” she broadcast a few handfuls. “That’ll get ’em started, an’ once they get t’eatin’, they’ll go down inter the garden on their own. They’ll spend th’ day chasin’ bugs’n ettin’ weeds.”

  “Ain’t y’all afeerd they’ll wander off or get et?” Anna asked.

  Aunt Jinny just shrugged. “I got my ways,” was all she said, and led the way to the rock-walled pigsty. There was a sow with six half-grown piglets in it.

  The sty had to be mucked out, and clean straw spread in it. Anna was grateful that it was her aunt who did the shoveling out; all she had to do was take another shovel and spread the muck over the compost heap. But of course—tomorrow it would be her turn. She’d have to figure out a way to keep her skirt and petticoat out of the muck.

  Then the pig got a pail full of the scraps from last night’s dinner—scraps that, in the Jones household, would have been made into soup or stirred into the pot of poke salad.

  The third chore was one that Anna at least knew how to do well: sweep out the cabin. She took the twig broom and applied it to the cabin floor with a will, while her aunt got some warm water from the stove-niche and a washboard and began scrubbing vigorously. A moment later she realized that it was her clothing that her aunt was scrubbing. By the time she had finished sweeping the floor, then mopping it with a damp rag-mop, her aunt had scrubbed every stitch she owned, and rinsed them, and the clothing was wrung out and ready to be hung outside, along with another couple of garments.

  “Thet’s the last time I do thet fer y’all,” her aunt said, as they pegged the garments to a line strung from the top of the well to the cabin. “I ’spect y’all t’ scrub underthin’s so’s y’all allus got one clean pair on an’ one t’wear in case somethin’ gets y’all wet or dirty, an’ one ready t’wash or on th’ line. Iffen y’all’s skirt’n petticoat gets mucky, wash ’em, otherwise wash ’em oncet ev’ two weeks an’ sponge th’ hem ev’ night. Wash shirt once a week, unless it gets mucky. Wash apron iffen it gits dirty.”

  That was . . . well it was a lot more washing than was done in the Jones house. But in the Jones house there was little fuel to spare to heat water, hauling water took a lot more time, and there wasn’t much money to spare for soap. Not to mention that Anna and her mother didn’t have but two sets of clothing apiece. Now, thanks to her aunt and her late grandmother, her wardrobe was, by comparison to what it had been, enormous.

  The next chore was weeding, one she knew well. Except instead of saving every bit of green scrap to put in the pot of poke salad, her aunt had her just leave the weeds in the dirt for the chickens to eat. Which obviously, given the abundance of food here, made more sense than deciding whether or not it was edible by humans. And it was an absolute pleasure to weed here, where every plant, every row, promised plenty of meals to come. And, just to make everything perfect, the air sparkled; every lungful brought pleasure instead of coughing. Even the dirt here smelled better than at home.

  She hummed under her breath as she worked, quite thoroughly happy, despite Aunt Jinny’s frowns and odd manners, for the first time in a long time.

  “The dove, she is a pretty bird, she sings as she flies. She brings us glad tidings and she tells us no lies . . .”

  “Anna! Dinner!” came the hail from cabin, and she came to herself with a start, realizing she was halfway down the low slope, having weeded half the garden-plot. She picked herself up, shook the dirt out of her skirt, and hurried to the cabin.

  It became evident that, like the Sawyers, Aunt Jinny’s two biggest meals were breakfast and dinner. It wasn’t as big a spread as the Sawyers had, but it was plenty. Poke salad and cornbread, thick bean soup with either ham or bacon in it (she couldn’t tell which), pickles, more of that herb tea, blackberry jam. “You best get used t’ bean soup,” Aunt Jinny cautioned, as she ladled out a big bowlful for Anna. “I keep a pot a-goin’ most o’ th’ time.”

  Anna was too busy trying to eat the delicious stuff and not burn her mouth to reply.

  Then it was time to take the clothing down off the line. Aunt Jinny eyed it critically, then sat her down with the workbasket to mend and patch using the contents of a scrap basket. Then she handed Anna a pile of pieces of slightly yellowed, soft fabric. “Y’all kin sew as well as mend, I hope?” she asked, and without waiting for a reply, continued, “I cut up a petticoat inter two sets of drawers an’ two chemises. Set to ’t.”

  Anna began to stammer her thanks, but Aunt Jinny just cut her off with a gesture. “’Twas close jest sittin’ in a chest doin’ nobody no good. Might’s well be useful. When y’all finish thet, we’ll see what else kin be turned t’use.”

  And with that, she turned her back on Anna and began working at her sink, doing something with the dried plants and herbs that were everywhere. Presently, Anna figured out that she was making some of her famous potions, and reckoned the best thing she could do right now was prove she could do as she was told.

  She was a very good seamstress—that being one of the few things she could do without getting tired. Good enough that she sometimes got work from one or another of the miners’ wives sewing for them, their husbands, or their children. And it was a pleasure to have absolutely everything she needed, right there at hand, without having to make do. There was even a reel of narrow cotton tape for drawstrings at the waist and knees of the drawers and the neck of the chemise. How—and why—did Aunt Jinny have all this if all she wore were men’s shirts and dungarees?

  She’d finished a pair of drawers and a chemise and was well on her way to finishing the second pair of drawers when her aunt finished her work at the sink, and interrupted her. “Stand up,” she demanded, a thick wooden pencil in one hand, and a piece of leather and a piece of that cotton tape in the other. Anna obeyed. Her aunt directed her to stand on the leather with her skirt hiked up to her knee. Aunt Jinny drew around her feet, then took the cotton tape and measured around her ankle, and then around her knee, marking each length with a knot, then told her to go back to her work. “What’s thet fer, please?” Anna asked as she sat down.

  “Y’all didn’ brung any shoon,” her aunt said with that familiar frown.

  “Don’t need shoon in summer,” Anna demurred. Because although she was enjoying herself on the one hand . . . and certainly reveling in the food! . . . she didn’t really want to think to winter. Winter . . . she should be home, shouldn’t she? She never left the house in winter, so all she needed was something to wrap around her feet to keep them warm. She was feeling so healthy now! A couple of months of “fattening up” and she’d be able to be a real help to her Ma. Why, she might be able to get a job, and that would help even more!

  “Y’all’re gonna need ’em come winter,” came the discouraging reply. Her heart sank just a little. Surely her Ma would want her back before winter came! And Aunt Jinny was hard enough now. What would she be like when they were both cooped up together in the small space of the cabin?

  Supper was the very last of last night’s bean soup, and Jinny set Anna to scrubbing the pot it had cooked in with sand as the next-to-last chore before bedtime. The last chore was to bring wood in from the woodpile, while her aunt set a pot of cornmeal and water onto the hearth to cook into mush overnight, and a pot of beans to soak. But Jinny didn’t seem in any hurry to send her to bed tonight; instead, she poured them both mugs of that herb tea, and indicated that Anna was to sit down in the deepening twilight, while she lit a couple of candles. The scent of honey filled the room; pleasant, and so unlike the stink of the cheap tallow-dips they had used at home.

  “I’m a-goin’ ter arst y’all some thin’s,” Aunt Jinny said. “An’ y’all answer me
straight.” The way she said it made it an order, and Anna cringed a little.

  And what followed was an acutely uncomfortable dissection of the Jones’s daily life, down to exactly who got to eat what. It made Anna blush furiously to reveal their poverty, but the more she told, the more stony-faced Aunt Jinny became, until at last she finished her questions and sat, brooding, staring at the mug of cooling tea she held in both hands.

  But what she said, when she finally broke the silence, shocked Anna into near paralysis.

  “If I’da knowed y’all was that bad off,” she said, bitterly, “I swan, I’da kidnapped y’all once y’all was weaned. Yore Ma made ’er bed with Lew Jones an’ she kin lay innit. But there ain’t no call ter starve a helpless child that ain’t even wanted.”

  What does she mean, I “ain’t even wanted”? How kin she know thet?

  Then she looked up at Anna. “I swore I weren’t gonna interfere, not after Lew Jones treated me th’ way he did, but y’all deserve t’hear th’ truth. Y’all’s Ma didn’ want ye.”

  Before Anna even had a chance to take that in, her aunt continued talking. “My Ma died when I’se ’bout ten. Arter th’ War, my Pa’n me ’n m’ brothers an’ yore Ma all lived in Shady Holler, near t’Soddy, afore most of the minin’ an’ coke-makin’ started. Afore th’ War, my Granny and Granpappy on my Ma’s side had this here cabin, an’ afore we moved ter Shady Holler, we had the farm y’all passed at the mouth of the Holler, but thet’s another story. Y’all’s Ma’s Ma was a widder-woman. Pretty liddle thang, delicate liddle thang. My Pa promised her dead man t’look arter her, an’ by his way of thinkin’, that meant marryin’ her.” Aunt Jinny shrugged. “I didn’ care, I was s’posed t’go to my Granny t’learn t’be a Root Woman like ’er. An’ I did. Then yer Ma’s Ma had Maybelle an’ up an’ died, an’ my Pa spoilt that liddle girl rotten. I seed it when I come home now an’ agin. I was there when thet Lew Jones an’ a buncha Taffies like ’im came breezin’ inter Soddy, all set t’make a for-tune. He had eyes on plenty’o gals, but Maybelle put eyes on ’im an’—” Jinny put down her cup and threw up her hands. “Weren’t no reasonin’ with ’er,” she said in disgust. “She were gonna hev Lew, an’ thet was thet. I reckon Lew thunk Pa was better off’n ’e was. Pa ’ad a war-pension; thet died wi’ ’im. Lew didn’ know thet, or I reckon ’e’d not hev married yore Ma, and thet’s the plain truth. An’ I reckon when there’s hard words between ’em, he don’t stint t’tell her so. So yore Ma was an’ is pure desperate t’keep ’im. So when she knowed she was gonna hev a chile, she thunk it was a boy an’ was desperate t’be rid of ’t, on account of she reckoned it likely Lew would dote on ’is son an’ fergit ’bout ’er. An’ I reckon she was right,” Jinny added. “She wrote t’me, fust time since Pa died, she did, tol’ me she was gonna hev a baby, an’ begged me fer a potion t’be rid of it. I reckoned she’d made ’er bed, an’ tol’ ’er ’twas too late, anythin’ I give ’er ’ould kill ’er too. But then she had y’all, an’ ev’thin’ was fine, cause Lew ’ad no use fer a girl-chile, an’ she reckoned she could make you inter a help right quick. But she kept a-writin’ me, wantin’ potions so she wouldn’t hev no more chillen, an’ then potions she could sell on. I didn’ want ’er throwin’ herself down stairs or somethin’ else jest as stupid, so I give her the potions she wanted fer herself. An’ I figgered pickin’s was getting thin in the Jones house when she wanted ter sell my potions. Which I seed a-comin’, on account of thet Lew Jones was so big about bein’ th’ on’y man in the Soddy Mine thet knowed how t’use a steam drill, an’ them things ain’t called ‘widder-makers’ fer nothin’. I knowed ’e was gonna start a-sickenin’ an’ money was gonna get scarce, cause a miner’s paid by what ’e digs, an’ purdy soon ’e’d be too puny to run thet drill for long, an’ he’d be diggin’ with a pick like ev’body else. But—I’m a Christian woman. So I sent them potions, on account of she’s still my sister, an’ on account of there weren’t no call t’make y’all suffer because yore Pa is a damn fool. An’ when she started beggin’ fer potions fer Lew, I sent them too. Then she started tellin’ me how y’all was sickening, an’ I knowed what caused it, an’ I started a-tellin’ ’er t’ send y’all t’me.”