The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Read online

  Pa’s tired face folded into worry lines, and here his shift hadn’t even started. He’d have to walk five miles to the mine. I wished he’d be willing to work with Junia so he could ride her, but he’d said, “I’d rather walk a hundred miles barefoot on briars than ride that cursed beast.”

  “You going to the Center this week?” He turned to ask at the door.

  “No, sir, going the week after next.” I glanced at the calendar nailed to the wall and saw my scribbles on the second Tuesday in May.

  “I was able to clear part of the path for your ride.”

  “Thank you, Pa.” I kissed his cheek. “Don’t forget your bear stick,” I reminded. You never know’d what four-legged beast, bear, pack of dogs, or mean two-legged ones would be out there lurking to do harm. I thought about Vester Frazier and tucked my mottling hands behind my back, away from Pa’s eagle eyes.

  “Get some rest, Daughter.” And he was out the door, coughing his way to the airless job.

  Rest sounded good. But there weren’t none coming just yet. After a bowl of soup, I donned my apron to tidy the cabin, swept the big area rag rug I’d knotted last year, and mopped the dark wooden floors where Pa’s coal-dusted boots had landed.

  It was near impossible to keep a clean house when a man worked coal, and you couldn’t get a second behind in your chores trying.

  Even with my weekend off from the book route every week, it seemed like there was more to clean because of what more Pa kept bringing in.

  I stripped Pa’s mattress and boiled the soot-stained linens, wrung them in the yard, then hooked them over a rope tacked across the ceiling behind the woodstove, worrying about Pa’s safety in the dark hole, worrying about leaking gas, explosions, and fallen rocks. It was enough to cause a right-headed folk to lose their mind, and it was all I could do to tuck back the thoughts.

  I rubbed my chapped hands together, wishing I had Mama to worry with. She used to read the Bible, her novels, and sing French songs, her voice a soothing balm, distracting us both when Pa was at work. Humming one of her tunes, I made Pa’s bed with fresh muslin sheets I’d sewn from the bolt of fabric he’d bought in town at the mine’s Company store last year.

  Finished with the bedding, I gathered a lantern and the pile of Pa’s work clothes, washed them on the scrub board with a bar of lye out in the yard, soaped, rinsed, and washed again, wringing the fabric until my hands cramped, then emptying the black water four times until the clothes came clean of the coal dust. Last, I tackled my grubby long skirts, undergarments, and socks.

  Back inside, I flexed my stiff hands, then remembered the bucket on the porch. I hauled in the old zinc tub, filled it, and dragged the bath over to the feet of the stove for warmth.

  It took two more trips back to the springhouse to ready Pa’s bath and still another to top it off. On the third, I cocked my ear, listened to the quiet, taking note of anything amiss. Junia called out to me softly, and I walked over and gave her a quiet greeting. The old girl’s ears were relaxed, eyes sleepy, her stance loose. She would alert me of trouble.

  Look to the beast, the bird, the wild dog, the critters, Pa’d taught me long ago. God spent all their might on the ears so they would have protection. And that safeguard ensures ours.

  After one more good night to the mule, I lugged in the last bucket. In the morning, Pa’d come home spent, heavy in his bones and blackened. I’d have him strip to his waist, then kneel down over the bucket for me to scrub the sticking coal dust off his back, same as all the other miners who were fortunate to have family to help.

  Up in the loft, I gathered a pile of my clothes for wash tomorrow, then took the pillow from my mattress and carried it all down.

  With the clean wash hanging to dry, the cabin near spotless, and my chores done, I put on the teakettle and settled at our wooden table to cut fabric and paper into sheets and rolled glue across it all to bind Angeline’s book.

  From a nearby shelf, I pulled down the library scrapbook I had been compiling for my patrons, fattened with what I hoped were interesting things. I’d cut up a feed sack with a sunny floral print for the dust cover. In our spare time, us librarians made books filled with hill wisdom, recipes and sewing patterns, health remedies, and cleaning tips that folks passed on. Newspapers sent us their old issues, and we’d cut out poems, articles, essays, and other news from the world, and pack the mountain books. The scrapbooks had become a vital part of the library project and were passed from one little home to another.

  I opened the book and pasted handwritten instructions for creating a broom from broom corn onto the opposite page from where I’d put a tatting pattern with a swatch of old lace some stranger had donated.

  In between sips of tea, I thumbed through the pages. Two were filled with cartoons from the Sunday funnies the hillfolk favored. The mountain men liked Dick Tracy and Li’l Abner, while the women couldn’t get enough of Blondie. And their young’uns clamored for Little Orphan Annie and Buster Brown. I’d made sure to take the time to hunt for comics, snip carefully from used newspapers and old magazines, and put them aside for more scrapbooks. I only had three scrapbooks and two were on loan, tattered and barely holding. If only I could get my hands on more reading material.

  I reminded myself to look for Mr. Lovett’s book and turned a few more leaves and stopped. Mountainfolk looked forward to this section filled with the latest home remedies from magazines and to the health pamphlets the government sent in. It made me happy that a lot of folks, especially the elders, insisted on sharing their own too.

  Someone had written instructions for use of a lodestone, advised readers to wear the mineral around their necks to attract money, love, and luck. Beneath that was a note on cock stones from the old midwife Emma McCain, instructing women to find the small stone from the knee of an old cock and hold it during birthing to protect the babe. The midwife had dropped the note off at the library herself, insisted the cock stone worked, praised its worth, and begged me to paste the message into the book. Underneath the amulet’s instructions, Emma had penned a special reminder written to husbands: Wear a cock stone to excite and make your wife more agreeable.

  Wincing, I moved on to the following page. It advised to keep a mole’s foot in my pocket to protect against toothaches. Pa didn’t put much stock in that remedy, but he did carry a crystal rock, the old madstone he’d taken from the belly of a whitetail, same as most hillmen who were lucky to find one. The stone was said to protect against the mad dog and coon diseases. Once someone was bitten, it was necessary to stick the madstone onto the wound to draw out the poisonous rabies.

  A few more sheets budded with soap recipes and cleaning tips; one touted a mix of water, vinegar, and lemon for sooty pine floors and winter-baked walls. A drawing with instructions showing how to make a stovetop took up a whole leaf. Construction of a two-seater outhouse filled another.

  The poetry section I’d made filled several pages, and I paused to reread one of my favorites, “In a Restaurant” by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. I loved how I could hear the music of the violin he’d written into it. Beside it, I’d pasted “Trees in a Garden” by D. H. Lawrence. The poem was a pretty one about trees, and I could almost smell the naked scents of woody barks, budding leaves, and fruits.

  I closed the mountain scrapbook and admired the clean cabin while kneading my calves and thighs, tight from the day’s long ride. Remembering my schedule, I went over to the wall and grabbed the Company store calendar.

  The square on today’s date was blank, and I made a note on Monday, April 24, marking it 1st Book Route, New Patron. J. Lovett, and then looked over my schedule for the rest of the week.

  On Monday I had nine stops, including the school. It’d been wonderful to see the children today, and I smiled to myself thinking about how excited they’d been to see me. Along the path, I’d spotted two older boys walking with buckets. The tallest one saw me, and his eyes rounded and
he said to the other, “Ain’t going crawdad huntin’ today, Thad. I gotta get to school. Yonder comes Book Woman!” Then he dashed off ahead of me.

  In the schoolyard, a little boy climbed a tree and swung upside down from the back of his knees on a branch, crying out, “Yonder comes Book Woman. Book Woman’s here!” The teacher had been so pleased to have the library service back, she didn’t bother to scold the mischievous young’un.

  I reminisced about visiting the other patrons my first day back. Martha Hannah dropped her clean laundry in the dirt when I rode into the yard. Mr. Prine actually stepped out onto his porch to quietly ogle me and share a small smile, an unheard of. And Miss Loretta had cried, though she’d never admit it, and instead insisted it was her old eyes ailing when I offered to get her a handkerchief. The memories warmed me, and I was suddenly struck by my tender affection for my precious patrons.

  With the back of my hand, I dabbed at my damp lashes and blinked at the calendar. On Tuesday, I’d follow the creek bed and hand out reading materials to folks who would accept them. Wednesday, there would be the dangerous Hogtail Mountain to climb, the Evans home, and a visit to young Master Flynn. And on Thursday, I’d spend the day at my outpost, exchanging material for new books and whatever the courier had dropped off for me; sometimes, there were letters waiting to be handed out when the mail couldn’t reach a home. There was Friday, my last route, where I would journey eighteen miles to get the material to Oren Taft’s Tobacco Top community.

  I made a few more notes and then, satisfied, set the calendar aside. Pulling my pillow atop the table, I rested my head and rubbed a hand across the embroidered blue hem, cuddling against the folds of the fabric Mama’d given me long ago.

  She’d sewn us matching dresses with it when I was five. Soft blue ones with striking slashes of deeper blue that she’d somehow thought made our skin look whiter and a lot less colored. “A trick and it works,” she’d said as she dressed us to go to town for a rare visit. “The color is like a bright-blue Kentucky sky that the angels dotted with bluebirds”—Mama’d winked—“and those sweet li’l birds are what catches the eye first.”

  She’d made Pa promise he’d bury her in it. I’d kept my dress and made the soft pillow slip out of the threadbare fabric after she passed, embroidering flying bluebirds onto the hem to remind me of her, us.

  I glided my finger over the threads and stared out into the room, the sound of my breathing giving stingy life to the cabin’s loneliness, my eyes glazing, fixed on the nothingness my home now held. My mind pulled to the Fraziers, and I turned to one of Mama’s old French lullabies, imagining her hands stroking my hair, her airy fingertips tracing my face. Before long, my voice quieted, my lids grew heavy and closed.

  I don’t know how long I’d been dozing when I startled awake to Junia’s brayings, and jumped up and scrambled across the room. Falling to my knees, I pulled Pa’s shotgun out from under the bed and edged over to the window. Peeking through the curtain, I saw nothing but darkness. Junia called out again, and I moved to the door.

  The shotgun wobbled in my grip as I fumbled with the lock. A curse slipped off my tongue, and I flung open the door and scampered down the steps. Lifting the gun to my shoulder, I scanned the yard for any wild creatures. Nothing. But I could feel something, someone out there in the darkness. I squinted at the tree line and then turned toward the creek. A noise struck to my left, and again I searched the woods. Weren’t no small critter stirring through the leaves. It was a bigger movement, and I was sure someone was out there. Maybe Frazier and his congregation, or some townsfolk bent on hunting Blues. Once more the sound shifted, and I raised the shotgun higher and gripped the stock. I couldn’t tell how many there were, or who it might be, but one thing I know’d: they were hunters.

  Junia lifted a long, watery bray into the silence. I tilted my head, trying to hear, and picked up footfalls and more faint rustling. A fear pounded in my good ear, muddling my hearing. The mule snorted, then quieted. I stood there a moment before the darkness enveloped, pulling a panic into my bones.

  Inside, I slumped against the door. The long day back on the route latched hold of my nerves, doubled me over, leaving me gasping for air. The shotgun trembled in my hand. Pa would take care of any creatures, but who would take of Frazier and the hunters?

  In a few moments, I straightened and carried the gun up to my loft.

  Eight

  The second Tuesday of every month, I worked at the library headquarters and May weren’t any different. On those days, librarians were excused from their routes and would head to town.

  At dawn, I traveled toward the Center through the hills. Spring winds knotted old winter grasses, and the scents of budding bloodroot, geranium, wild dogwoods, and creeping laurel sweetened the mountain air, but an uncomfortable crawl fouled my skin, and I was eager to be done with the monthly library chore and back to my book route.

  I’d always feel like a thief sneaking into town, what with my big-brim bonnet and chin tucked tight to escape folks’ wide-eyed stares and pointed fingers.

  I tethered Junia to a place outside the post office and heard my name called. It was Doc. He nudged his mount toward us, and Junia blew at the horse, bossing the fine creature back.

  “Bluet, it’s good to see you about.”

  “Sir, I was coming to see you this afternoon.”

  “Are you okay, my dear?” he asked, concerned, straightening to get a better gape.

  “I’m fit, sir. It’s the Moffits. He’s ill and—”

  He held up his hand. “I’m off to tend to Mr. Franklin’s gout.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, digging into my coat pocket for Angeline’s seeds. “Mrs. Moffit asked me to give you this to tend to her husband’s ailing foot.”

  I hurried over to him and held up the little packet. “They’re from Minnie’s lot,” I remembered, hoping that meant something to him.

  Doc opened it and shook his head. “It’s a waste to tend to a chicken thief. I’d be healing his feet only to have him light off and rob decent folks again.”

  “He’s getting worse—”

  “He’s a thief, Bluet.”

  I mumbled yes and no, then said, “Mrs. Moffit’s with child, and she’s real worried about her husband, sir. Weren’t no med—” I stopped and tried to remember my grammar lessons. “There is…isn’t any medicine in the home, sir,” I said slowly.

  He pushed up his spectacles and leaned down closer to me.

  “Ain’t none!” I blurted, then felt my skin washing in color. I looked around to see if anyone else had seen, and I spotted Mr. Lovett going into the Company store.

  “Bluet, there’s no place for thieves in Kentucky. And Moffit knows a chicken is more valuable than human life here. He got off lightly with just a busted foot. Most would say he should’ve been pocked full of holes and left as a sifter bottom.” Doc leaned back in his saddle, satisfied with his homily.

  I tucked my shadow-dark hands into the folds of my skirt, feeling Mr. Moffit’s shame as if it were my own.

  After a moment, he righted and said, “Tell you what, my dear. You tell Mrs. Moffit to come into town, and I’ll give her a good examination for her and the babe. Free. You can come too, Bluet.” He struck up a wiry brow. “It’s been a while since I tended you. ’Bout three months since your marriage bed, I believe.” He pointed a long finger toward my belly. “We’d want to check for that.”

  I shrank back, wanting to hide, to cover my face. For as long as I could remember, the doc had been curious about us Blues. He’d been coming to our cabin for years asking us about any ailments, begging to tend to us. The doc was friendly enough, a soft-spoken man, and seemed truly hungry for news of our well-being. But Pa insisted that it was only for the appetite of blood. Doc proved him right when he showed up shortly after Mama passed, begging for a sample of her skin and blood before burial. Pa’d cursed and ran him off.
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br />   “Well, I’m off to my patient. Come see me, Bluet.” He turned his horse, dropping Angeline’s precious payment in the dirt.

  I scooped up the seeds and pocketed them. Dismayed, I hurried toward the back room of Troublesome Creek’s post office. Someone had painted Library Center on a new sign above the door, even though folks rarely came into the Center. Our headquarters wasn’t a library, and there weren’t but a few in the whole of eastern Kaintuck, matter of fact. The small room was a place for the Pack Horse librarians to work and was only used to house and sort the reading material, bind books, and shelve them for the courier to pick up and deliver to our outposts.

  I leaned over a table and opened the window inside the stuffy Center, welcoming the sun-soaked breezes. The cumbersome strikes of hooves echoed, and I paused to watch a wagon pull up to the side of the Company store. The old buckboard strained from the weight of stacked caskets, one of the stocks they always sold out first.

  From behind, titters lifted and I turned partway. Across the room, the supervisors gossiped about the upcoming town dance in June, darting eyes around the Center in case someone slipped in. They sorted through stacks of magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers, their murmurs drumming the paper-soaked air, trailed by splinters of unkind laughter.

  Silently, I unpacked a box of books, knowing their mirth came at another’s expense.

  The radio was switched on. Shortly, the tubes warmed up and batted about a newscaster’s thinning words, rolling them out in bumpy conversation into the small room before the words became rich and steady. The Sears radio had been donated by a woman’s club in Cincinnati, but the assistant supervisor, Harriett Hardin, only allowed the pretty cathedral-shaped radio to sit on her worktable, where it picked up the wobbly broadcast signal from the one station she ever permitted, WLOC, The Mountain Table program. A few other stations played jazz and big bands, but Harriett felt only heathens listened to jazz music, and the song and talk were too fast, too wicked.