The Yearling Read online

  The walk from the front steps to the gate needed hoeing, too. The walk was bordered with cypress slats, but the weeds crept under and over, and grew impudently among the Amaryllis that lined the pathway. The lavender petals of the chinaberry blooms were falling. Jody scuffed his bare toes through them and went through the gate. He hesitated. The barns were tempting. There might be a new hatching of biddies. The calf might have a different look from yesterday. And if he could think of a good reason to give himself for prowling about, the increasingly unwelcome job of cleaning the water troughs might be that much longer postponed. Then it occurred to him that if he finished the cleaning in short order, he might be through for the day. He swung the grubbing hoe over his shoulder and set off at a trot toward the sink-hole.

  The end of the world, he thought, might be like the sinkhole. Fodder-wing had said that it was empty and dark, with only clouds to ride on. But no one knew. Certainly reaching it must feel as it felt to reach the edge of the sink-hole. Jody wished that he had been the first to discover it. He turned the corner of the fence now. He left the road and took the trail. It was narrow, hemmed in by briers. He pretended that he did not know there was a sink-hole. He passed a dogwood tree. It was a landmark. He closed his eyes and whistled carelessly. He put his feet ahead of him slowly. In spite of his determination, in spite of squeezing his eyelids tight, he could not make himself go farther with his eyes shut. He opened them and walked with a sense of relief the last few steps to the edge of the great limestone sink.

  A small world lay at his feet. It was deep and concave, like a great bowl. Fodder-wing said that a bear as big as God had scooped out a pawful of earth to get a lily-root. Jody knew the truth from his father. It was only that underground rivers ran through the earth and swirled and eddied beneath the surface, and changed their courses. This was especially so where there were streaks of limestone, as here. The limestone was soft and crumbling before the air touched and hardened it. Sometimes, without reason, without warning, after long rains, perhaps, a section of earth sank in, gently and almost without sound, and a deep cavity marked the place where once had run, darkly and unseen, a river. Sometimes the sink-hole was a few feet only in depth and width. Baxter’s sink-hole was sixty feet deep. It was so wide that Penny’s old muzzle-loader could not hit a squirrel from one side to the other. The sink-hole was as round as though it had been dug so on purpose. Staring into it, it seemed to Jody that the truth of its fashioning was more fantastic than the tales of Fodder-wing.

  The hole was older than Penny Baxter. Penny said he could remember when the trees that lined its steep banks were no larger much than saplings. Now they were of great size. A magnolia that grew half-way up the east bank had a trunk as broad as the mill-stone with which the Baxters ground their meal. A hickory was as thick as a man’s thigh. A live oak spread its branches across half the sink-hole. Smaller trees, sweet gum and dogwood, ironwood and holly, grew lushly up and down the banks. Palmettos thrust tall spears among them. Giant ferns grew from top to bottom. Jody looked down into a great cupped garden, feathered with green leaves, cool and moist and, always, mysterious. The sink-hole was set in the arid scrub, at the core of the pine island, like a lush green heart.

  The trail to the bottom of the sink-hole led down the west bank. It was worn deep into the sand and limestone by the years of Penny Baxter’s feet, leading his stock to water. In the dryest weather, there was a continual seepage which dripped down the banks and came to gather at the bottom in a shallow pool. This water was stagnant, and clouded by the comings and goings of the animals who watered there. Only Penny’s hogs used it for drinking and wallowing. For the other stock, and for his own family’s use, Penny had an ingenious arrangement. Up the east, or opposite, bank from the trail, he had cut out of the limestone strata a series of troughs to catch and hold the filtered seepage. The lowest trough was shoulder-high from the bottom of the sink-hole. Here he led the cow and calf to water, and his horse. Here in his young manhood he had led the yoke of cream-colored oxen with which he had cleared his land. A few yards higher up, he had cut a pair of deeper troughs. Here his wife brought her block and paddle and came to do her washing. A portion of the bank bore a milky whitewash from the years of her soap-suds. For her annual quilt-washing, she caught rain water.

  At the last, high above the stock trough and the wash troughs, lay a deep, narrow trough that gathered water used only for cooking and drinking. The bank above was so steep that none of the larger animals disturbed the water. The deer that came, the bears, the panthers, all used the west trail and watered either at the pool itself, or at the stock trough. Squirrels drank from the upper trough, and occasionally a wild-cat, but for the most it was untouched by anything but Penny’s gourd, dipping into it to fill his cypress buckets.

  Jody jolted down the trail, bracing himself against the steepness with the grubbing hoe. It made a clumsy stock, catching in the wild grape vines. The descent always excited him. Step by step the banks lifted above him. Step by step he passed the tops of trees. A breath of wind eddied into the green bowl, stirring waves of coolness. The leaves fluttered their thin hands. The ferns bent a moment to the ground. A red-bird swung in an arc across the sink-hole. It turned and dropped down to the pool, like a bright leaf falling. Seeing the boy, it whirred up and away. Jody knelt by the pool.

  The water was clear, for the hogs were feeding to the north in the marshy prairies, and had no need of the sink-hole. A small green frog eyed the boy from a partly submerged twig. The nearest water was a couple of miles away. It seemed amazing that frogs should travel so far, to settle in a small and distant pool. He wondered if the first frog migrants had known that there was water here, when they hopped to the rim of the sink-hole and hesitated on their green haunches. Penny said that once in rainy weather he had seen a line of frogs in single file, like marching soldiers, crossing the dry flat-woods. Did they move blindly or with knowledge? Penny did not know. Jody flipped a frond of fern into the pool and the frog dove and hid himself in the soft muck.

  A sense of aloneness that was not lonely came to the boy. He decided that when he was grown he would build himself a little house beside the pool. The animals would become used to it, and he would look out of the windows on moonlit nights and see them drinking.

  He crossed the flat floor of the sink-hole and climbed a few feet to reach the stock trough. It was awkward, bringing the grubbing hoe over his shoulder and into the trough. He discarded it and went at his work with his two hands. An accumulation of leaves and sand had left a thick layer. He dug and scraped vigorously. He worked against the creeping moisture, trying to hold the trough dry and empty for an instant. The seepage had returned by the time he took his hands away. The limestone trough was white and clean. He left it with satisfaction and moved higher up the bank to the more laborious work of scouring out the larger wash troughs. Constant use kept these comparatively free from leaves, but the soap-suds in time made them slippery. He climbed a sweet gum and gathered an armful of Spanish moss. It made good scouring material. He scooped sand from a bare spot on the bank and used it with the moss.

  He was tired when he reached the drinking trough at the top. The incline was so steep that by resting his belly flat against the bank, he needed only to lower his head, like a fawn, to drink. He ran his tongue up and down the length of the trough. He darted it in and out and leaned back to watch the ripples. He wondered whether a bear lapped water like a dog or sucked it in like a deer. He imagined himself a bear and drank both ways, deciding. Lapping was slower, but he choked when he sucked the water in. He could not decide. Penny would know how a bear drank. He had probably actually seen them.

  Jody buried his face completely in the water. He turned it from side to side, so that first one cheek and then the other was laved and cooled. He stood on his head in the trough, resting his weight on the palms of his hands. He tried to see how long he could hold his breath. He made bubbles. He heard his father’s voice at the bottom of the sink-hole.

&
nbsp; “Son, how come that water to feel so good to you? Put the same thing in the wash-basin, you act like ’twas something nasty.”

  He turned, dripping.

  “Pa, I never heered you comin’.”

  “You had your dirty leetle ol’ face too deep in what your pore Pa was fixin’ to take a drink of.”

  “I wa’n’t dirty, Pa. The water ain’t riled.”

  “I ain’t that thirsty.”

  Penny climbed the bank and examined the lower troughs. He nodded. He leaned over the rim of the wash trough and chewed a twig.

  “I declare,” he said, “your Ma purely shocked me when she said ’twenty years’. I jest hadn’t never set down and reckoned the time. The years has slipped by me, one by one, me not noticin’ nor countin’. Ever’ spring, I’d figger to git your Ma a well dug. Then I’d need a ox, or the cow’d bog down and perish, or one o’ the young uns’d put in and die and I’d have no heart for well-diggin’, and medicine to pay for. Bricks so turrible high— When I begun diggin’ oncet, and got no water at thirty feet, I knowed I was in for it. But twenty years is too long to ask ary woman to do her washin’ on a seepage hillside.”

  Jody listened gravely.

  He said, “We’ll git her a well one day.”

  “Twenty years—” Penny repeated. “But always somethin’ interferin’. And the war— And then the land to be cleared all over agin.”

  He stood leaning against the trough, looking backward along the years.

  “When I first come here,” he said, “when I picked this place and come to it, I hoped——”

  The morning’s question came to Jody’s mind again.

  “How come you to pick it, Pa?”

  “Well, I picked it because—” His face puckered, his mind seeking words. “I jest craved peace, was all.” He smiled. “Out here I got it, excusin’ the bears and panthers and wolves and wild-cats—and now and agin, your Ma.”

  They sat in silence. The squirrels began to stir in the treetops. Suddenly Penny poked Jody in the ribs with his elbow.

  “Look at that scaper, peekin’ at us.”

  He pointed to a sweet gum. A half-grown raccoon was peering around the side of the trunk, a dozen feet from the ground. It saw itself observed and pulled back out of sight. In an instant the masked face looked again.

  Penny said, “I reckon we be as cur’ous to the creeturs as they be to us.”

  “How come some is skeert and some is bold?”

  “That I don’t know. It depend, likely, on how young a creetur is scairt. They don’t seem to be no rule for it. I mind me, oncet, I’d been huntin’ all mornin’—this were over on Wild-cat Prairie—and I set down under a live oak and made me a leetle fire to warm me and cook me a bit o’ bacon. Well, whilst I was settin’ there, a fox walked right up t’other side o’ the fire and laid down. I looked at him and he looked at me. I figgered mebbe he were hongry. I takened a piece o’ meat and I jobbed it on a long stick and I helt it out to him. I helt it right over his nose. Now a fox is mighty wild and I ain’t never knowed one to git that hongry to where he wouldn’t run. And you know that fox laid there right on, lookin’ at me, and never et nor run.”

  “I’d love to of seed him. What you figger made him lay there, Pa, lookin’ at you?”

  “Hit’s been a puzzlement to me all these years since it happened. All I kin figger is, the dogs had run him until he got heated and his brains was cooked. I figger, for some reason, that fox were cold-out crazy.”

  The ’coon had moved into full view.

  Jody said, “Pa, I wisht I had me somethin’ to pet and play with, like Fodder-wing. I wisht I had me a ’coon, or a bear cub, or sich as that.”

  Penny said, “You know how your Ma rares. I’d not mind it, for I love the creeturs. But times has been hard and rations scarce, and your Ma’s the one to say.”

  “I’d love a baby fox, or a baby panther. Kin you tame ’em, do you git ’em young?”

  “You kin tame a ’coon. You kin tame a bear. You kin tame a wild-cat and you kin tame a panther.” He pondered. His mind went back to his father’s sermons. “You kin tame arything, son, excusin’ the human tongue.”

  Chapter X

  JODY lay comfortably ill, recovering from the fever. His mother called it the fever, so I he did not argue. He thought privately that too many half-ripe brierberries might have something to do with his ailment. Treatment for such things was always much more violent than treatment for the fever. His mother had observed his shaking, had laid her big hand on his forehead and said, “Git into the bed. You got chills and fever.” He had said nothing.

  She came into the room now with a cup of steaming liquid. He eyed it anxiously. For two days she had been giving him lemon-leaf tea. It was aromatic and pleasant. When he had grumbled about its tartness, she had added a teaspoon of jelly to it. He wondered if now, in the mysterious wisdom that sometimes descended on her, she had discovered the truth. If she guessed that his trouble had been the colic, the medicine she held would be either snake-root tonic, or a blood purifier made from Queen’s Delight, both of which he abominated.

  “If your Pa’d only plant me a root o’ fever grass,” she said, “I could git both o’ you well o’ the fever in no time. ’Tain’t decent, not havin’ fever-grass in the yard.”

  “What you got in the cup, Ma?”

  “None o’ your business. Open your mouth.”

  “I got a right to know. Supposin’ you kilt me and I never knowed what medicine you give me.”

  “Hit’s mullein tea, if you got to know. Hit come to me, could be you was comin’ down with the measles.”

  “’Tain’t the measles, Ma.”

  “How do you know? You ain’t never had ’em. Open your mouth. If ’tain’t the measles, this here won’t hurt you. If’tis the measles, hit’ll bring out the rash.”

  The thought of bringing out a rash was tempting. He opened his mouth. She grasped him by the hair and poured half the cupful down his throat. He sputtered and fought.

  “I won’t take no more. ’Tain’t the measles.”

  “Well, you’ll die if ’tis, and the rash don’t break out.”

  He opened his mouth again and took the rest of the mullein tea. It was bitter, but not nearly as bad as some of her concoctions. The bitter brew she made from pomegranate peelings, or that from pitcher-plant root, was infinitely worse. He lay back on his moss-stuffed pillow.

  “If ’tis the measles, Ma, how soon will the rash come?”

  “Soon as you git to sweatin’ from the tea. Kiver up.”

  She left the room and he resigned himself to waiting for the sweat. Being sick was something of a treat. He would not willingly go through the first night again, when cramps had tied him in knots. But the convalescence, the solicitude of his mother and his father, was definitely pleasant. He felt a faint sense of guilt that he had not told about the brierberries. She would have given him a purge, and it would all have been over with by the next morning. Penny had done all the work of the clearing alone for two days. He had hitched old Cæsar to the plow and plowed over the sugar-cane and hilled it up, had worked the corn and the cow-peas and the small patch of tobacco. He had hauled water from the sink-hole, cut wood, fed and watered the stock.

  But perhaps, Jody speculated, he did have the fever. Perhaps he was coming down with the measles. He felt his face and stomach. There was no rash yet, no sweat. He flounced back and forth in the bed to hurry the heating. He realized that he felt as well as ever; better, actually, than before the plenitude of meat had tempted him into over-eating. He recalled the quantities of fresh sausage and of venison that he had eaten without his mother’s stopping him. Perhaps after all the brierberries had had nothing to do with it. He was sweating at last.

  He called, “Hey, Ma, come see! The sweat’s done come.”

  She came to him and examined him.

  “You feel as good as I do,” she said. “Git outen that bed.”

  He threw back the covers and stepped
out onto the deerskin rug. For a moment he was light-headed.

  “You feel all right?” she asked.

  “Yessum. Sort o’ weakified.”

  “Well, you ain’t et nothin’. Git into your shirt and breeches and come git you some dinner.”

  He dressed quickly and followed her to the kitchen. The food was still warm. She laid out biscuits for him, and a plate of hash, and poured him a cup of sweet milk. She watched him eat.

  “I hoped you’d git up a lettle mite pacified,” she said.

  “Kin I have some more hash, Ma?”

  “I should say not. You’ve et enough now, to fill a alligator.”

  “Where’s Pa?”

  “To the lot, I reckon.”

  He strolled in search of him. Penny was sitting idly, for once, on the gate.

  “Well, son,” he said, “you look right peert.”

  “I feel good.”

  “You ain’t got the measles, or the child-bed fever, or the smallpox?” The blue eyes twinkled.

  Jody shook his head.

  “Pa——”

  “Yes, son.”

  “I don’t figger there was nothin’ ailded me but green brierberries.”

  “That’s about what I figgered. I never said nothin’ to your Ma, for she’s death on a belly-full of green brierberries.” Jody sighed with relief.

  Penny said, “I been settin’ here studyin’. The moon’ll be right in a hour-two. What say you and me git us a couple o’ bobs and go fishin’?”

  “In the creek?”

  “I sort o’ crave to fish some o’ them saw-grass ponds over where ol’ Slewfoot was feedin’.”

  “I’ll bet we kin ketch us a cattywampus in one o’ them ponds.”

  “We kin sure pleasure ourselves tryin’.”

  They went together to the shed back of the house to gather their paraphernalia. Penny discarded an old hook and rigged two new ones. He cut short hairs from the tail of the deer he had shot and made lures of the gray and white wisps. He tied them invisibly to the fish-hooks.