Half in Shadow Read online

  But they had to be counted, every blessed one of them. Uncle Sam loved them all, and most of them were on his personal relief-list up here on Bent Mountain where nothing but honeysuckle and dogwood could be made to grow without a maximum of effort.

  I sat for a minute, panting and mopping the perspiration—no, sweat! This was nothing so Emily Post! Then I shifted my big leather folder to the other aching arm and started up the mountain once more.

  Just ahead, over the tops of scrub pine and oak, I could see a thin curl- of smoke—indicating that I had either come to another cabin, or had unfortunately stumbled on somebody’s still. Pausing only to examine a blister on my heel, I climbed the hill toward that beckoning smoke-puff. If it was a farm, they would have water of sorts; if it was a still, I would take, a drink of “white lightning,” arid nothing else would matter after that!

  Rounding a turn in the snake-like road, I came upon a typical mountain cabin, like any of a score of others I had stopped at this morning. Bright red peppers were hanging in strings from the rafters of a low front stoop, built onto the front of a slab-pine shack. There was the usual gourd-pole standing, gaunt and skeletal, in the yard. Martins darted -in and out of the hanging gourd. Bird-houses, those professional hawk-warners for the chickens that clucked and scratched about the yard. Then, bubbling up clear and sweet as the one Moses struck from a rock, I saw a mountain spring just beyond the house. A gourd-dipper hung beside it, and a large watermelon lay chilling in its depths beside two brown crocks of milk or butter. With a faint, moan I headed for this oasis—

  And stopped short.

  A tall, spare mountaineer with a bushy red beard and a missing right arm had appeared, as though the rocky ground had sprouted him. His narrow blue eyes held an expression almost identical to the look of the rifle bore he held cradled in his left arm. It was pointed directly at my heart; which was pounding against my fibs like a trapped rabbit.

  But I managed to smile.

  “Good morning, sir. I’m here to take the census... Are you the head of the house?”

  The blue eyes narrowed a fraction. Their owner spat. I heard the click of a cocked rifle as he frowned, as though puzzled at the word “census”; then, in a deep rusty drawl:

  “You ain’t .takin’ nothin’ around here, Ma’m. Git! Besides,” he added with simple dignity,.”we ain’t got nary’ne. We’re pore folks...”

  I Stifled a giggle, managing to keep my face straight with an effort—in spite of that deadly-looking weapon leveled- at my chest.

  “No, no. I mean... The Government sent me to...”

  At the word, my unwilling host stiffened a bit more. His cold eyes flicked a look at my official folder, and he snorted.

  “We don’t want no relief!” he snapped. “Them as can’t do for themselves—like them shif’less Hambys down the road!— you give them your re-Iief! Me and Marthy can keep keer of one ’nother!”

  A GRIN of admiration crept over my face at sight of this one-armed, undernourished old hellion, standing here on his little piece of unfertile land and defying the whole world to help or hinder him. This, I thought, is our American heritage. Pioneers like these hill people had made, our nation what it is today. But some of them, like this old farmer, were still pioneering, still fighting to carve a living out of wilderness and weather. He didn’t think of himself as a “citizen,” didn’t trade on it, and had probably never voted or paid taxes in his life. But he was ah American, all right!

  “Look,” I said gently. “All I’m supposed to do is take your name, and the names of all your family. For the files in Washington. They have to know how many people there are in the country. Every ten years, we...”

  The old codger—I couldn’t decide how old he was; perhaps’ fifty, perhaps sixty— just looked at me.

  “How-come?” he asked simply. “How-come they want to know about us? Me and Marthy don’t bother nobody. Don’t ask favors. Don’t aim fer nobody to push us around. We jest want to be let alone. Was anybody down in the bed, I reckon we’d holp ’em. Rest o’ the time—leave us be!”

  I gulped, telling myself that here, again, was a typical American. It was obvious that my “basic questions” would be roundly resented by this two-fisted individualist, and certainly not answered unless I resorted to a sneak-approach.

  I shrugged, and laid my folder down on a sawed-off stump.

  “All right, Mr... er? I didn’t catch the name?”

  “I don’t aim to. Drop it,” the old hellion answered dryly, but a twinkle of humor came into those rifle-eyes of his. The muzzle of his weapon lowered only a fraction. He jerked his thumb toward the spring. “You dry? Git ye a drink, if you’re a mind to. Then,” he added politely but firmly, “I reckon you’ll be on your way? Got a tin lizzie someplace?”

  “Parked down at Stoots General Store. I had to walk the rest of the way,” I let my voice fall an octave, forlornly, hoping to play on his sympathy. After all, he was a citizen, and I was being paid, not to hike up and down these mountains, but to list the people living on them. “Think your... er, wife? . . would mind if I sat down on that cool-looking porch for a minute and caught my breath? Folks who live in town,” I added, grinning at him and trying flattery, “live from side to side. Not up and down, like you-all around these parts! I wouldn’t last a week!”

  That drew a chuckle from him. But the rifle was still pointed in my general direction. Then I saw him stiffen, looking past my shoulder at someone. He frowned; shook-his head slightly. But I turned too quickly— in time to see a frail, quiet-looking, little woman with graying hair, and soft luminous dark eyes peeking out at me from the cabin doorway. She started^.to duck back out of sight, in obedience to the man’s headshake. Then she seemed to think better of it, and stepped out into full view. There was a kind of glow about her face, a wacm happy look? That drew me at once.

  “Why, Jared!” she scolded in a mild sweet drawl. “Didn’ you ast the lady to come in and set? Shame on you!”’ She winked at me cheerfully, a woman’s wink, sharing the eccentricities of menfolk as our mutual cross.

  “I reckon you’re jest plumb tuckered out, ain’t-you, mam? Why, come in! I’ll send one o’ the childurn to the sprang to fetch ye a cold drink o’ buttermilk. Don’t nothin’ cool me off like buttermilk, of a hot day!” she chattered on hospitably, then raised her voice. “Tom-mee! Cleavydel!... Now, where’d them young’uns git off to? Berry-pickin’, I’ll be bound!... Raynell! Woodrow!” she shouted again, then gave up, shaking her head and smiling.

  I hesitated, glancing back at the man with the. Rifle... and caught a peculiar look of alarm on his bearded face. He opened his mouth once as though about to protest, then sighed, and turned away to the spring.

  “I’ll fetch the buttermilk,” he offered gruffly: “I... I reckon Marthy would,like a mite o’ company now and then, at that. Man-person don’t take no stock in visitin’!”

  “Well,” I hesitated, as he strode out of earshot. “I’m not exactly here for a visit—’’ I eyed the little woman, whose bright eyes instantly took on a look of sensitive withdrawal.

  “Oh—! You... you ain’t from County Welfare?” she faltered. “Jared,, he’s sot agin any kind of charity. Even the soldier kind. He lost that—’ere arm of his’n in the German war. Come back here. To his pa’s place and found it growedv up in weeds, all his folks died off. Typhoid. I... I...” She flushed, and lowered her eyes. “I was only a girl-baby when I first . seen him, a-huntin’ rabbits with that one arm. Took a shine to one another first sight, and I run off from my daddy to marry him....”

  She stopped, as if shocked at the flood of pent-up conversation that burst from her at sight of another woman. From what the old man had said, I sensed that she did not have the pleasure of much company, up here, off the beaten trail. Church-going was about the only recreation most of these mountain women had, anyway; and there was something withdrawn about this household. I had sensed it before, though there was nothing I could put my. Finger on and call it “unusual.
”

  This middle-aged couple seemed a cross-section of the mountaineer families I had encountered today and yesterday, on my census taking trek over the district assigned me. All were poor. All were suspicious, more or less, of the personal questions I had to ask. All had large families of children.

  I SAT down on the porch and opened my folder, smiling. “No, no,” I. Answered her question. “The Government makes a... a list of all the folks living in this country, and I’m here to ask you a few questions. About your family and your farm... Your name is—?” I waited, pencil poised.

  The little gray woman’s face cleared.

  “Oh!” She beamed. “I... I catch on now to what you...! Our oldest boy told me about, it,, jusf yesterday. Said a lady was over to Baldy. Gap, askin’ questions ‘ for the Gover’mint.. Likely ’t’was you, yourself?” I nodded, beaming back at her. “Well, then!” she said eagerly. “I’ll be happy and glad to answer ye. Jared,” she lowered her voice apologetically, “he’s a mite ill at strangers. Don’t you take hurt by nothin’ he says!”

  I sat back in the split-bottom rocker, thankful to get the business over with so smoothly. Their name, I learned, was Forney. Jared C. The. “C!” was just an initial; it didn’t stand for anything. Jared’s mother had simply thought it sounded well. Martha’Ann was her name, aged forty-eight to her husband’s sixty-seven. They had, she said brightly, eleven children. Wo.odrow was the oldest. The youngest,’ a baby in arms, was not yet named. He was simply called -’the least one.”

  Smiling, I jotted down the names in my book, then asked Martha Forney to supply their birth dates. Rocking gently, she ticked them off with the fond memory of any mother. I stopped, frowning slightly at one apparent error in my figures…

  “Oh—I’m sorry! I must have got the names mixed.” I laughed gaily. “I have the birthday of your youngest child listed as second! 1934...”

  Martha Forney turned toward me, her great luminous eyes glowing with matter- of-fact pride at having mothered this large brood.

  “May 10th... 1934?” she corroborated the figures I had set down, then nodded happily. “Yes, that’s right. That’s when the least’ne come to us. Woodrow, he was the first. I reckon on account of Jared’s arm and us heeding a half-growed boy to help us around the place. But- then,” she burst out shyly, “I... I got to honin’ for a little ‘ne. One I could hold in my arms.

  ... And the next mornin’, why, there he was! Nestled down in the bed on my side, a-kickin’ the covers and cooin like a turtledove...

  My jaws dropped. I blinked, peering at my cheery-voiced hostess with a look of shock. Then, I jumped. Jared Forney was looming over me, with a crock of buttermilk held in the crook of his one arm. His bearded face was like a thundercloud of anger, with flashes of lethal lightning darting from those cold blue eyes.

  With an ominous thump he set down the crock and towered above me, single fist clenched as though he seriously debated smashing it into my startled face.

  .“Marthy!” he snapped. “Git on into the house!... And you,” he glared at me. “You jest git! You got no call to come sneakin’ around our place, a-progin’ into things that don’t consarn you... and a-pokin’ fun at them that’s afflicted!”

  Afflicted? I glanced at that stump’of an arm, wondering if that was what he referred to. But ‘the gentle, protective look he threw after his wife’s meekly retreating figure made me wonder. Then suddenly I remembered those weirdly garbled ‘ figures on my census sheet, and thought I understood.

  “Oh, I...’I’m terribly sorry,” I murmured. “I... just didn’t understand. She... she was telling me about the children, their names, and when they were born______”

  “We got- no young’nes,” the old man cut me off, very quietly. “You mustn’t mind Marthy. She’s . . not right in her head. And you oughtn’t to been pesterin’ her, upsettin’ her with all them questions...!” he fired at me fiercely. “Ma’au

  if there’s anything important you want to ask, ask me! And then, I’ll thank ye to git off’n my property and back where you belong!”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” I nodded humbly, and managed to stammer out the last few questions about crops, acreage, and the rest, which the old fellow answered in a flat gruff voice. I scribbled down the information hurriedly, and was about to get to hell out of there, when I happened to glance back at the cabin door.

  THE little gray-haired woman was standing just inside, half in shadow, half in clear mountain sunlight that slanted through the pines overhead. Her arms cuddled a wad of clothing close to her breast, and as she bent over it, crooning, I thought I saw a baby’s, small chubby hand wave from the folds of the cloth, playfully patting at her cheek.

  I whirled to face the old man, frowning. “I thought you had no children,” I called his hand rather coolly; then decided that their offspring must be illegitimate, to account for his queer attitude. My face softened. “Everybody,” I said kindly, “is entitled to his status as a citizen of this country, Mr; Forney. Your baby is, too. He’s entitled to free education, the right to vote when he’s twenty-one, the right to apply to certain benefits...

  My words broke off, like glass. Jared Forney was staring at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. His blue eyes darted toward his wife, then back to. Me with a shocked, amazed expression I shall never forget..

  “You... you see it?” he whispered sharply. “You see ary baby... ?”

  I gaped at him, then glanced back at the woman, at the cooing child in her arms.

  A soft rounded little cheek peeped out from the folds of the old dress, which she held lightly in her embrace, rocking it. I saw a tendril of curly blond hair, a flash of big innocent baby-eyes. I turned back to Jared Forney, deciding that he, and not his quiet gentle little wife, was the mental case. Anyone could mix the birth dates of eleven children, especially a vague,

  unlettered mountain woman like Mrs. Forney.

  “See it?” I echoed, puzzled. “See what, the baby? Of course I do! You weren’t trying to hide it? Surely,” I said softly, “you are not ashamed of a sweet little cherub like that?... And I’ve got to take his name and birth date,” I added firmly. “That’s the law, Mr. Forney. You could be fined and put in jail for withholding information from a census-taker.”

  The mild threat went right over his head. Jared Forney continued to stare at me, then back at his wife. He shook his head, muttering, then sat down weakly in a chair, mopping his forehead with a great red bandana, pulled from his overall pocket..

  “Well, I swannee!” he whispered in a shaken voice. “Well, the Lora holp my time! Well... I... swannee!”

  I frowned at him impatiently, pencil raised. “Please, Mr. Forney,” I pursued the advantage I seemed to have gained, for some reason I could not fathom. “If you have other children, you must tell me their names—or let your wife tell me. It doesn’t matter... er... whether they are legally yours....” I began.

  He jerked up his head, glaring at me. “Don’t you say nothin’ like that, about Marthy!” he cut me short. “There ain’t a finer, better woman in these hills than my old woman! Even if... even if she is a mite....” He gulped, casting another wary glance at the quiet figure with that baby in her arms. Then, swallowing twice, he called uncertainly: ;”W-woodrow? Where are ye at, son? Cleavydel? Tom? Ray-nell...?”

  INSTANTLY, at his call, a group of children appeared from the shadowy pine coppice at our left. Sunlight, slanting golden through the quill-like leaves, made my eyes burn and smart, so that I could not see their faces clearly. But as they moved forward, in a smiling group, I made out the features of two young girls in their teens, a small boy of perhaps eleven, and a tall youth in his early twenties. They were all strong, healthy-looking children, in spite of a pronounced pallor that was unusual among these sun-tanned’ mountaineers. They were dressed in neat flour-sack shifts, or cut-down overalls, obviously having belonged to their father. All four were bare-footed, and swinging lard-cans brimful of blackberries. I remember thinking’ it odd a
t the time that none of their faces and hands were stained with the dark purple juice... but perhaps they had removed these berry stains at the spring on their way to the cabin. What struck me as especially odd was their coloring.

  The two girls were completely unalike, and would never have been taken for sisters. One was sturdy and dark, the other slim and blonde. The boys were as unlike each other as they were unlike the girls. One, the younger, had a pronounced Eurasian cast to his features, with small black slanted eyes in a mongoloid face. The older was a redhead, lanky, freckled, and grinning. All of them seemed in high spirits, with a glow of such pure happiness in each face that I could not help glowing back at them.

  “What a fine bunch of kids!” I commented to Mrs. Forney, with a faint look of reproach for her dour spouse.

  Jared Forney gaped at me again, his face paling. He followed my gaze, squinting and shading his eyes against the sun, then shook his head.

  “I swannee!” he gulped. “I... I... Ain’t nobody but her ever really seen...” He broke off again, mopping, his forehead once more and glancing sheepishly back at his wife.

  “Well,” I said briskly, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to be getting along.” I turned back to Mrs. Forney again, to ask pleasantly, “Do you have the children’s birthdays listed in your family Bible? If you could get it for me, let me copy them...”

  Martha Forney glanced past me at her husband, a mild look of accusation.

  “I... did have ’em wrote down,” she said gently. “Hit was a peddler come by here, and I ast him if he’d write ’em for me. I never learned to read or write...