Jonaphrene knew who was strange.
So the days just went on. The weather got hotter. Our provisions got leaner. Our new shoots came up slow. I knew it was on account of the poor ground and so little sunlight, though our clearing was broad and getting broader all the time with Papa cutting. I would take Thomas sometimes and go walking back along the road the way weâd come, or if he wasnât with me, so I didnât have his weight to carry, Iâd climb the craggy sun-tipped ridge on the far side of the water, trying to see, trying to see, but all I could see was trees and mountains marching off in any direction. Once or twice I followed the two fading tracks along the creek to the place far below our clearing where they turned away from the water and disappeared into deep woods. I never went in there, because those were the woods that swallowed Uncle Fayette and Aunt Jessie and the six cousins, and it was the place the man Misely and his blond children walked in from, and those dark piney woods were a boundary to me. The mountains were strange, I could not fathom them, how they could be so scraggly and mean and hot in the daytime, the rocks keen with scorpions and lizards, the trees whining with locusts, little stubs of prickly pear and stunted cedar on the high ridges, and yet the water sang clear and cool on the rocks trickling by our clearing, the slopes around us hidden tall and dark and wet with sweet-gum and pine. At night it got cold. I would tell myself sometimes, looking up at the black wedge of sky or along the ridge eastward, This is not the same world as back home in Kentucky. That is not the same moonlight. Those are not the same stars.
Jonaphrene whined at night with the bellyache, and me, my stomach cramped too, though I wouldnât tell it. Iâd give my portion to Thomas a lot of times to make him hush up, I had to, because weâd left Bertha dying on the ice sheet and even though Thomas was the knee-baby and needed milk, Mama said she could not nurse him, and he would cry and cry. Some mornings weâd find a sack of snap peas or early okra by the rail fence, sometimes a full milk bucket, once a big round cake of butter, and I knew one of the Misely children had been sent by the father and had come and left it in the dark. Papa hardly ever hunted, though there was good game in those mountains and we were all hungry, but I did not ask why. Never in our lives did we ask questions of our parents, you just did not do so, ever, nobody did. But I wondered sometimes. Like why, if we meant to go on as soon as weâd brought in our little crop, why was it Papa worked so hard, all day, every day, to make that camp look like the old place back home in Logan County?
Heâd built a lean-to out of rough-cut and blankets under a big oak tree beside the wagon and hauled the featherbed out of the wagon and crammed it inside. Then he went on and split rails for the fence, like the old one, to keep the mules out of the yard. He dug violets from the deep woods and planted them in a little half-moon in front of the wagon, dug an outhouse like our old one, strung a pulley rope for the washing at the exact same angle as our old clothesline had run, south and east from the house. Papa cut and sawed and toted and carried and hauled rocks and rocks and more rocks out of that clearing, and sometimes heâd call me to help him because Little Jim Dee was just too little and wild and distracted, he couldnât stay put on any task Papa set for him but would chase off after a lizard or something until Papa would get mad and holler at him and tell him to go on then, get out from under foot. Then Papa would call me to come on and hold the pry bar for him or something, and Iâd put Thomas down and go help him, feeling Mamaâs eyes, watching.
I could not tell you the precise moment when it happened. It was just a slow wakingâme waking to the change within Mama, her waking to what Papa was
So the days just went on. The weather got hotter. Our provisions got leaner. Our new shoots came up slow. I knew it was on account of the poor ground and so little sunlight, though our clearing was broad and getting broader all the time with Papa cutting. I would take Thomas sometimes and go walking back along the road the way weâd come, or if he wasnât with me, so I didnât have his weight to carry, Iâd climb the craggy sun-tipped ridge on the far side of the water, trying to see, trying to see, but all I could see was trees and mountains marching off in any direction. Once or twice I followed the two fading tracks along the creek to the place far below our clearing where they turned away from the water and disappeared into deep woods. I never went in there, because those were the woods that swallowed Uncle Fayette and Aunt Jessie and the six cousins, and it was the place the man Misely and his blond children walked in from, and those dark piney woods were a boundary to me. The mountains were strange, I could not fathom them, how they could be so scraggly and mean and hot in the daytime, the rocks keen with scorpions and lizards, the trees whining with locusts, little stubs of prickly pear and stunted cedar on the high ridges, and yet the water sang clear and cool on the rocks trickling by our clearing, the slopes around us hidden tall and dark and wet with sweet-gum and pine. At night it got cold. I would tell myself sometimes, looking up at the black wedge of sky or along the ridge eastward, This is not the same world as back home in Kentucky. That is not the same moonlight. Those are not the same stars.
Jonaphrene whined at night with the bellyache, and me, my stomach cramped too, though I wouldnât tell it. Iâd give my portion to Thomas a lot of times to make him hush up, I had to, because weâd left Bertha dying on the ice sheet and even though Thomas was the knee-baby and needed milk, Mama said she could not nurse him, and he would cry and cry. Some mornings weâd find a sack of snap peas or early okra by the rail fence, sometimes a full milk bucket, once a big round cake of butter, and I knew one of the Misely children had been sent by the father and had come and left it in the dark. Papa hardly ever hunted, though there was good game in those mountains and we were all hungry, but I did not ask why. Never in our lives did we ask questions of our parents, you just did not do so, ever, nobody did. But I wondered sometimes. Like why, if we meant to go on as soon as weâd brought in our little crop, why was it Papa worked so hard, all day, every day, to make that camp look like the old place back home in Logan County?
Heâd built a lean-to out of rough-cut and blankets under a big oak tree beside the wagon and hauled the featherbed out of the wagon and crammed it inside. Then he went on and split rails for the fence, like the old one, to keep the mules out of the yard. He dug violets from the deep woods and planted them in a little half-moon in front of the wagon, dug an outhouse like our old one, strung a pulley rope for the washing at the exact same angle as our old clothesline had run, south and east from the house. Papa cut and sawed and toted and carried and hauled rocks and rocks and more rocks out of that clearing, and sometimes heâd call me to help him because Little Jim Dee was just too little and wild and distracted, he couldnât stay put on any task Papa set for him but would chase off after a lizard or something until Papa would get mad and holler at him and tell him to go on then, get out from under foot. Then Papa would call me to come on and hold the pry bar for him or something, and Iâd put Thomas down and go help him, feeling Mamaâs eyes, watching.
I could not tell you the precise moment when it happened. It was just a slow wakingâme waking to the change within Mama, her waking to what Papa was