The Run for the Elbertas (2 page)

It is sheer gain, then, to have the stories in
The Run for the Elbertas
now available in this one volume. They need not merely to be preserved as an item in our literary history, but made accessible to the reading public as a piece of living literature.

CLEANTH BROOKS

That was their way. Lonely folk, but a blessing
to each other, for the beasts, and for the earth.

Knut Hamsun,
Growth of the Soil

I Love My Rooster

W
E lived in Houndshell mine camp the year of the coal boom, and I remember the mines worked three shifts a day. The conveyors barely ceased their rusty groaning for five months. I recollect the plenty there was, and the silver dollars rattling wherever men walked; and I recollect the goldfinches stayed that winter through, their yellow breasts turning mole-gray.

We were eating supper on a November evening when Sim Brannon, the foreman, came to tell Father of the boom. Word came that sudden. Father talked alone with Sim in the front room, coming back to the kitchen after a spell. A chuckle of joy broke in his throat as he sat down at the table again, swinging the baby off the floor onto his knee. He reached for the bowl of shucky beans, shaping a hill of them on his plate with a spoon. Never had he let us play with victuals. “They've tuck the peg off o' coal,” he said. “Government's pulled the price tag. Coal will be selling hand over fist.”

The baby stuck a finger into the bean mound. Father didn't scold. Mother lifted the coffeepot, shaking the spout clear of grounds. “I never heard tell it had a peg,” she said.

Fern and Lark and I looked at Father, wondering what a coal peg was. The baby's face was bright and wise, as if he knew.

Father thumped the table, marking his words. “I say it's ontelling what a ton o' coal will sell for. They's a lack afar north at the big lakes, and in countries across the waters. I figure the price will double or treble.” He lifted a hand over the baby's head. “Yon blue sky might be the limit.”

Our heads turned toward the window. We saw only the night sky, dark as gob smoke.

Mother set the coffeepot down, for it began to tremble in her hand. She thrust a stick of wood into the stove, though supper was done and the room warm. “Will there be plenty in the camps?” she asked, uncertain.

Father laughed, spoon in air. “Best times ever hit this country,” he said, jarring the table. “Why, I'm a-liable to draw twice the pay I get now.” He paused, staring at us. We sat as under a charm, listening. “We're going to feed these chaps till they're fat as mud,” he went on. “Going to put proper clothes on their backs and buy them a few pretties. We'll live like folks were born to live. This hardscrabble skimping I'm tired of. We're going to fare well.”

The baby made a cluck with his tongue, trying to talk. He squeezed a handful of beans until they popped between his fingers.

“For one thing,” Father said, “I'm going to buy me a pair o' high-top boots. These clodhoppers I'm wearing have wore a half acre o' bark off my heels.”

The cracked lids of the stove began to wink. Heat grew in the room.

“I want me a fact'ry dress,” Fern spoke.

“I need me a shirt,” I said. “A boughten shirt. And I want a game rooster. One that'll stand on my shoulder and crow.”

Father glanced at me, suddenly angry.

“Me,” Lark began, “I want—” But he could not think what he wanted most of all.

“A game rooster!” Father exclaimed. “They's too many gamble cocks in this camp already. Why, I'd a'soon buy you a pair o' dice and a card deck. I'd a'soon.”

“A pet rooster wouldn't harm a hair,” I said, the words small and stubborn in my throat. And I thought of one-eyed Fedder Mott, who oft played mumbly-peg with me, and who went to the rooster matches at the Hack. Fedder would tell of the fights, his eye patch shaking, and I would wonder what there was behind the patch. I'd always longed to spy.

“No harm, as I see, in a pet chicken,” Mother said.

“I want me a banty,” Lark said.

Father grinned, his anger gone. He batted an eye at Mother. “We hain't going into the fowl business,” he said. “That's for shore.” He gave the baby a spoonful of beans. “While ago I smelled fish on Sim Brannon—fried salt fish he'd just et for supper. I'm a-mind to buy a whole wooden kit o' mackerel. We'll be able.”

Mother raised the window a grain, yet it seemed no less hot. She sat down at the foot of the table. The baby jumped on Father's knee, reaching arms toward her. His lips rounded, quivering to speak. A bird sound came out of his mouth.

“I bet he wants a pretty-piece bought for him,” Fern said.

“By juckers,” Father said, “if they was a trinket would larn him to talk, I'd buy it.” He balanced the baby in the palm of a hand and held him straight out, showing his strength. Then he keened his eyes at Mother. “You hain't said what you want. All's had their say except you.”

Mother stared into her plate. She studied the wedge print there. She did not lift her eyes.

“Come riddle, come riddle,” Father said impatiently.

“The thing I want hain't a sudden idea,” Mother said quietly. Her voice seemed to come from a long way off. “My notion has followed me through all the coal camps we've lived in, a season here, a span there, forever moving. Allus I've aimed to have a house built on the acres we heired on Shoal Creek o' Troublesome. Fifteen square acres we'd have to raise our chaps proper. Garden patches to grow victuals. Elbowroom a-plenty. Fair times and bad, we'd have a rooftree. Now, could we save half you make, we'd have enough money in time.”

“Half?” Father questioned. “Why, we're going to start living like folks. Fitten clothes on our backs, food a body can enjoy.” He shucked his coat, for he sat nearest the stove. He wiped sweat beads off his forehead.

“I need me a shirt,” I said. “A store-bought shirt.” More
than a game rooster, more than anything, I wanted a shirt made like a man's. Being eight years old, I was ashamed to wear the ones Mother sewed without tails to stuff inside my breeches.

“No use living barebones in the midst o' plenty,” Father said. “Half is too much.”

Mother rose from the table and leaned over the stove. She looked inside to see if anything had been left to burn. She tilted the coffeepot, making sure it hadn't boiled dry. “Where there's a boom one place,” she said, “there's bound to be a famine in another. Coal gone high, and folks not able to pay.” Her lips trembled. “Fires gone out. Chaps chill and sick the world over withouten a roof above their heads.” She picked up the poker, lifted a stove cap, and shook the embers. Drops of water began to fry on the stove. She was crying.

“Be-grabbies!” Father said. “Stop poking that fire! This room's already hot as a ginger mill.”

On a Saturday afternoon Father brought his two-week pay pocket home, the first since the boom. He came into the kitchen, holding it aloft, unopened. Mother was cooking a skillet of meal mush and the air was heavy with the good smell. I was in haste to eat and go, having promised Fedder Mott to meet him at the schoolhouse gate. Fedder and I planned to climb the mine tipple.

“Corn in the hopper and meal in the sack,” Father said, rattling the pocket.

He let Fern and Lark push fingers against it, feeling the greenbacks inside; and he gave it to the baby to play with upon the floor, watching out of the tail of his eye. Mother was uneasy with Father's carelessness. The baby opened his mouth, clucking, churring. He made a sound like a wren setting a nest of eggs.

“Money, money,” Fern said, trying to teach him.

He twisted his lips, his tongue straining. But he could not speak a word.

“I'd give every red cent to hear him say one thing,” Father said.

The pay pocket was opened, the greenbacks spread upon the table. We had never seen such a bounty. Father began to figure slowly with fingers and lips. Fern counted swiftly. She could count nearly as fast as the Houndshell schoolteacher.

Father paused, watching Fern. “This chap can out-count a check-weigh-man,” he bragged.

“Sixty-two dollars and thirty cents,” Fern announced, and it was right, for Mother had counted too. “Wisht I had me a fact'ry dress,” Fern said.

“I want a shirt hain't allus a-gaping at the top o' my breeches,” I said.

Father wrinkled his forehead. “These chaps need clothes, I reckon. And I've got my fancy set on a pair o' boots. They's no use going about like raggle-taggle gypsies with money in hand. We're able to live decent.”

“Socks and stockings I've knit,” Mother said, “and shirts and dress garments I've sewed a-plenty for winter. They hain't made by store pattern, but they'll wear and keep a body warm. Now, I'm willing to do without and live hard to build a homeplace.”

“Oh, I'm willing, too,” Father complained, “but a man likes to get his grunt and groan in.” He gathered the greenbacks, handing them to Mother. He stacked the three dimes. “Now, if I wasn't allus seeing the money, I could save without hurt. Once hit touches my sight and pocket, I'm afire. I burn to spend.”

Mother rolled the bills. She thrust them into an empty draw sack, stowing all in her bosom. “One thing you could do,” she told Father, “but it's not for me to say do, or not do. If you was a-mind, you could bring the pay pockets home unopened. We'd not think to save just half. I'd save all we could bear, spend what was needed. You'd not see the spark of a dime till we got enough for a house. I say this boom can't last eternal.”

Father pulled his eyebrows, deciding. The baby watched.
How like a bird he cocked his head. “Oh, I'm a-mind,” Father said at last, “but the children ought to have a few coins to pleasure themselves with. A nickel a week.”

“I want mine broke in pennies,” Lark called.

Fern counted swiftly, speaking in dismay, “It would take me nigh a year to save enough for an ordered dress.”

“We'll not lack comfort nor pleasure,” Mother promised. “Nor will we waste. The chaps can have the nickel. You get a pair o' boots—a pair not too costy. And we'll buy a kit o' fish.”

She stirred butter into the meal mush, and it was done. Fern hurried dishes upon the table.

“The pair my head was set on cost eighteen dollars. Got toes so sharp you could kick a blacksnake's eye out. Reckon I'll just make these clodbusters I got on do.”

“Them boots must o' been sprigged with gold tacks.”

A buttery steam rose from our plates. We dipped up spoonfuls of mush; we scraped our dishes, pushing them back for more.

“Hit's good to see no biled leather breeches on the table for once,” Father said. He blew on a spoon of mush to cool it for the baby. “Right today I'll buy that kit o' fish.”

“They're liable to draw every cat in Houndshell Holler. Better you plug the cat hole in the back door first.”

I slid from the table bench, pulling my hat off a peg.

“Where are you traipsing to?” Father asked.

“Going to play with Fedder Mott. He's yonder in the schoolyard.”

“I know Fedder Mott,” Lark spoke, gulping much. “He's a boy jist got one eyeball.”

I ran the Houndshell road. A banjo twanged among the houses. A hundred smokes stirred in chimney pots, rising, threading chilly air. I reached the schoolhouse, breathing hard, and Fedder Mott was swinging on the gate. He jumped down.

“I'd nigh give you out,” he said, his blue eye wide.

I said, “If my pap knowed about the tipple, I'd not got to come.”

Fedder leaned against the fence. He was a full head taller than I, a year older. He drew a whack of tobacco from a hind pocket, bit a squirrely bite, and offered the cut to me.

I shook my head.

He puckered his lips, speaking around the wad in his jaw. “They hain't nothing worth seeing in that tipple tower. I done climbed thar.” He waited, champing teeth into the wad, making juice to spit. “I'd figured we'd go to the rooster fight. Now you've come too late.”

“Was I to go,” I said, “my pap would tear up stakes.”

Two children ran by, playing tag-o. A man came walking the road. Fedder spat into a rut. The black patch trembled on his face. It was like a great dark eye, dwarfing the blue one. I looked at it curiously.

“Afore long, fellers will be coming down from the Hack,” Fedder said. “We'll larn which roosters whooped.”

I studied the eye patch. It was the size of a silver dollar, hanging by a string looped around his head. What lay behind it? Was there a hole square into his skull? I was almost ashamed to ask, almost afraid. I drew a circle on the ground with my shoe toe, measuring the words: “I'll go to the rooster fight sometime, if one thing—”

“If'n what?”

“If you'll let me see your eye pocket.”

Fedder blew the tobacco cud across the road. He pushed the long tails of his shirt inside his breeches. “You'll spy and won't go.”

“'F'ad die.”

We saw a man walking the path off the ridge, coming toward us from the Hack. He came fast, though he was still too distant to be named. We watched him wind the crooked path and be lost among the houses.

“Ag'in' we go to the cockpit,” Fedder said, “I'll let you look.”

“I choose now.”

Fedder stood firm. “Ag'in' that time, I will.” He hushed a moment, listening for the man who came from the ridge. “Afore long I'll not be wearing this patch,” he said. “I've heared o' glass eyeballs. Hit's truth. They say even a hound dog wears one in Anvers camp. Five round dollars they cost, and could I grab a holt on that much, I'd git the schoolteacher to mail an order.”

“Won't your pap buy you a glass 'un?”

“If'n I was a flycatcher, he wouldn't feed me gnats.”

“I'm going to save money, come every week. I've got me something in my head to buy.”