Any rabbit we ever shot, Papa always rubbed its belly hair up the wrong way, to see if it was healthy. If he felt bumps on the belly, then he’d bury it because of it being down with rabies. If it was sound, it was pie.
It made me hungry just to study on it. I’d tasted rabbit plenty of times myself, and it was better than goose. Mama was one good cook when it come to tanning a rabbit in her oven. There wasn’t one mighty thing that either Papa or me could rifle that Mama couldn’t put in the pot.
So if those young hawk nestings went after that rabbit meat, it was only because they got to it ahead of me. I didn’t know if Pinky would like rabbit or no. But all pigs are meat-eaters. Sure ought to be with forty-four teeth, Papa said. That was more teeth than I got. So maybe old Pinky would of eat rabbit. All I know is, a sow hog will eat her brood if she’s not fed right. That what Papa says.
I sure fed Pinky good. Just to make sure she got to grow right, I give her as much corn, wheat, barley, rye, oats, and sorghum as I could work out of Papa or Mr. Tanner. She also got some of Daisy’s good fresh milk. Any time I went fishing, she got fish. And all the soybean meal and alfalfa I could muster. Mama said, “Rob, you feed that pig better’n you feed yourself.” I guessed it was true. She was my pig. Mine. And I was going to be dogged if she’d eat improper.
That was just food. She drunk about ten pounds a day of water. And like Solomon and Daisy, she liked her water cold and fresh. I was at Jacob Henry’s once and he was watering the stock. They had a horse and a cow, and only one bucket, so Jacob always had to water the horse first. Because a cow will drink after a horse, but no horse will drink after a cow. And a cow’ll drink three pails to one for a horse. But the horse got to drink first.
I kept a record of how much I fed Pinky, and wrote it all down up in my bedroom. The way I had it figured, for every three hundred fifty pounds of feed I give, she ought weight-gain a hundred. As I was setting there in the clover, chewing on a juniper berry, Pinky come over and rub against me. And it was some rub, because she sure was growing. I’d a give up pie for breakfast if I could of growed like she growed.
“Pinky,” I said, “you get took good care of. You got shelter and shade, and your crib is well drained. There’s always dry straw for you to sleep on, and the sump hole by the brook for mud to roll in. I even wet down the yard for you so the dust don’t creep in your nose.”
She snorted. I knew she wasn’t saying thank you or anything, but it sure was fun to pretend so.
“You’re welcome, Pink. And I’m going to keep right on taking care of you proper. Because do you know what you aim to be? You ain’t going to be pork. No, missy. You’re going to be a brood sow, and have a very long life. You get to be sized good, and heat up like a sow pig ought to, and we’re going to breed you to Mr. Tanner’s boar. Just wait until you see Samson. He’s about the best breeding boar in Learning, according to Papa. You and Samson are going to get mounted and mated, and the first litter ought to be at least eight. And after that, ten.”
All this here talk of motherhood didn’t seem to take to Pinky. She moved away from me and snapped at a bee.
“Bee,” I said, “you must be the last one out tonight. Better get home to your tree. It’s getting dark.”
The whole sky was pink and peaches. Just looking up at it made you feel clean, even if you worked all day. We walked down the hill together; Pinky looking close to the ground the way she always did, and me watching the sundown. The old sun just seem to back off and leave us be.
We got home, and I penned Pinky up for the night, and gave her an extra big goodnight hug. I was walking back toward the house and met Papa coming to the barn. One of the kittens was there too, and I picked her up and carried her. The tiny claws dug into my shoulder, right through my shirt, until I held her close to make her fret no more of falling.
Papa had been mending a harness trace for Mr. Sander, and I waited while he slowly put all his tools away, each to its proper bed on the wall of the tackroom. Then we went outside and sat on a bench on the westerly side of the barn, me still holding the kitten on my lap, and we watched the sun go down. The pink become purple, and the purple turned to what Mama called a Shaker gray.
“Papa,” I said, “of all the things in the world to see, I reckon the heavens at sundown has got to be my favorite sight. How about you?”
“The sky’s a good place to look,” he said. “And I got a notion it’s a good place to go.”
Chapter
8
I didn’t know what time it was, and I sure didn’t care. Not in the center of night, and raining as hard as it was raining.
The thunder was crashing, too. Water was coming in my window, so I swung it shut My window looked to the barn, and even through the rain I could see the yellow of a lantern deep inside the shed.
Voices were downstairs. I could hear Mama and Aunt Carrie, and another voice. A woman that I didn’t know was talking. I was about to get back under the quilt, but decided not. Instead I went to the nook at the stairtop and listened. Then I recognized the voice. It was Mrs. Hillman from up the road. She was standing at the front door, carrying a lantern.
Mama and Aunt Carrie were trying to ask her into the house. Something was said about a hot cup of tea, but I didn’t hear all of it on account it rained so blessed hard. Mrs. Hillman finally come in; and they got the door shut, which improved the listening.
“He’s gone,” said Mrs. Hillman. “Sebring’s gone. I heard him take the team and go in the night, and don’t think I don’t know where. Spade and all, I saw him go. He picked a night like this so nobody’d see him rile her grave. I know.”
Again there was talk of tea, and I could hear cups against saucers somewhere back in the kitchen.
“That Letty Phelps, your husband’s kin. She hired out to us, when I was poorly years back. I know. I could see from out my bedroom glass. See her going to the barn to be with him. And then the trouble, the borning and the dying.”
Papa come in from outside, shaking his slicker. I saw him drop it on the drainboard near the sink, and turn. I just got back in bed when I heard him call.
“Rob, get yourself up and dressed and hitch up the ox to the long wagon.”
I got dressed so fast my trousers were on front side back, and it felt sort of queer. But I pulled on my boots with no socks and run downstairs and out to the shed. With all the racket, both Solomon and Daisy were wide awake. Maybe even wondering like I was as to what was up and afoot.
I got Solomon hitched up. It was all I could do to get the yoke on him. First time I’d ever done it alone. I wanted to go back to the house to learn what was happening. My stomach felt sort of vacant and I had the shakes. Just as I was about to make a dash for the house through the rain, I saw Papa coming with a bigger lantern and the shotgun.
Before I could ask what was astir or where were we going, Papa threw me up on the wagon seat and covered me with an old buffalo robe. He sat close.
“Hold the lantern, boy.”
He poked the long wand to Solomon’s rump and the wagon lurched out into the rain and the pitch black. I kept looking back through the mist toward our house, wanting to be home in bed. The yellow window got smaller and smaller and I was wondering where we were headed.
“There’s talk about a new county road,” Papa yelled to me in the raining, “and they say it’s wide enough to cut the corner of the churchyard at the Meeting House.”
“Is that where we be going, Papa?”
“That’s where.”
“Why?”
“We don’t let Sebring Hillman desecrate what’s ours that’s buried there.”
“What’s desecrate?”
“Dig up.”
So we were headed for a graveyard. That much I knew. What Mr. Hillman was fixing to dig up, or why, was beyond wondering. I was cold and wet and wanted to go to sleep.
“Sit close,” said Papa. “And mind you don’t drop that lantern.”
Twice we had to get down and push the wagon
through mud. It frosted the wheels like they was cake, and it sucked at your boots. Made you feel you were standing in syrup.
We got to Learning, and the town was all asleep in the rain. We rounded the corner at the General Store and went toward Meeting. There was no lantern aglow in the churchyard. But we could hear his shovel hitting wood. It sure sounded lonely. Solomon stopped at the cemetery gate, and we went in on foot. We moved toward where Sebring Hillman was working, and the ring of light from our lantern took him in its circle. Looking up from the hole he was brown with dirt.
“Who’s there?” he said.
“Neighbors, Seeb,” said Papa. “It’s Haven Peck and son Robert. And we come to take you on home.”
“Not ’til this work is done. And the sin and trouble is ended for all to see and all to know.”
“She’s my kin,” said Papa. “And I don’t aim to see kin dug up in the cover of nightfall. Best you drop your shovel.”
I held the heavy wet buffalo robe around me tight as I could. Papa held the gun in the crook of his arm, muzzle down. Hillman come up out of the hole, covered with mud, but holding the shovel high. His face was wet with raining. He was looking up both the barrel holes of Papa’s gun.
“You got a gun,” he said, and his voice was an illness.
“It’s for varmits,” Papa said, “not for neighbors.”
“I don’t purpose to disturb the box that Letty rests in,” he said. “And that’s Gospel.”
“It’s best,” Papa said.
Papa took a shovel out of our wagon and the two men poked at the mud. They found a smaller box, and lifted it up. They replaced the earth as it was before. The headstone said PHELPS, and that wasn’t touched.
“By rights,” said Papa, “that child of hers could go in our orchard plot.”
This was when Sebring Hillman lifted up the small box and held it close to his chest. He was a big man and he needed no help for it. He just stood there, yelling in the raining.
“She don’t have folks. They left town after she drown this child, then hung herself. I can’t undo what’s already been did. But the little girl is mine. You hear me, Haven? This child is mine, and I claim it soul and dust.”
“You’ll wake the town,” Papa said.
“Yes, and I hope to do just that. I never did step forward back then. But by damn I claim it now. I own up. This little girl is mine. She’s … she’s Hill-man’s claim!”
“So be it,” said Papa. “Let’s get our young ones home and rested proper.”
We watched as Mr. Hillman carried the small coffin to where his wagon and team stood hid behind the Meeting House. We followed close along so as he’d have light to see. He tied the coffin firm with rope, and was about to mount the seat. He was wet through.
“You don’t have a slicker,” Papa said, almost like asking.
“No.”
“Tie your team behind our wagon, and ride with us,” Papa said. “We got a slicker and robe.”
“I will.”
We were about halfway home, and I was sitting the wagon bench between Papa and Mr. Hillman. Next to the two of them it was warm and dark, and I could smell the wet musty smell of the buffalo robe. Mr. Hillman held the lantern. Ahead of us the light showed on Solomon’s mighty backside as he moved into the darkness, following the road up from town and back home.
“Haven?” I heard Hillman speak.
“Yup.”
“I’m sorry about your cousin Letty. And about the digging.”
“It’s over and done,” Papa said. “And all I want right now is breakfast.”
“And I.”
“Your wife is at our place.”
“May? May’s at your place? Then that’s how you come to town.”
“That’s how.”
“She’s a good woman, May.”
“Are we home, Papa?” I said.
“Near.”
“I want breakfast, too.”
“So do I, boy,” said Sebring Hillman. “I want so much breakfast it’ll bust britches and crack floors. I never felt so good in a long time.”
“Mr. Hillman?”
“Sure enough.”
“Is that really your little girl in the coffin?”
“It is, Robert. And if it’s all right with you and your pa, I’m going to bury her in Hillman land. With a Hillman name.”
“I guess that’s proper,” I said, and sort of went off to sleep.
By the time we turned into our own lane and got to the house, the rain had stopped. And it was sunup to the east. When Papa lifted me down from the wagon seat, I opened my eyes. There was a light in the kitchen, and Papa said, “There’s coffee on.”
“That’ll be good,” said Hillman.
I went to the house with Mr. Hillman while Papa put Solomon in the barn. We went to the kitchen door, because of the mud. He took off my boots, and I went inside to the kitchen. Hillman said he was too muddy and wet. Mrs. Hillman was sitting in the kitchen. She looked at her husband but no word passed. Mama handed Mr. Hillman a mug of hot coffee.
“Thank you, Sister,” he said.
Mama took a good look at me, yanked me into the pantry, and stripped me down to my skin. She rubbed me dry with a flour sack until I thought all my hide was coming off. Then she wrapped me up in a blanket that she took out of the warming oven over the stove, and gave me a big spoonful of hot honey.
“You look like a potato dug up on a rainy day,” Mama said.
Going through the kitchen on my way upstairs, I saw Mr. Hillman still standing on the kitchen porch, holding the white mug of coffee in both hands. He drank every drop. He was still wet with mud.
“Let’s go home, May,” he said to his wife. They went outside, untied their team, and headed uproad to home.
Behind them rode a baby’s coffin.
Chapter
9
I was just outside the kitchen window, trying to give Pinky a bath. Not really listening.
But I could hear Aunt Carrie and Mama in the pantry, and they seemed to be het up over something that didn’t make any sense to me one way or the other. Aunt Carrie seemed to have most of the ache and distress on her side.
“It’s shameful,” she said.
Then I could hear some pie tins rattle, and I figured it was Aunt Carrie who done it, as a snit.
“Shameful. Them two living under the same roof, without benefit of clergy. You know well as I what’s going on in that house, right under our very noses.”
“Maybe,” said Mama, “our noses are where they shouldn’t be.”
“You heard Matty say it, when she was here the other day.”
“Matty says more than her prayers.”
“Right under our noses, all that sin.”
“Carrie, you know well as I that the Widow Bascom and her hired man ain’t living under our noses. They’re near a mile down road.”
“Too close for comfort.”
“Maybe it’s time that Widow Bascom took some comfort, and him too.”
“It’s shameful. And to think of Vernal Bascom, not yet cold in his grave. Poor soul.”
“Carrie, you know weller than I that Vernal Bascom he’s been gone two maybe three year.”
“Didn’t take her long to hire a man.”
“Haven says he’s a worker. And I say the Bascom place never looked better. She couldn’t of done it alone, run that farm. Life ain’t easy for a widow woman.”
“Easy’s the word for her.”
“What goes on under a neighbor’s quilt is nought to me,” said Mama.
“Plenty goes on. He’s a big strapper of a man, and I’ll wager he’s more than a year riper than she be.”
“You seen him?”
“No.”
“You just hear it from Matty.”
“Hume told Matty that he was driving by the Bascom place, late one night last week, and he heard laughing. And there weren’t a light burning in the whole house.”
“Sometimes that’s the way of it,” said Mam
a.
“Way of what?”
“Often there’s lots to laugh at in the dark.”
“Hume heard it all.”
“I bet he slowed his horse to listen.”
“Hume’s a decent man,” said Aunt Carrie.
“Decent and dull. They’d be little to laugh at in the dark with him.”
“Shame.”
“I say if Hume ever smiled he’d break his legs.”
“Hume heard what he heard,” said Carrie. “He told Matty it was such a noise and carrying on that he wanted to whip his horse all the way to the churchyard and wake up Vernal.”
“Vernal Bascom wasn’t that much awake even when he was standing up. Now that he rests in peace, why don’t Hume just let him rest.”
“Amen.”
“I can see it,” said Mama.
“See what?”
“I can just see Hume Plover in the churchyard whispering to Vernal. Hume never spoke to him all the time he was alive. Now he’s at rest, and Hume wants to spark up a chat.”
“You just go on and on.”
“That I do, Miss Carrie. There’s little enough to snicker at in this old world. And to see Hume Plover whipping up his horse to talk to the dead is enough to give me the all overs. I just wish Widow Bascom and her hired hand could see it, too.” Mama was laughing.
“Shameful.”
“And if Iris Bascom and her man giggle in the dark, they can have my blessing for whatever it’s worth.”
As I sat there on the bench outside, trying to rub the clay mud off Pinky, I got to thinking about my own run-in with Widow Bascom.
It was after Vernal passed on, and she was living alone. Me and Jacob Henry had run through her strawberry patch and across her backyard. She come out with a broom so fast, we didn’t ever know how she got us cornered. We both got whacked so heavy that neither one of us took a step for a week without weeping. She caught me in the shin so hard, it gave me a welt.
I touched the place on my leg where Widow Bascom’s broom handle landed. The scar of that welt was still there. Needless to say, Jacob never told his mother about it. I sure never told Mama. Papa either. I’d probably got a second birching. Papa didn’t take too kind to trespass.