Uncle Sagamore and His Girls

  “Evenin’, men,” Uncle Sagamore says, and then didn’t pay any more mind to them. He went on measuring out corn meal and sugar.

  One or two of the men nodded, but they all stayed back like they was nervous about getting too close.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” one of them said, kind of whispering. He was the one called Rupert that had been here earlier.

  Another one shook his head. “Now I reckon I seen ever’thing. What you suppose he’s up to? It jest couldn’t be—”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” somebody else said.

  “Hell, you think I’m crazy? You ask him.”

  They all looked at each other, but it didn’t seem like any of them wanted to bother him with any questions. Pop and Uncle Sagamore filled up another tub and stirred it, and started on the third one. And just then another car shot through the gate up by the sand road. We all looked up. You could tell it was one of the Sheriff’s cars by the way it was traveling.

  “Oh-oh,” one of the men says, “here he comes.”

  They all moved back a little, and stood watching. Pop and Uncle Sagamore didn’t pay any attention; they just went on working. The car slid to a stop. Booger and Otis was in the front seat, and the Sheriff was in back. They all jumped out.

  “My God,” Booger says.

  Otis had a kind of nasty grin on his face. “Got him right in the act,” he says.

  The Sheriff looked at the tubs and nodded, like he was real pleased. “Evenin’, men,” he says to the men that was standing back watching. Then he hitched his thumbs in his gunbelt the way they do in the movies, and kind of strutted over to where Pop and Uncle Sagamore was leaning over the tub. “Sagamore Noonan,” he says, “you’re under arrest.”

  Uncle Sagamore looked around. He’d been so busy he hadn’t seen ’em drive up. “Why, howdy, Shurf,” he says. “Drag up one of them boxes and set a spell.”

  The Sheriff threw out his chest, and snapped, “Never mind—”

  “Take a breather, Sam,” Uncle Sagamore says to Pop. “Likely the Shurf wants to do a little politickin’, what with the election comin’ on, and all. And the least a man can do is take a interest in the gov’ment.”

  “Why, sure,” Pop says. He dipped a finger in the stuff in the tub to see if it was warm enough. “Like I always say, if folks’d get out an’ vote, the way they ort, things wouldn’t be in the sorry mess they’re in—”

  The Sheriff cussed real loud. “You’re under arrest! Both o’ you!”

  Uncle Sagamore looked at him, sort of shocked. “Arrest? Why Shurf, whatever for?”

  Booger and Otis snickered. “What for, he says. Oh, brother!” All the men was still watching, just fascinated.

  The Sheriff pointed a finger at the tubs and barked at him. “For them three tubs of mash, that’s what!”

  “Mash?” Uncle Sagamore looked puzzled. Then he brightened up. “Oh,” he says, “you must mean our hawg feed.”

  “Hawg feed?” The Sheriff’s face started to get red. Then he took a deep breath and seemed to get hold of hisself. He pointed real cold toward the sacks of sugar. “I see. So you’re makin’ hawg feed out of three thousand pounds of sugar?”

  Uncle Sagamore nodded. “Along with some corn meal, o’ course, to give her a little body. You see, me an’ Sam’s kind of experimentin’ in the scientific hawg-fattenin’ business—”

  “Come on,” Booger says to the Sheriff, “let’s take the old crook in an’ lock him up. We don’t have to listen to another one of them fairy tales, do we?”

  “Wait a minute, boys,” the Sheriff says. “Wait a minute. I still smell somethin’ rotten here. I been through this too many times, and I don’t like the signs.”

  Uncle Sagamore didn’t seem to pay any mind to all this. He sat down on one of the boxes and crossed his legs. “Set down, Shurf,” he says, “an’ we’ll tell you about this here idea we had. Bein’ in the gov’ment, so to speak, you’re likely interested in new industries around the county, an’ me an’ Sam sure ain’t the ones to want to keep it a secret an’ hawg all the profits—”

  “Oh, good God,” Otis says.

  “How I got wind of it in the first place,” Uncle Sagamore went on, “was one day I happened to be lookin’ at one of them wimmin’s magazines of Bessie’s. You know, that’s full of stuff on how to primp up an’ catch a husband, or if you already got one, how to keep him home nights an’ off the neighbors’ back fences, with all them there hair-frizzlers an’ fancy underdrawers an’ corset doo-dads. Well, anyhow, I run onto this picture of this here real fat lady. An’ it seems like she wasn’t havin’ no fun at all. She’d got so hefty across the britchin’, wasn’t nobody would even think of marryin’ her. But right next to this ’un was another picture of the same lady, except that by golly this time she was ga’nted down to skin an’ bones, an’ she was happy as a dead hawg in the sunshine because the woods was full of young bucks just a-hankerin’ to get at her. An’ it went on to say how she done all this was just by cuttin’ down on the sweetenin’. Seems like it was too much sugar that made her get fat.

  “Well sir, it struck me right then. If it worked that way on wimmin, there wasn’t no reason it wouldn’t work on hawgs. Feed ’em a lot of sugar, an’ they’d put on fat like billy-be-damned.”

  “I see,” the Sheriff says, kind of quiet. “Sounds like a real clever idea, feedin’ a hawg two hundred dollars worth of sugar so you can fatten him up and sell him for eighty. But there’s one thing that puzzles me.”

  “What’s that, Shurf?” Uncle Sagamore asked.

  The Sheriff shook his finger in Uncle Sagamore’s face, and barked, “Just where is the hawgs you’re goin to feed it to?”

  “Well, you see, Shurf—”

  “There ain’t one on this place, Sagamore Noonan! An’ you know it. There ain’t never been one.”

  “Why,” Uncle Sagamore says, kind of surprised, “didn’t you see my new pen that Marvin built for me? It’s right over there—”

  “I see it,” the Sheriff snapped. “And it’s empty.”

  “Oh, that,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Why, that’s jest till we find the right hawg, Shurf. Matter of fact, me an’ Sam’s been lookin’ around for the past couple of days, but it takes a little time.” He sailed out some tobacco juice, and puckered up his mouth kind of thoughtful. “Buyin’ a hawg ain’t somethin’ a man just rushes into. He’s got to take into consideration the two of ’em is goin’ to be together quite a spell, an’ if he don’t get a congenial sort of hawg he can get along with, it ain’t goin’ to work out. Don’t matter how much feed you pour in him, a hawg that’s always bellyachin’ about the way you’re runnin’ things jest ain’t goin’ to put on no weight at all—”

  “Sagamore Noonan!” the Sheriff roared, “that there’s mash!”

  Uncle Sagamore scratched his leg. “Speakin’ of that, it always puts me in mind of Bessie’s Uncle Broaddus, time he bought that uppity dam’ hawg that’d been to the county fair. Pore ol’ Uncle Broaddus done ever’thing he knowed to try to be friends with that hawg, but wasn’t nothin’ would please him. Seems like he kind of looked down on the whole family. He’d won this here ribbon, an’ by God there wasn’t no ignorant ol’ peckerwood from back in the creek bottoms goin’ to tell him what to do—”

  “Ffffssshhhh—!” the Sheriff says.

  “Likened to have busted up the whole family, too, by the time it was all over,” Uncle Sagamore went on. “Seems like Aunt Deelia got wind that Broaddus was hidin’ his shoes out down at the barn so he could slip ’em on when he went to slop the hawg, tryin’ to impress him, sort of, an’ she fairly blowed up. Deelia was always kind of a outspoken sort of woman, anyhow. Said there wasn’t no la-de-da sonofabitch of a stuck-up hawg goin’ to make her wear her Sunday shoes around the place an’ if he didn’t like her bare feet he could take his goddam’ ribbon—”

  “We ain’t goin to listen to any more of this bull, are we?” Booger says, real mad. “Let’s get the cuffs on him an’
take a tub of that mash—”

  “Hold it!” the Sheriff says. “Hold it. I can see it now, as plain as anything. That’s exactly what he thinks we’re goin’ to do.”

  “What you mean?” Booger asked.

  “You’d of walked right into it,” the Sheriff went on, breathing kind of hard. “When you get to town, just what have you got? Warm water, corn meal, and sugar. There ain’t no law against a man mixin’ up a thousand gallons of grits if he wants to. We ain’t found a still, and the stuff ain’t even fermented yet, so how you goin’ to prove it’s mash? He’ll tell the District Attorney it’s hawg feed. We know for a fact there ain’t a hawg on this place, but when they send somebody out here to look, there’ll be hawgs! By the hundreds! Don’t ask me how he’ll do it, locked up in jail, but this whole goddamned farm will be butt-deep to a tall Indian in hawgs that’s starvin’ to death because we stole their lousy feed. And we’ll have the Humane Society on us, an’ a suit for false arrest—”

  Booger’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t mean you really think he’s goin’ to feed this stuff to hawgs?”

  “Of course he ain’t,” the Sheriff snapped. “He’s goin’ to make moonshine out of it! But he’s got to have a still to do it, and we’re goin’ to find the still!”

  “Oh,” Booger says.

  The Sheriff took off his hat and mopped his forehead, and then he slammed the hat on the ground and stomped on it. He stuck his finger in Uncle Sagamore’s face. “This is one time you’ve outfoxed yourself, Sagamore Noonan! You got a still out here somewhere, an’ we’re goin’ to find it! Judgin’ from past experience, God only knows where you got it hid. Mebbe it’s in a holler tree, or you got a portable one you carry around inside your overalls, or it’s buried under the ground, or sunk out there in the middle of that lake, or mebbe you even figgered out a way to install one inside of a mule, but we’re goin’ to get it. By God, you’re goin’ to jail, if it’s the last thing I ever do on earth!”

  He picked up his hat, clapped it down crossways on his head, and stomped back to the car. Booger and Otis got in, and they dusted up the hill.

  Uncle Sagamore shook his head and kind of sighed. “Sure is a excitable man, that Shurf. Seems like he’s always dashin’ around with a burr under his crupper about somethin’.”

  “Sure disheartens a man, though,” Pop says, “him thinkin’ we was goin’ to make moonshine out of this hawg feed.”

  “Now don’t it, Sam, for a fact?” Uncle Sagamore pursed up his mouth and aimed some tobacco juice at a lizard. “How the hell does he reckon a man could hide a still, on election year? With all the men he’ll have lookin’ for it. Just don’t seem logical.”

  SEVEN

  IT SEEMED LIKE WORD was sure getting around, and that everybody in the county was interested in Uncle Sagamore’s new business. By the time him and Pop had finished filling all the tubs there’d been three more carloads of men showed up to watch. They’d gawk at the tubs and the sacks of sugar like they couldn’t believe it, and then they’d whisper among themselves and shake their heads and drive off. But it was next day that they really started coming.

  When I woke up, Pop and Uncle Sagamore was getting ready to leave again. They give me my first day’s pay, and said for me to go right on shelling corn.

  “Are you still looking for hogs?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Pop says. “Matter of fact, we might not get back till tomorrow evenin’. Pickin’ out just the right hawg for a scientific experiment like this is a slow proposition.”

  Well, they hadn’t been gone more than twenty minutes when the first car showed up, and doggone if it wasn’t Curly Minifee. I was just starting on the corn when I heard music, and here come the red-and-white truck down the hill with the loudspeakers blaring. And behind it was another car. The truck stopped and Curly got out. He had on his white suit and red string tie and a big white hat. He looked at the row of tubs with a kind of nasty grin on his face.

  “Hi, kid,” he says to me. “Where’s all the enterprisin’ businessmen?”

  “If you mean Pop and Uncle Sagamore,” I says, “they’re off looking for hogs to buy.”

  He went over and lifted one of the gunny sacks the tubs was covered with. “Well, I sure hope they find some before all this nice feed spoils,” he says, and grins again. “Beginnin’ to bubble a little now.”

  The other car stopped just back of the truck, and two men got out. The one driving was big and red-faced and important-looking. He had on a seersucker suit and a panama hat and glasses. The other one was younger, and he had a big camera case slung over his shoulder. The big one sort of glared a hole through me, and stalked over to where Curly was and looked into a couple of the tubs.

  “It’s a disgrace!” he says. “We’ll be the laughing-stock of the state. The Sheriff of Blossom County standing here watching a moonshiner put down a mash—”

  Curly laughed. “Sure nice of ’em to hand me the election on a plate this way. That dumb old peckerwood. I thought he was supposed to be smart.”

  The big man jerked his head at the one with the camera. “Okay, Doug. I want shots of the tubs, and that pile of sugar, and the corn. And the empty hog-pen. Be sure to get one close-up of a tub of mash, so there won’t be any doubt what it is.”

  The man unslung the camera, got out some flash bulbs, and started taking pictures. The big one went on, talking to Curly. “I’ll crucify that Sheriff clear across the front page. He’ll be lucky if his wife votes for him.”

  Curly grinned. “Here’s another idea, Major. Get one shot of the kid here, shellin’ corn with the tubs in the background. Down below you could say somethin’ like—uh—‘Local distillery provides employment for six-year-old boy.’”

  “Hey,” I says, “I’m not either six. I’m goin’ on eight.”

  They didn’t pay any attention. “Good!” the Major says. “Great idea. Make a note of that, Doug.”

  Just then Sig Freed come up from the house. When he saw Curly, he bristled up his back hair and barked like he was cussing him for everything he could think of. This time I didn’t stop him, though; I was getting to where I didn’t like Curly either, and I kind of hoped Sig Freed would bite him. But before anything could happen, more cars started coming down the hill.

  First, there was about three carloads of men, most of ’em in overalls and straw hats. They got out and just stood around staring, like they always did. Curly winked at the Major. “They keep comin’,” he says, “I’ll have big enough crowd to make a speech.”

  The next two was Sheriff’s cars. They come tearing down the hill and stopped just above the others. The Sheriff got out, looking mad enough to bite nails. Booger and Otis was with him, and two more I didn’t know.

  Curly grinned and waved at ’em. “Mornin’, Sheriff,” he says. “If you’re checkin’ on the hog feed, sure looks to me like it’s beginnin’ to spoil.”

  The Sheriff cussed. “You listen to me, Curly Minifee,” he says. “I know that there’s mash as well as you do—”

  “Well, if that’s so,” the Major barked at him, “why the hell don’t you arrest him? Didn’t anybody ever bother to tell you that making moonshine was against the law?”

  “You get offa my back with that damn’ paper of yours, Kincaid!” the Sheriff snapped at him. “And stop tellin’ me how to run this job. You been around this county long enough to know there ain’t no use arrestin’ Sagamore Noonan with a half-baked case. He’ll just make a monkey out of ever’body—”

  “Well,” Major Kincaid says, “he’s sure had enough practice making one out of you.”

  Him and Curly laughed. Booger and Otis looked real hot under the collar. “Come on, men!” the Sheriff barked. “Let’s get down there and find that condemned still so we can arrest the condemned old crook—”

  He stopped then and sputtered and looked embarrassed, because the next car that parked was full of ladies. They got out. There was five of them, and they was important-looking and bosomy, like they might b
e with the Welfare.

  “Say, this is wonderful,” the Major whispers to Curly. That old dragon leading the charge is Mrs. Carstairs, of the League of Women Voters.”

  “Say no more,” Curly says, and winks. He stepped forward and took off his hat. “Good morning, ladies. I’m Curly Minifee. The mash is right over this way, in these tubs. Or if you’d rather have the Sheriff conduct the tour—”

  They all turned and glared at the Sheriff. He was sweaty and red-faced, and looked like he wanted to crawl into the ground. They eased over and looked into the tubs, kind of holding back their skirts like they was afraid the stuff might jump out and bite ’em. “Well!” the lead one says. “I never in my life—!”

  Two or three more cars had drove up now, and the crowd was growing. “If you ladies’ll excuse me,” Curly says, “I think I’ll make a little announcement.”

  “You go right ahead, Mr. Minifee,” the boss lady said. “We’re for you all the way.”

  Curly stepped over to his sound truck and reached in the window for the microphone. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “This is Curly Minifee. Welcome to the Noonan Brothers Moonshine Distillery.” There was a few snickers out through the crowd. “Of course, this is an illegal operation, but we’re a broad-minded lot in Blossom County—or at least, we have been for the past twelve years—and the Noonan boys want you to feel free to come out any time and tour the distillery. Bring the kiddies—”

  The snickers got louder. Curly went on, with a big grin on his face. “Matter of fact, a thought’s just occurred to me. If any of the good ladies here are connected with the P.T.A., I think it’d be a nice gesture on the Sheriff’s part if he’d contact ’em as a sort of public service and work out a tour for the school children of the county—”