But even more disturbing than her slovenliness was Ruby Mae’s chattering. It was an unthinking kind of talking, like tying the reins of a horse to the whip socket and letting him run off in whatever direction took his fancy. I had been almost at the point of making cotton plugs for my ears when another of Miss Alice’s teachings came to my rescue.
“My father always told us,” she had said one night at the supper table when David was complaining about the slow progress of his belfry, “that if we will let God, He can use even our disappointments, even our annoyances to bring us a blessing. There’s a practical way to start the process too: by thanking Him for whatever happens, no matter how disagreeable it seems.”
Though she had been speaking directly to David’s exasperation with the mountain men whose promised help rarely materialized, I had begun to wonder if it could not apply equally well to my feelings about Ruby Mae. But how could I ever bring myself to be thankful for her prattle?
Well, I decided to try it. I sat down and, feeling foolish, made myself say, “I thank You that Ruby Mae talks so much.” To my astonishment, even before the first day’s experiment was over, I was beginning to hear what Ruby Mae was really saying. Suddenly, I did feel thankful, for here—so close that I had nearly missed it—was a priceless opportunity to get inside the mountain mind.
Thus to Ruby Mae, the mission house was a mansion and Miss Alice Henderson incredibly wealthy. “She come over here from Cataleechie. Independent rich, she was. Paid cash-money for this land. Built her cabin. Went right on, built this here house—so tall, like one house a-top another house same as a stack cake, without no by-your-leave from nobody.
“Took a heap of paint too, pails and pails of hit,” the girl went on with wonder in her voice, “to make the big house as white as a sarvice bush in the springtime. Swear to Josh-way, if she didn’t put a heap o’ windows in her cabin too, shiny glass windows to let the sun through.”
Even more wonderful in Ruby Mae’s judgment had been the fact that Miss Alice had had two deep wells dug, one for the mission and one for her own cabin before the foundations had been laid. Pumps had been connected to the wells and stood beside the sinks in the two kitchens for “water piped right into the house,” obviously an unheard-of convenience in the Cove.
It was delightful to see Miss Alice through Ruby Mae’s eyes. She had insisted on unprecedented things like having the spring in the yard covered. She kept telling the mountain people that they could get sick from dirty water, might even get the dread typhoid. The little house over the spring was a pretty one, lattice-work painted white like the big house.
It seemed that Alice Henderson had started a Sunday school, then a few months after that a worship service. At first it had caused consternation that a woman would “take up church” and speak in public.
“First off, folks was so scandalized they couldn’t see straight,” Ruby Mae reminisced. “Old men used t’ snort, I can hear them yit, ‘Ain’t nary bitty sense in it.’ Said, ‘Wimmin and keepin’ house belong together like sap and bark. Nothin’ a-tall outside the house and yard be fittin’ for wimmin.’
“Miz Henderson had gumption, didn’t pay them no mind. In no time a-tall some folks was argufyin’ with the snortin’ ones, sayin’ ‘No sech thing. The string of her talk is good. I confidence the way she jest rares back and faces us down. She don’t have the weavin’ ways of most man-preachers. Just talks quiet, like a woman, says things I memorize during the week, can think on while I’m a-doin’ up my work or plowin’ or haulin’ my corn to mill.’ ”
It was apparent that Miss Alice had carefully explained to the Cove people that in the Society of Friends the women had always taken an equal role with men, a new idea in the mountains. Yet the truth was that the highlanders had never heard anyone, man or woman, talk like this one. Behind and underneath Ruby Mae’s gossipy words was the lasting impression made on her by the Quaker lady’s emphasis on two favorite subjects—the love of God and the immediacy of His guidance for anyone willing to receive it. Miss Alice kept insisting that God wants all of us to be happy. To the mountain people this was at first suspect because their religion equated happiness with what they called “the pleasures of the world.” They reasoned that those who were enjoying themselves must certainly be sinning.
But to Miss Alice it was lack of joy that was the heresy. Though Ruby Mae’s summation of all this was halting and confused and incredibly picturesque, the gist of it got through to me. By delving deep into Scripture, by telling story after story out of real-life experience, Alice Henderson was constantly painting a picture of a God who longs to guide His creatures into goodness, kindness, caring, justice, unselfishness. Irresistibly, her listeners were drawn back again and again to hear more. They came as thirsty people; they had been thirsty for a long time.
Quietly, Miss Alice was demonstrating this God of love and beauty too—in small ways and in large. For a few, the concept that life did not have to be all starkness and misery was slowly taking root. Tentatively, timidly—constantly encouraged by Miss Alice—some of the women were at last reaching out for light and beauty and joy.
From upstairs I heard an incessant banging on the front door, then Ruby Mae’s heavy footsteps. “Law me! I’m a comin’. Don’t pound hit down!” There was the sound of a muffled male voice and then the girl loudly summoning me. As I reached the head of the stairs, Ruby Mae called up,
“This here’s Kyle Coburn—you know, Bessie’s Paw.”
“Howdy, ma’am,” the man said. “I’m on my way to mill. Stopped to tell ye about our neighbor-baby. The McHones’ baby—she quit breathin’ last night. Opal’s carryin’ on right bad. This was the only gal-baby followin’ a passel of three boys. She says, would ye come, Miss Christy? Miss Henderson’s over Big Lick Spring way. Opal says if she’s got to give up this least’un, would ye come and fix up the baby real pretty?”
Me, fix up a dead baby? But I had never even seen anyone who had died, let alone prepared a body for burial. “I’m so sorry about the baby,” I stammered. “Of course I’ll come. Isaak told me at school that his new baby sister wasn’t well. What was wrong?”
“They thought it was liver-growed. Weren’t even no time to call Doc MacNeill.”
I was about to ask what “liver-growed” was, then quickly decided I’d better wait and ask David or Miss Alice. “Mr. Coburn, do you think Mrs. McHone has a baby dress?”
“Don’t reckon they had nothin’ for this baby.”
“Then I’ll try to find something here. Oh—and I’m not sure I remember how to get to their cabin.”
“Well, you know the crik right out here—Cutter Branch?”
I nodded.
“When the crik branches, ye take the right fork for a mile, then cut acrost Coldsprings Mountain, then hit’s the second right hand holler nigh onto Turkey Trot Crik.”
To my relief, Ruby Mae came to the rescue. “I know where ’tis. I’ll show you the way.”
As I searched for a baby dress in the mission’s used-clothing box, I kept wishing for Miss Alice—or David. Where was he? Out calling? I was not the one for this assignment. Yet how could I refuse to go? Finally I found a baby dress that would do, and in my room some ribbons that had decorated going-away gifts from friends in Asheville. These I put in a basket with a cake of soap, some clean rags, some safety pins and a needle and spool of thread.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon by the time Ruby Mae and I started. She knew the route all right, but to me it seemed a long way. At last we reached the edge of a clearing at the foot of Big Butt Knob beyond Coldsprings Branch. The setting of this cabin was different from any other I had seen because it stood in the horseshoe bend of a wide creek. The effect was of a peninsula surrounded by the stream on three sides, with woodland and the rising mountain in the back. Several immense old trees, their bare branches stark in the winter sky, grew near the cabin.
“That’s it there. That’s the McHones’.” Ruby Mae put her hand to her mouth. “H
allo—it’s us—Ruby Mae and Teacher!”
Almost immediately the spare figure of a woman appeared on the porch of the rickety cabin. She was a young woman with abundant brown hair. She had tried to part it on the side, but it was so carelessly pinned up that strands of hair staggled down her neck. Brown eyes looked out from a white face, so drawn that it made her look ill. She was wearing a skirt and an old sweater buttoned over her stomach and men’s shoes.
The house was built in two sections several feet off the ground, as on stilts, with a crude dog trot between. As with all of the mountain homes, no paint had ever been used and the building had weathered to a silvery-gray. Part of the porch appeared to be held up by bean poles so that we walked across a floor listing to one side.
Mrs. McHone received us warmly and seemed eager to talk. “The baby cried something awful all night and we thought it was liver-growed.”
“Mrs. McHone, I never heard of that. What’s liver-grown?”
“Lots of newborned babies has it. You take the baby by the left heel and the right hand and make them tetch. Then you take the left hand and the right heel, and if’n they won’t tetch then you know hit’s liver-growed.”
“What do you do then?”
“You got to force the hand and heel to tetch. When I pulled, the baby hollered and went as limp and white as a new-washed rag doll. Never could do nothin’ with her after that. Give her tea all night long, but nothin’ holped. Jest afore the sunball come up, we heerd the death tick in the wall. Jest quit breathin’ then, she did.”
The woman had started crying quietly, wiping her eyes with the edge of her apron. She led us inside the house and pointed to the little waxen body lying in the middle of a large bed, a white cloth over the tiny face.
The horror of this sickened me. The baby must have had cruel internal injuries. Yet Opal McHone had wanted this baby daughter. She was not a callous, indifferent mother but had acted out of love, love mired by her ignorance and by the superstition handed down to her.
At that moment, for the first time in my life, I knew grief. I had had childish disappointments, yes. Hurt pride, often. A sense of loss, sometimes. But compared to what I was feeling now, these had been superficial emotions because they were so self-centered. On my tongue now was the first bitter taste of a grief not my own. My heart was mirroring back from the world’s pain just one episode from all the endless woes and infamies caused by the not-knowing and the not caring. Opal McHone had not known what she did. And I had to understand and to forgive her on that basis, otherwise I could be no comfort to her at all.
With relief, I turned for a moment to the three McHone boys who had been standing in the background watching. Toot and Vincent were still tiny; Isaak, the oldest, was twelve. He had his mother’s dark eyes, unusual with such white-blond hair. I wondered why I found Isaak so appealing. Perhaps it was the trace of small-boy plumpness left in his checks, and the dark, brooding eyes that looked out on the world with a certain quizzical expression. He was wearing his usual raggedy patched overalls over a shirt equally threadbare and heavy work shoes that looked several sizes too large. The brown eyes were watching my every move as he saw his teacher in a new role.
The father, Tom McHone, diffidently came forward and shook my hand. Then the older man, Uncle Bogg, said, “Howdy-do, Miss. Mighty proud that ye drapped in.” He smiled at me with his mouth shut to hide his almost toothless state. I had heard of this man. Everybody in the Cove called him “Uncle Bogg” and laughed whenever they spoke of him. He was shiny-bald on the top of his head, but what hair remained was long and curled jauntily, like fluff, over his ears, giving him a puckish look. A Roman nose, deep creases across his forehead and around his eyes, and several days’ growth of stubble on his chin completed an amazing picture.
“Let me holp ye if I can,” he offered. “I can git ye some water.”
He meant for the washing before the laying out, so there was no avoiding getting on with it.
While he went for the water, I saw that five beds were crowded into this main room of the cabin. There was also a quilting frame set up near the fireplace with a quilt stretched on it.
“Aye, here ’tis,” Uncle Bogg set a pail of water on the floor by me. “Calculate that’ll be enough. Ye mought need this too.” It was a copper basin.
Mrs. McHone sat on the edge of the bed and watched while Ruby Mae and I washed the ivory body. The baby’s eyelids were transparently thin with the fine lines of blue veins still showing. The little rosebud mouth was open slightly with the lower lip drooping. It was the droop that wrenched me.
“It was to be, I reckon,” she said. “Hit was the Lord’s will. We’uns just has to bow to it. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be . . .”
I thought I would scream if she finished the sentence. I bit my lips to keep from saying what I was thinking. It had to be said sometime—but not now, not right now. Someday this mother must understand that God’s will had been this beautifully formed baby girl with a fuzz of blonde curls on her shapely head. As I took one of the tiny hands in mine to wash it—the dimpled fingers that should have been warm and clinging to my fingers—I wanted to lash out against something, somebody. Dr. MacNeill—why wasn’t he teaching mothers how to take care of their babies? Surely his call of duty went beyond peddling pills and crude operations. Now there would be another tiny grave in the mountain cemetery. Even Miss Alice, as long as she had been in this Cove, why hasn’t she found a way to teach these people better?
Of course, I knew perfectly well that I was too new to stand in judgment of either the doctor or Miss Alice. My father had always scolded me for my snap judgments and sweeping condemnations. But what a world of teaching needed to be done back in these mountains! That alone could use a full-time worker.
Though I understood Miss Alice’s efforts to underscore the fine heritage of these people and to build on that, I could also see just by looking around me how we tend to over-romanticize history. Life in those other centuries had not been all knights-and-ladies stuff. There was nothing romantic about cottages where eight or ten people slept in one room with no privacy; where there were no bathrooms, not even outside privies—even if the cottage did happen to have picturesque thatch on the roof. There was nothing glamorous in any century about no running water in which to bathe or about fleas on human beings; or about the blackgum twigs with which some of the women right now, in 1912, dipped snuff and then rubbed their teeth and gums. So many of the people had terrible-looking teeth or no teeth at all. And the eye trouble that was so prevalent. I had learned that it was trachoma and that it was a dangerous infection which, if unchecked, resulted in blindness.
All at once a heavy shadow blotted out the cabin door. I looked up to see three men standing there. “We’ve come to see the fancy layin’ out.” The voice was thick. All of the men were unsteady on their feet; it was obvious that they were drunk. Trying to ignore them, I turned back to my task.
“Come on in, if’n ye must,” Uncle Bogg said, “but don’t none of ye bother Miz Christy.” He made no effort to introduce the men.
“Now ain’t that purty! Ribbons—aah—law!” The tallest of the three was leaning over the foot of the oak bed. The smell of home-brewed liquor was overpowering. The face with the bloodshot eyes and the heavy black beard was distastefully close. I recognized this man: he was Ault Allen, Bob Allen’s brother, the one who had not wanted Dr. MacNeill to operate.
I moved away as far as possible to the head of the bed and sat down to sew ribbon rosettes on the little dress. One of the men was staring at me, then I saw him wink at his friends.
The room was growing dark but no one seemed to think of lighting lamps. When finally I had the dress on the baby, Mrs. McHone came and picked up the little body, cradling it in her arms. “It even has ribbons. No baby in the Cove has ever had ribbons afore. It’s plumb purty, as pleasant as the flowers.” Her rough fingers caressed the sheer cotton fabric. “My baby’s so purty. Oh, Miz Christy, I’m oblee
ged to you!”
“I’m glad I could help—a little.” I groped for something comforting to say, but I was out of my depth and knew it. “Maybe—maybe you’ll have another baby girl sometime.”
The man lolling on the foot of the bed laughed uproariously. “That oughten to be hard. Breedin’s easy for Tom. He’s as healthy as a coot.”
Uncle Bogg came forward, anger in his voice. “You can jest shut up. Not never one more word out’n you. Devil take ye! You’re drunk, jest plain drunk and this ain’t no time for talk like that.”
“It’s late,” I said. “If there’s nothing else Ruby Mae and I can do . . .”
“I’ll git the lantern lit and see ye to the aidge of the woods,” Uncle Bogg said.
“Thanks so much, but you don’t have to do that.”
The old man appeared not to have heard me. He was watching the drunken men as one by one they slipped out the door. Then with deliberation he lifted a lantern off a nail in the wall, lighted it, took a rifle from its rack beside the fireplace, and started out, beckoning us to follow. At the edge of the clearing, Uncle Bogg paused, lifted his hand up to caution us not to speak and then stood, listening intently. I heard nothing unusual, but after a time, he said with sudden vehemence, “I’m a-goin’ with you to the Mission.”
“But that’s too much,” I protested. “Ruby Mae knows the way and it’s a long walk to the Mission and back.”
“No use argufyin’—long walk don’t matter. I’m a-goin’. C’mon.” And the old man set off walking briskly and silently between Ruby Mae and me.
I knew that it was useless to protest. Soon we saw that he was taking a different way back to the Mission. The path led through great pillared tulip trees, the bare branches ghostly in the deepening twilight. Dry leaves and twigs crunched underfoot. All around us was the chatter of the little boomers, the red squirrels, and at a distance, the drumming of ruffed grouse.