Old Gatestown Chronicles
By Eva Conrad
Copyright 2012 Eva Conrad
(K. G. D.)
Dedicated to the memory of John T. Smith, dear friend and storyteller.
The Storyteller
Arlie McIntosh sat on a stone carriage step in the town square eating an apple. Several boys saw him and approached. He tossed each of them an apple. “Have you come to ruin my peaceful day, then?” he said.
The boys settled in a circle around him, looking at each other as they settled in, crossing their legs and leaning forward.
“I suppose you’re expecting a story!” Arlie gasped. The boys nodded, smiling at each other and at the grumpy old man. “Well, then. I suppose you’ve come to the right place.”
“Just now I was thinkin’ boys, about the early days, when I was a young man and settled here. Looking back I was little more than a boy myself, full of the glory of the war and considering myself quite a fine man,” (and here he grabbed his jacket collar with his hands and pushed out his chest), “ready to start my life. I had received my land grant and I came to Kentucky to make my estate. I had nothing, and I put up a cabin, with the help of a few kindly neighbors, who also gave me what I needed and taught me what I had to know to get along. One of them gave me some little apple trees to start my orchard, another gave me seeds to plant. In those days Gatestown, you see, Gatestown didn’t even exist. This place was nothing but rocks and trees and weeds. Wasn’t much to visit. No post office, no storefronts, one measly church out in the brush with a dirt road so bad going to it that if it rained a little church had to be cancelled on account of mud.”
“So them apple trees you got, Captain, them are that old?” asked one of the boys.
“A few of ‘em are. And then after I got the rocks out of the land and got me a plow and a couple of mules I started planting. I bought some pigs and raised up some piglets. And I got some tobacco seed, and planted some tobacco, planted some beans, planted some corn, cabbage, and so on. I started making money and I added onto my cabin. I had two rooms and I even built me a nice shack for the necessities. It was then that I was twenty-five and figured I was late for getting a wife.”
“Were there any pretty girls here back then?” asked one of the boys.
“No,” said Arlie, spitting out a pip, “but that didn’t stop me from getting married. I figured my neighbors had been good to me and I should help them out in the area of excess daughters, for all my neighbors had plenty of daughters but a genuine dearth of sons. So I thought I would marry Yancy Reas’s daughter Olivia, who was as ugly as a stovepipe and already twenty-seven. She looked sturdy and she and I got along well, so I thought it a good match.”
The boys were laughing at this point. “Ugly as a stovepipe!” they echoed, so as to remember the insult for later use.
“So I went over to Yancy Reas’s house one evening and asked to marry his daughter and he said that if Olivia agreed then the marriage would suit him fine. That night after supper I asked her to marry me and she said yes. I said: ‘then we shall be married in six months.’ Mr. Reas said ‘to hell with that, you two are gettin’ hitched on Sunday!’ I suppose he was afraid I’d see her in the broad daylight and change my mind!”
The boys snorted and laughed.
“And you see, it was already Wednesday. So we got married that following Sunday during church, and I took Olivia home in my wagon with her little box of things, and when she came inside the cabin she didn’t know what to say. She was so excited! I had two rooms and a privy and some worn-out pots and pans and one chair and a rickety table. Everything I cooked on the open hearth.”
“I didn’t know then that I was the luckiest man in the country at that time, but I was. My in-laws helped us make out real well, always giving us a piglet or a goat or whatever they could spare, so our farm grew. Olivia was a fine cook. I got her a swing arm for the hearth so she wouldn’t catch her skirts on fire when she cooked and some new pots and some decent dishes. I made us another chair, and another and another. We built on a couple of rooms. As time passed she seemed to get better to look at, somehow, and everyone said so! In fact, she figured up right pretty!”
“Oh, I got better at the business of farming, and I also started a dry-goods store. Pretty soon we were expecting one wee one after another! Boys, if you work hard life will really pay you back. You just have to keep at it, yes you do.”
“But you know, those were the happiest days of my life, and the worst was when my Olivia passed. The doctor and the midwife together tried so hard to save her, but it was all in vain. She’s buried, you know, right over here in the old cemetery. I thought I would lose my mind, boys! Olivia and I were together for five years and we had three children. Let’s see, that takes me to 1821.”
“I knew I was in deep trouble. I had three babies and had to put them in the care of my in-laws, and we all agreed I needed to find another wife and find her quickly. They had another daughter, their youngest and last child, Lucinda, and she was now eighteen and as pretty as sunshine. They thought I should marry her. And boys, she was a beautiful girl. Her hair was like spun gold, and her eyes so green!”
The boys exchanged glances with raised eyebrows.
“So I said, ‘Mr. Reas, I suppose you want me to marry Lucinda this Sunday? And it was already Friday!”
The boys laughed louder than ever.