The Yearling

Chapter XXV

November slid into December with no more sign than the high, sad cry of the wood ducks flying. They left their hammock nests and moved from lake to pond and back again. Jody wondered why some birds cried in flight while others were silent. The whooping cranes gave their rusty call only in motion. Hawks screamed from the air but sat still and frozen in the tree. Sapsuckers were noisy on the wing but gave themselves to the bark of trees with no further sound than the tat-tat of their pecking. Quail spoke only from the ground, and soldier blackbirds shrilled from the rushes. Mocking birds sang and chattered day or night, on the wing, or perched along the fences or in the poke-berry bushes.

The curlews were coming south. They came every winter from Georgia. The old ones were white with long curved bills. The young ones, from the spring hatching, were gray-brown in color. The young curlews made fine eating. When fresh meat was scarce, or the Baxters were tired of squirrel, Penny and Jody rode old Cæsar to Mullet Prairie and shot half a dozen. Ma Baxter roasted them like turkey and Penny swore the flavor was even sweeter.

Buck Forrester had traded the bear cubs in Jacksonville for a good price. He had brought the Baxters all the articles on Ma’s list and a small sack of silver and copper in change, to boot. Relations between the Forresters and the Baxters were strained since Lem’s attack on Penny and after the settlement the big dark men rode by without stopping.

Penny said, “Likely Lem persuaded the rest I raly meant to cheat about the deer. We’ll git it all straight one day.”

Ma Baxter said, “Hit suits me jest as good to have nothin’ to do with ‘em.”

“Now Ma, don’t fergit how Buck lit in when I was snake-bit.”

“I ain’t fergot. But that Lem’s like a snake hisself. Turn and strike at you jest ‘cause he hears the leaves rustle.”

Buck stopped one day, however, to announce that he believed they had accounted for all the wolves. They had shot one at the corral, had trapped three more and had seen no sign of one since. The bears were giving them constant trouble. The most troublesome was old Slewfoot, whose maraudings were taking him, Buck said, from the river on the east to Lake Juniper on the west. His favorite stopping place was the Forrester corral. He watched the wind and eluded both dogs and traps, slipped into the corral and made off with a calf whenever it pleased him to do so. The nights the Forresters sat up and waited for him, he did not appear.

Buck said, “Hit’ll not do you much good to look out for him, but I thought I’d pass the word.”

Penny said, “My lot lays so clost to the house, mebbe I kin ketch him at his tricks. I thank you. Buck, I been wantin’ to say somethin’. I hope you ain’t mixed up in your mind about that buck Lem got so ornery about.”

Buck said evasively, “That’s all right. What’s one deer? Well, so long.”

Penny shook his head and went back to his work. It disturbed him not to be on friendly terms with his only neighbors in his small scrub-world.

Work was light and Jody spent long hours with Flag. The fawn was growing fast. His legs were long and spindling. Jody discovered one day that his light spots, the emblem of deer infancy, had disappeared. He examined the smooth hard head at once for signs of horns. Penny saw him at it and was obliged to laugh at him.

“You shore expect wonders, boy. He’ll be butt-headed ‘til summer. He’ll not have no horns ‘til he’s a yearlin’. Then they’ll be leetle ol’ spiky ones.”

Jody knew a content that filled him with a warm and lazy wonder. Even Oliver Hutto’s desertion and the Forresters’ withdrawal were distant ills that scarcely concerned him. Almost every day he took his gun and shot-bag and went to the woods with Flag. The black-jack oaks were no longer red but a rich brown. There was frost every morning. It made the scrub glitter like a forest full of Christmas trees. It reminded him that Christmas was not far away.

Penny said, “We’ll flunk around ‘til Christmas, and we’ll go to the Christmas doin’s at Volusia. Then after that we’ll git down to work agin.”

Jody found a patch of Cherokee beans in the pine woods beyond the sink-hole. He gathered his pockets full of the bright red seeds. They were as hard as flint. He stole a large needle and a length of stout cotton thread from his mother’s sewing basket and took them with him when he went prowling. He sat down in the warmth of the sun with his back against a tree and strung them laboriously, a few each day, to make a necklace for his mother. The seeds were strung unevenly but the effect pleased him. He carried the completed necklace in his pocket so that he might look at it often, until it began to have a sticky appearance from crumbled biscuits and squirrel tails and other such articles. He washed the necklace at the sink-hole and hid it on a rafter of his bedroom.

There had been nothing special for Christmas the year before except a wild turkey for dinner because there had been no money. This year there was the money left from the sale of the bear cubs. Penny set aside a portion for cottonseed and said the rest might be spent for Christmas.

Ma Baxter said, “Now if we goin’ to the doin’s, I want to go tradin’ to Volusia ‘fore then. I want me four yards o’ alpacy so I kin have Christmas decent.”

Penny said, “Wife, your figger’s no secret. I ain’t quarrelin’, for you’re plumb welcome to all I got. But seems to me four yards won’t no more’n make you a pair o’ drawers.”

“If you got to know, I aim to fix over my weddin’ dress. Hit’s long enough, for I ain’t growed up nor down. I done my growin’ sideways, and I aim to set in a piece down the front so’s it’ll meet around me.”

Penny patted her broad back.

“Now don’t take on. A good wife like you deserves a piece o’ goods to set down the front of her weddin’ dress.”

She said, mollified, “You jest tootlin’ me. I don’t never ask for nothin’ and you git so you don’t expect me to ask for nothin’.”

“I know. Hit frets me, you makin’ out with so leetle. I’d love to fetch you a bolt o’ silk, and do the Lord spare me, one day you’ll have a well o’ water at the house, and not have to wash no more at the sink-hole.”

She said, “I want to go to Volusia tomorrer.”

He said, “Now give Jody and me a day-two to hunt some, and mebbe we kin carry some meat and hides to the store and you kin trade to your heart’s content.”

The first day’s hunt brought nothing.

“When you ain’t lookin’ for deer,” Penny said, “they’re all over the place. When you hunt ‘em, you’d think you was in a tormented city.”

A puzzling incident occurred. South of the island Penny tried to put the dogs on the track of what appeared to be a small yearling or a well-grown fawn. The dogs refused to take the trail. Penny did a thing he had not done in years. He broke a switch and thrashed old Julia for her stubbornness. She yelped and whined, but still refused. The mystery became clear at the end of the day. Flag showed up, as he had made a habit of doing, in the middle of the hunt. Penny exclaimed sharply, then knelt to the ground to compare his tracks with those the dogs had refused to follow. They were the same. Old Julia, wiser than he, had recognized either the track or the scent of the newest Baxter.

He said, “That makes me feel right humble. A dog knowin’ what you mought call kin-folks.”

Jody was elated. He felt a deep gratitude to the old hound. He should have hated having Flag frightened by their pursuit.

The second day’s hunt was more profitable. They found deer feeding in the swamp. Penny shot a large buck. He trailed still another, a smaller, and jumped it in a bay-head. He gave Jody a shot, and as he missed, shot it down. They had come on foot, for slow-trailing was the only chance these days of getting game, except by accident. Jody tried to carry the smaller deer, but its weight knocked him almost to the earth. He stayed with the kill while Penny went back for the horse and wagon. Flag was with them when they returned.

Penny called, “This pet o’ yours loves a hunt as good as the dogs.”

On the way home, Penny pointed out where the bears were feeding. They were eating the berries of the saw palmetto.

“Hit cleans ‘em out and tonics ‘em. They go into their winter beds fat as butter. The bears is like to be our salvation for fresh this year.”

“What else eats the berries, Pa?”

“The deer loves ‘em. And leave me tell you, do you fill a demi-john with ‘em and pour Cuby rum over ‘em and leave ‘em stand five months, you’ve got a drink would make even your Ma shout Hallelujah, could you oncet git it down her.”

Where the palmettos began to grow on higher land and merge into black-jack, Penny pointed out narrow trails leading into the gopher holes. The rattlesnakes had denned up for the winter but on warm bright days they came out for a few hours and sunned themselves near the holes. It seemed to Jody that all the invisible creatures of the scrub walked in plain sight before Penny’s eyes.

At the house, Jody helped him skin the deer and dress out the hides and the hindquarters, which would be the only salable portions. Ma Baxter fried the meat from the fore-quarters and put it down for keeping in its own fat. The bones and scraps were boiled in the wash-pot for the dogs. The family feasted that night on the hearts and livers. There was not much wasted on Baxter’s Island.

In the morning, Penny said, “We got to agree now, will we stay with Grandma Hutto tonight or come home. Do we spend the night, Jody’s got to stay here to milk and feed the dogs and chickens.”

Jody said, “Trixie’s near about dry, Pa. And we kin leave feed. Leave me go, but please let’s stay with Grandma Hutto.”

Penny said to his wife, “You want to stay there tonight?”

“No, I don’t. Her and me don’t never swop much honey.”

“Then we’ll not stay. Jody, you kin go, but no teasin’ to stay after we git there.”

“What must I do with Flag? Cain’t he foller along so Grandma kin see him?”

Ma Baxter burst out, “That blasted fawn! They ain’t never been such a nuisance on the place, even countin’ you.”

He said with hurt pride, “I reckon I’ll jest stay here with him.”

Penny said, “Now boy, tie up the creetur and fergit him. He ain’t a dog, he ain’t a young un, though you’ve near about made one outen him. You cain’t carry him places like a gal would a play-dolly.”

He tied Flag reluctantly in the shed and changed into clean clothes to go to Volusia. Penny was dressed in his broadcloth suit with the shrunken sleeves, with his black felt hat on top of his head. The roaches had eaten a hole in the brim, but it was after all a hat. He had no other except his wool hunting cap and his palmetto field hat. Jody was in his best, brogan shoes, homespun breeches, big wire-grass hat and a new black alpaca coat bound with red tape. Ma Baxter was clean and crisp in a new dress made of the blue and white checked gingham from Jacksonville. It was a darker blue than she wanted, but the check was pretty. She wore her blue sun-bonnet but carried her black frilled bonnet to put on when she should approach the village.

It was pleasant, jogging down the sand road in the wagon. Jody sat on the floor of the wagon body with his back against the seat. It was interesting to see the scrub drop away behind him as he watched it. The sense of progressing was more acute than when he faced forward. The wagon jolted and his thin rump felt bruised by the time they reached the river. He had nothing much to think about and he gave himself over to thoughts of Grandma Hutto. She would be surprised to know that he was angry with Oliver. He pictured her face with satisfaction. Then he felt uncomfortable. He felt toward her exactly as he had always felt, except that through the summer he had actually forgotten her. Perhaps he would not tell her that he was through with Oliver. He saw himself being kind to her and maintaining a noble silence. The imagined scene pleased him. He made up his mind definitely to inquire politely after Oliver’s health.

Penny had the deer meat in two pokes. The hides were in crocus sacks. Ma Baxter had a basket of eggs and a small pat of butter to trade at the store, and another basket containing gifts for Grandma Hutto: a quart of new syrup, a peck of sweet potatoes, and a shoulder of the Baxters’ sugar-cured ham. She would not have gone empty-handed even to the house of an enemy.

Penny hallooed on the west side of the river to call the ferry from the east. The sound echoed down the river. A boy appeared on the opposite bank. He came leisurely. For an instant it seemed to Jody that the boy had an enviable life, pulling the ferry back and forth across the river. Then it occurred to him that such a life was quite without freedom. There would be for such a boy no hunts, no jaunts into the scrub, no Flag. He was glad he was not the ferry-man’s son. He said “Hey” to him with condescension. The boy was ugly and bashful. He helped lead the Baxters’ horse on the ferry with lowered head. Jody was filled with curiosity about his life.

He asked, “You got a gun?”

The boy jerked his head sideways in a negative and fastened his eyes on the east shore of the river. Jody recalled Fodder-wing longingly. From the minute he used to come in sight, Fodder-wing had talked to him. He gave up the new boy as a bad job. Ma Baxter was anxious to do her trading before she went visiting. They drove the wagon the short distance to the store and laid their articles of exchange on the counter. Storekeeper Boyles was in no hurry to trade. He wanted news of the scrub. The Forresters had given an incredible account of conditions after the flood. A few hunters from the Volusia territory had been there and had reported game almost impossible to find. The bears were troubling stock along the river, which they had not done in years. He wanted Penny’s verification of the tales.

“Hit’s ever’ word true,” Penny said.

He leaned over the counter and settled himself for talk.

Ma Baxter said, “You know I cain’t stand on my feet too long. If you men’ll agree on your trade, I’ll do my buyin’ and go on to Mis’ Hutto’s. Then you kin talk here all day.”

Boyles weighed out the meat promptly. With venison scarce, he could find a ready sale for it at a good price. The river steamer would take a haunch or two by way of novelty to the English and Yankee travelers. He examined the hides carefully, and at last expressed his satisfaction with their condition. He had an order and could pay five dollars each. The rate was higher than the Baxters had hoped for. Ma turned to the dry goods counter with a complacent air. She was high-handed and would have only the best. He was out of brown alpaca. He could send for it by the next boat, he said. She shook her head. It was too far to send back for it from the Island.

He said, “Now why don’t you take a dress length of this black alpaca and start new?”

She fingered it.

“Shore is purty. How much did you say? Oh—”

She turned away. She retreated into her pride.

“I said ‘brown’ and I meant ‘brown,’” she said coldly.

She bought spices and raisins for a Christmas cake.

She said, “Jody, go look and see has old Cæsar broke loose.”

The request was so absurd that he gaped at her. Penny winked at him. He wheeled quickly so that she could not see him smile. She meant to buy something to surprise him for Christmas. Penny would have thought of a better excuse to get him out of the way. He went outside and stared at the boy who tended the ferry. The boy sat and studied his own knees. Jody picked up bits of limestone and aimed them at the trunk of a live oak up the road. The boy watched him furtively, then came behind him without speaking and picked up bits, too, and hurled them at the tree. The contest continued wordlessly. After a time Jody thought his mother would have finished and he ran back into the store.

His mother said, “You comin’ with me or stayin’ with your Pa?”

He stood hesitant. Grandma Hutto would bring out cake or cookies the moment he was in her house. On the other hand, he could never get enough of hearing his father talk with other men. The matter was settled for him by the storekeeper’s handing him a licorice stick for himself. It would keep body and soul together for the time being.

He said loftily, “Me and Pa’ll foller.”

She went out. Penny watched after her. He frowned. Boyles was stroking the fur of the deer hides with approval.

Penny said, “I’d figgered on takin’ cash for them hides. But if you’d as soon trade me a dress length o’ that black alpacy, why, I don’t much keer.”

Boyles said reluctantly, “I’d not do it for anybody else. But you’ve traded here a long time. All right.”

“Best cut it up and wrap it before I change my mind.”

Boyles said wryly, “You mean before I change mine.”

The scissors snipped crisply across the alpaca.

“Now gimme silk thread to match and a card o’ them glass buttons.”

“That’s not in the bargain.”

“I got money for it. And put the alpacy in a box, do it rain this evenin’.”

Boyles said good-naturedly, “Now you’ve cheated me, tell me where a man can go to shoot him a wild turkey for Christmas dinner.”

“I cain’t no more’n tell you where I’m fixin’ to hunt one myself. They’re mighty scarce. The plague got ‘em bad. But you cross the river about where Seven-Mile Branch flows into it. You know that cypress swamp with two-three good big cedars in it, jest southwest o’ the run? You work through there—”

The good male talk was beginning. Jody sat down on a cracker box to listen. There were no other customers and Boyles came out from behind the counter and pulled up a straight chair and an old cowhide rocker beside the thumper stove for himself and Penny. They got out their pipes and Penny shaved Boyles a pipeful of his own tobacco.

“Nothing like home-raised tobaccy for satisfaction,” Boyles said. “You plant a patch for me this spring. I’ll pay as high as anybody. Now go on — Southwest o’ the run—?”

Jody chewed on his licorice stick. The rich black juice filled his mouth and the talk filled another hunger, back of his palate, that was seldom satisfied. Penny told of the flood in the scrub. It had been bad along the river, too, Boyles interrupted to say, but the river had carried most of the water away as fast as it fell. The banks had been flooded, and Easy Ozell’s shack had swayed back and forth in the wind and finally capsized.

“He’s living in Grandma’s shed,” Boyles said, “and happy as a pine borer in a fresh log.”

Penny recounted the wolf hunt and the bear hunt; told of the rattler’s strike, which the Forresters had not thought to mention. Jody lived the summer over again, and it was better than when it happened, the way Penny told it. Boyles was as fascinated, and sat leaning forward, forgetting to smoke. A customer came in and he left the stove grudgingly.

Penny said, “Your Ma’s been gone a hour-two, boy. You best run on to Grandma’s. Tell ‘em I’ll be along directly.”

The licorice had long been swallowed. It was getting on toward noon and he was famished.

“Will we eat dinner at Grandma’s?”

“Why, yes. If we wasn’t invited, your Ma’d of been back by now. You go on now. And carry that forequarter to her yourself.”

He went, a little drugged with Penny’s tale-telling.

Grandma’s tidy yard was recovering from the effect of the high water. The river had been over its bank here and her fall flower garden had been washed away. There was unaccustomed debris here and there. The second planting was thriving, but there was no bloom, except of shrubs close beside the house. The blooms of the indigo had fruited into small black seed-pods, curved like scythe blades. Grandma was inside the house with his mother. He heard their voices and as he stepped up on the porch and looked through the window, he saw the flickering of flames on the hearth. She saw him and came to the door.

Her embrace was friendly, but it lacked something of enthusiasm. The two Baxter men were more welcome without Ma. There was no plate of cookies anywhere in sight. The smell of cooking, however, came from the kitchen. Otherwise he could scarcely have endured his disappointment. Grandma Hutto sat down again to talk with his mother with a tight-lipped patience. His mother was behaving no better. She looked critically at Grandma’s frilled white apron.

She said, “No matter where I be, I like to dress plain in the mornin’.”

Grandma Hutto said tartly, “I wouldn’t be caught dead without a frill on me. Men-folks like a woman dressed pretty.”

“I was raised to call it indecent, to dress to please the men. Well, some of us plain folks has had to go pore on this earth, ‘ll git our frills in Heaven.”

Grandma Hutto rocked rapidly.

“Now I don’t want to go to Heaven,” she announced.

Ma Baxter said, “Reckon there’s no danger.”

Grandma’s black eyes snapped.

“Why wouldn’t you want to go, Grandma?” Jody asked.

“One thing, the company I’d have to keep.”

Ma Baxter ignored this.

“Another thing’s the music. There’s nothin’ played there, they claim, but harps. Now the only music I like is a flute and a bass viol and an octave harp. Unless one o’ your preachers’ll guarantee that, I’ll jest refuse the trip with thanks.”

Ma Baxter’s face was stormy.

“Another thing’s the food. Even the Lord likes the incense of roasted meat before him. But accordin’ to the preachers, folks in Heaven live on milk and honey. I despise milk and honey makes me sick to my stummick.” She smoothed her apron complacently. “I figger Heaven’s only folks’ longin’ for what they ain’t had on earth. Well, I’ve had near about ever’thing a woman could want. Mebbe that’s why I’ve got no interest.”

Ma Baxter said, “Includin’ Oliver runnin’ off with a yaller-headed chipperdale, I reckon.”

Grandma’s rocker beat a tune on the floor.

“Oliver’s up-standin’ and fine-lookin’ and women has allus follered him and allus will. Take Twink, now. She’s not to blame. She’d never had a fine thing in her life and then Oliver takened a notion to her. Why wouldn’t she foller him? The pore child’s an orphan.” She shook out her frills. “Left an orphan at the mercy of the Christians.”

Jody fidgeted in his chair. The coziness of Grandma’s house was chilled, as though the doors were open. It was more woman-business, he decided. Women were all right when they cooked good things to eat. The rest of the time they did nothing but make trouble. Penny’s step sounded on the porch. Jody was relieved. Perhaps his father could straighten them out. Penny came into the room. He rubbed his hands together by the open fire.

He said, “Now ain’t this fine? The two women I love the most in all the world, waitin’ for me by the hearth-fire.”

Grandma said, “If the two women loved each other as good, Ezra, all’d be well.”

“I know you two don’t git on,” he said. “You want to know the reason? You’re jealous, Grandma, ‘cause I’m livin’ with Ory. And Ory, you’re jealous ‘cause you ain’t as handsome as Grandma. Now hit takes a bit of age to make a woman handsome — I don’t say purty — and time Ory’s got a bit of age on her, mebbe she’ll be handsome, too.”

It was impossible to quarrel around his good-nature. The two women laughed and bridled.

Penny said, “What I want to know, is the Baxters invited to eat o’ the fat o’ the land, or be they obliged to turn around and go home to cold cornpone?”

“Now you know you’re welcome, day or night. And I do thank you for the deer meat. I only wish Oliver was here to eat it with us.”

“What’s the news from him? We was right hurt he didn’t come to visit us before he put to sea.”

“It was a long time before he got over his beatin’. Then he had word there was a boat in Boston wanted him for mate.”

“I reckon there was a gal in Floridy wanted him for the same thing, eh?”

They laughed together and Jody laughed with them for relief. Grandma’s house was warm again.

She said, “Dinner’s ready, and if you scrub creeturs don’t eat hearty, my feelin’s’ll be mighty hurt.”

Dinner was not as lavish as when Penny and Jody came alone. Yet there were furbelows to impress Ma Baxter that were very tasty. The meal was friendly.

Ma Baxter said, “Well, we made up our minds to come to the Christmas doin’s. We couldn’t come last year for we’d not come empty-handed. You figger a fruit cake and a bait o’ syrup candy’ll be welcome for my share?”

“Nothin’ better. How about you-all spendin’ the night and havin’ Christmas with me?”

Penny said, “That’ll be fine. And you kin depend on me for meat. I’ll git a turkey if I have to hatch one.”

Ma Baxter said, “What about the cow and dogs and chickens? We cain’t all come off and leave ‘em, Christmas or no Christmas.”

“We kin leave enough for the dogs and chickens. They’ll not starve in a day. And I got a idee Trixie’ll be fresh and we kin leave the calf to nuss her.”

“And lose the calf to a blasted bear or panther.”

“I kin fix a corral inside the barn where nothin’ won’t bother ‘em. Now if you want to stay home and keep off the creeturs, you stay, but I mean to have Christmas.”

“And me,” Jody said.

Ma Baxter said to Grandma, “I got no more chancet agin ‘em than a rabbit agin a pair o’ wild-cats.”

Penny said, “Now allus seemed to me ‘twas Jody and me was two rabbits agin one wild-cat.”

“You make a mighty good race of it,” she said, but she had to laugh.

It was settled that they would come for Grandma to go to the doings, returning to her house to spend the night and the next day. Jody was elated. Then the thought of Flag came over him like a dark cloud in a sunny sky.

He burst out, “Now I jest cain’t come. I got to stay home.”

Penny said, “Why, what ails you, boy?”

Ma Baxter turned to Grandma Hutto.

“Hit’s that tormented fawn o’ hissen. He cain’t bear it out of his sight. I never knowed a young un so crazy for a live thing to mess with. He’ll go hongry to feed it, he sleeps with it, he talks to it like it was a person — oh, I’ve heered you, out in that shed — he don’t think of nary thing else but that troublesome fawn.”

Penny said gently, “Don’t make the boy feel like he has the small-pox, Ory.”

Grandma said, “Why can’t he bring it along?”

He threw his arms around her.

“You’ll love Flag, Grandma. He’s so smart, you kin learn him like a dog.”

“‘Course I’ll love him. Will he git along with Fluff?”

“He likes dogs. He plays with ourn. When they go on a hunt, he slips off another way and meets up with ‘em. He loves a bear hunt good as the dogs.”

Praise of the fawn tumbled from him. Penny stopped him, laughing.

“You tell her all them things, you’ll leave nothin’ good for her to find out about him. Then she mought find out some o’ the bad.”

“They’s nothin’ bad about him,” he said passionately.

“Only jumpin’ on the table and knockin’ the tops off the lard cans and buttin’ over the ‘taters, and into ever’thing worse’n ten young uns,” Ma Baxter said.

She went into the garden to look at the flowers. Penny took Grandma aside.

“I been worryin’ about Oliver,” he said. “Them big bullies ain’t drove him off ‘fore he was ready to go, have they?”

“It was me drove him off. I got tired o’ him traipsin’ off on the sly to see that gal. I said to him, ‘Oliver,’ I said, ‘you jest as good go on back to sea, for you ain’t a mite o’ good to me nor a mite o’ comfort.’ He said, ‘I ain’t a mite o’ good to myself. The sea’s the place for me.’ I never figgered the gal’d foller him.”

“You know Lem Forrester’s rarin’, don’t you? Do he ever come here drunk, remember he ain’t human when he gits to sulkin’. Ease him off the best you kin.”

“Now I shore as the devil won’t waste no time tootlin’ him. You know me better’n that. You know I’m made outen whalebone and hell.”

“Ain’t the whalebone gittin’ a mite limber?”

“‘Tis, but the hell’s hot as ever.”

“I’d depend on you to back most men down, but Lem’s different.”

Jody was all ears. Now that he was at Grandma’s again, Oliver seemed real once more. It was satisfying, however, to find that she had lost patience with Oliver, too. He would show his displeasure when he saw him again, but he would forgive him. He would never forgive Twink.

The Baxters gathered up their baskets and bags and purchases. Jody tried to guess which sack contained his Christmas surprise, but they all looked alike. The distressing thought came to him that perhaps his mother had really wanted him to see if old Cæsar had broken loose and had bought nothing for him at all. All the way home he sounded her out on the subject.

“You jest as good ask questions o’ that wagon-wheel,” she said.

He took her evasion as a sure sign that she did have something for him.