Wish You Well

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

School had ended for the year, and the hard work of farming had begun. Each day Louisa rose particularly early, before the night even seemed to have settled in, and made Lou get up too. The girl did both her and Oz’s chores as punishment for fighting with Billy, and then they all spent the day working the fields. They ate simple lunches and drank cold springwater under the shade of a cucumber magnolia, none of them saying much, the sweat seeping through their clothes. During these breaks Oz threw rocks so far the others would smile and clap their hands. He was growing taller, the muscles in his arms and shoulders becoming more and more pronounced, the hard work fashioning in him a lean, hard strength. As it did in his sister. As it seemed to in most who struggled to survive here.

The days were warm enough now that Oz wore only his overalls and no shirt or shoes. Lou had on overalls and was barefoot as well, but she wore an old cotton undershirt. The sun was intense at this elevation and they were becoming blonder and darker every day.

Louisa kept teaching the children things: She explained how blue lake beans have no strings, but pole beans, grown around the cornstalks, do, and they’ll choke you if you don’t first string them. And that they could raise most of their crop seed, except for oats, which required machinery to thresh them, machinery that simple mountain farmers would never have. And how to wash the clothes using the washboard and just enough soap made from lye and pig fat—but not too much—keeping the fire hot, rinsing the clothes properly, and adding bluing on the third rinse to get everything good and white. And then at night, by firelight, how to darn with needle and thread. Louisa even talked of when would be a good time for Lou and Oz to learn the fine arts of mule shoeing and quilting by frame.

Louisa also finally found time to teach Lou and Oz to ride Sue the mare. Eugene would hoist them, by turns, up on the mare, bareback, without even a blanket.

“Where’s the saddle?” Lou asked. “And the stirrups?”

“Your saddle’s your rump. A pair of strong legs your stirrups,” Louisa answered.

Lou sat up on Sue while Louisa stood beside the mare.

“Now, Lou, hold the reins in your right hand like I done showed you, like you mean it now!” said Louisa. “Sue’ll let you get by with some, but you got to let her know who’s boss.”

Lou flicked the reins, prodded the horse’s sides, generally kicked up a good row, and Sue remained absolutely motionless, as though she were sound asleep.

“Dumb horse,” Lou finally declared.

“Eugene,” Louisa called out to the field. “Come give me a boost up, please, honey.”

Eugene limped over and helped Louisa up on the horse, and she settled in behind Lou and took the reins.

“Now, the problem ain’t that Sue’s dumb, it’s that you ain’t speaking her way yet. Now, when you want Sue to go, you give her a nice punch in the middle and make a little chk-chk noise. To her that means go. When you want her to turn, you don’t jerk on the reins, you just glide them like. To stop, a little quick tug back.”

Lou did as Louisa had shown her, and Sue started moving. Lou glided the reins to the left and the horse actually went that way. She fast-tugged back on the reins and Sue came to a slow stop.

Lou broke into a big smile. “Hey, look at me. I’m riding.”

From Amanda’s bedroom window, Cotton leaned his head out and watched. Then he looked to the beautiful sky, and then over at Amanda in the bed.

A few minutes later, the front door opened and Cotton carried Amanda outside and put her in the rocking chair there, next to a screen of maypops that were in full bloom of leathery purple.

Oz, who was now up on Sue with his sister, looked over, saw his mother, and almost fell off the horse. “Hey, Mom, look at me. I’m a cowboy!” Louisa stood next to the horse, staring over at Amanda. Lou finally looked, but she didn’t seem very excited to see her mother outside. Cotton’s gaze went from daughter to mother, and even Cotton had to admit, the woman looked pitifully out of place in the sunshine, her eyes closed, the breeze not lifting her short hair, as though even the elements had abandoned her. He carried her back inside.

It was a bright summer’s morning a few days later, and Lou had just finished milking the cows and was coming out of the barn with full buckets in her arms. She stopped dead as she stared across at the fields. She ran so fast to the house that the milk splashed around her feet. She set the buckets on the porch and ran into the house, past Louisa and Eugene and down the hall yelling at the top of her lungs. She burst into her mother’s room, and there was Oz sitting next to her, brushing her hair.

Lou was breathless. “It’s working. It’s green. Everything. The crops are coming up. Oz, go see.” Oz raced out of the room so fast he forgot he only had on his underwear. Lou stood there in the middle of the room, her chest heaving, her smile wide. As her breathing calmed, Lou went over to her mother and sat down, took up a limp hand. “I just thought you’d like to know. See, we’ve been working really hard.” Lou sat there in silence for a minute more, and then put the hand down and left, her excitement spent.

In her bedroom that night, as on so many other evenings, Louisa worked the Singer pedal sewing machine she had bought for ten dollars on installment nine years back. She wouldn’t reveal to the children what she was making, and wouldn’t even let them guess. Yet Lou knew it must be something for her and Oz, which made her feel even guiltier about the fight with Billy Davis.

After supper the next evening, Oz went to see his mother, and Eugene went to work on some scythes in the corncrib. Lou washed the dishes, and then sat on the front porch next to Louisa. For a while, neither ventured to talk. Lou saw a pair of titmice fly out of the barn and land on the fence. Their gray plumage and pointed crests were glorious, but the girl wasn’t much interested.

“I’m sorry about the fighting,” Lou said quickly, and let out a relieved breath that her apology was finally done.

Louisa stared at the two mules in the pen. “Good to know,” she said, and then said no more. The sun was starting its fall and the sky was fairly clear, with not many clouds worth noting. A big crow was sky-surfing alone, catching one drift of wind and then another, like a lazily falling leaf.

Lou cupped some dirt and watched a battalion of ants trail across her hand. The honeysuckle vine was in full, scented morning glory, filling the air along with the fragrances of cinnamon rose and clove pinks, and the purple wall of maypops dutifully shaded the porch. Rambling rose had twisted itself around most of the fence posts and looked like bursts of still fire.

“George Davis is an awful man,” said Lou.

Louisa leaned her back against the porch railing. “Work his children like mules and treats his mules better’n his children.”

“Well, Billy didn’t have to be mean to me,” Lou said, and then grinned. “And it was funny to see him fall out of that tree when he saw the dead snake I put in his lunch pail.”

Louisa leaned forward and looked at her curiously. “You see anythin’ else in that pail?”

“Anything else? Like what?”

“Like food.”

Lou appeared confused. “No, the pail was empty.”

Louisa slowly nodded, settled back against the railing once more, and looked to the west, where the sun was commencing its creep behind the mountains, kindling the sky pink and red.

Louisa said, “You know what I find funny? That children believe they should be shamed ’cause their daddy don’t see fit to give them food. So shamed they’d haul an empty pail to school and pretend to eat, so’s nobody catch on they ain’t got nothing to eat. You find that funny?”

Lou shook her head, her gaze at her feet. “No.”

“I know I ain’t talked to you ’bout your daddy. But my heart goes out to you and Oz, and I love both of you even more, on ’count of I want to make up for that loss, even though I know I can’t.” She put a hand on Lou’s shoulder and turned the girl to her. “But you had a fine daddy. A man who loved you. And I know that makes it all the harder to get by, and that’s both a blessing and a curse that we all just got to bear in this life. But thing is, Billy Davis got to live with his daddy ever day. I’d ruther be in your shoes. And I know Billy Davis would. I pray for all them children ever day. And you should too.”