Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt! Part 26

"Let's just go on, Hiram. It won't take more'n three hours."

We rode and rode, up hills, down hills, around curves, across shallow streams-much longer than three hours, it seemed to me.

About midmorning we came to low, red hills and pine trees and pin oaks that I'd pa.s.sed before. Then we could see a fork in the road, where another road branched off. The new road looked a good bit like the way to go if you want to cross Rocky Head Bridge, but I couldn't be sure.

"Baby, you know this stretch through here?"

"No, sir. I just know the trees."

"That's good!"

There was a lot of mist everywhere. Fog, Uncle Hiram said.

Miss Mattie took off her shawl and tied it around my head.

"No use a-lettin' you take your death of cold, sugar!"

Before we got to the corner where the two roads came together we saw a bunch of men on horseback galloping toward us. But they didn't see us, and as they came to the split in the road, they turned their horses to go the other way. We were real close to them. Still, they didn't look toward our wagon!

"It's Papa! Uncle Hiram, yonder's Papa! He's that'n on Jake!

In front! Papa, stop!"

"Thank the Lord!" Miss Mattie squeezed me.

Uncle Hiram stood up, yelling.

"Hey! Hey, there! Hey!"

The horses kept loping up the other road. Papa and the other men wouldn't look back.

Uncle Hiram sat down real quick and handed the reins to his wife.

"Mattie, make these mules move! When we get to the corner, cut over to that other road! They never seen us on account o'

this thick fog risin' outta Rocky Head Bottom!"

Uncle Hiram grabbed out his pocket knife. I couldn't imagine what he was fixing to do. He slit his britches leg, clear up above his knee! Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed off his wooden leg and tied his pocket handkerchief to it! Next, he caught hold of his wife's shoulder, jumped up on the wagon seat, and started waving his peg leg in the air!

"Hey! Hey, there! We've got her, y'all! She's all right!

She's all right!"

When Papa finally got me home, he toted me straight to Mama.

She grabbed me into her arms and held me tight, a long time. And, for the rest of the day, she let me sit in her lap.

And Mierd let me hold her best doll in my lap. And Wiley gave me his blue marble, for keeps.

Mama said it would take her a solid week to brush the leaves and matted tangles out of my hair. It didn't. By Friday morning, when my two brothers got home from that World War that had stopped, Mama had my braids looking fine again. Besides that, the briar scratches on my face were gone, and I had me some new shoes!

But Clyde and Walker came rus.h.i.+ng in with so many suitcases and sacks and presents and there was so much kissing and neck-hugging that I didn't even think to show them my hair or my lace-up shoes.

While we were getting ready to have our big celebrating supper, Mama thought of nothing except fixing good stuff to eat.

At least, that's the way she was talking.

"I declare to my soul," she complained to me and Mierd and Clyde, "this supper table just ain't long enough or wide enough tonight!"

"How come, Mama?" I climbed up into Clyde's lap so I could see the peach pickles and jelly Mama had put on the table.

"I reckon, hon, I simply cooked too much. There'll be fifteen of us to eat-besides your Grandma Ming-so I knew it would take lots of vittles. But I've cooked more'n our old table can hold.

Mierd, hand me the scuppernong pies. I can set both of them back in the safe for the time being."

"Where're you gonna set the 'possum, Mama?"

"It'll have to stay on the back of the stove till we can-"

"Hot diggity! Look here, y'all!"

Wiley was yelling so loud we couldn't hear what Mama was saying about the 'possum Black Idd had caught for my brothers.

"Look at this knife Walker just gim'me! See, Mierd!"

I jumped out of Clyde's lap to run with Mierd to the other end of the kitchen. I got to Wiley first, but Mierd squeezed herself in front of me. I couldn't see the knife till I darted around Papa and Dorris and the cook stove. Even when I got to the other side of Wiley's elbow, I couldn't tell how the knife was made because of the way he was holding it.

"Lemme see!" Mierd shrieked.

"No, Mierd! It'll cut you! Bandershanks, get your hands off!

Quit that! Girls don't know how to handle pocket knives.

'Specially one with four blades!"

"I know how just as much as you do!"

"Mierd, you do not! Hot diggity, look at the middle blade!

Old Wallace Goode will have a fit when he sees this!"

"You'd better not take it to school."

"Yeah, Walker, I've gotta take it to school! Wallace and all the rest of 'em will wanta see it! Just think! I'll be the only boy there with a pearl-handled knife! Clyde, what'd you bring me?"

"Well, now, Wiley, I'll tell you. When I stopped in Little Rock the day before yesterday, I saw something that reminded me so much of you I just had to buy it."

"What?"

"Go in yonder and look in the top of my knapsack and get that yellow box, the one that's not wrapped up."

As soon as Wiley ran out the door, Clyde cupped his hand against the side of his lips and whispered, "Mierd, it's a monkey on a string!"

Wiley came racing back into the kitchen, holding a yellowish looking pasteboard box, which he was ripping apart. "What's in here, Clyde?"

"Open it up! As I said, it looks just like you."

Wiley gave a loud whoop when the tin monkey fell out on the floor, and everybody in the kitchen laughed.

"Aw, I ain't no monkey! Say, what's this string going up through his stomach for?"