With This Kiss, page 243
Grabbing up the redwood bow, Jesse drew it down slowly across the e-string. A sweet soulful sound filled the room as Jesse adjusted the fine tuner at the base of the bridge. His ear was excellent and his pitch was perfect, and since those were the only gifts heaven had seen fit to give him, the young man wanted for no others. As he continued to tune the other strings, he walked toward the strange, unsightly machine with the big tin trumpet poised upon it.
He looked over at Roe and then at his father. "What do you want me to play?"
"Whatever you want," was Roe's answer.
His father was more thoughtful. "Play 'Barbry Ellen,'" he said. "You play that one mighty nice."
Moving up close to the horn of the Ediphone, Jesse drew the bow across the fiddle strings and began to play an up-tempo version of the sweet sadness of "unworthy Barbara Allen."
Delighted, Roe rifled through his portable desk for pen and paper as Onery began to sing.
"In Scarlet Town where I was born
There was a fair maid dwellin'
Made ever' youth cry well away,
Her name was Barbry Ellen."
Meggie watched as the stranger's fingers literally flew across the paper writing the words as her father sang them. She'd never seen a human move a pen so fast. In fact, she would hardly have thought it possible. Meggie could write. But her sparse, graceful penmanship took much time and effort. Roe's hands moved across the paper with the same quickness and surety with which Jesse's fingers worked the fiddle's fingerboard.
The dishes now completely forgotten, Meggie stood by the kitchen table, listening to the beauty of her brother's fiddling, the deep vibrancy of her father's tenor voice, and watching the most interesting man she had ever seen, the man she'd thought for a while to be her very own prince, writing quick as a minute in the bright yellow glow of the tallow candles as if he belonged there.
"'Farewell,' she said, 'ye virgins all,
And shun the fault I fell in;
Henceforth take warning of the fall
Of unworthy Barbry Ellen.'"
As the last strains of the fiddle died away, Roe sighed in appreciation. "Beautiful."
Onery and Jesse both chuckled. "It's a right pretty tune," Onery agreed. "And there ain't none on the mountain that can fiddle as well as my Jesse."
Roe was smiling and nodded. "He's right, you know, Jesse. I've heard the fiddle played all over the world and I've never heard anyone better than you."
The young man blushed and shrugged. "It ain't nothing."
"Oh, but it is, Jesse," Meggie insisted as she came forward to lay a loving hand on her brother's shoulder. "You've a wonderful talent. You should be proud."
He shook away the compliment. "It ain't like I can read or cipher or something. I just hear the music in my head and it comes out my fingers."
“That's something that a lot of people who can read and cipher can never do," Roe told him.
Jesse was clearly embarrassed by this praise. "You just say that 'cause you're my frien'."
"I am your friend," Roe answered. "And friends always tell each other the truth."
“They do?"
Roe nodded.
Jesse's blue eyes widened and his face beamed with pleasure.
"Let's hear what it sounds like on the machine," Roe suggested.
Meggie didn't even feign disinterest as Farley changed the stylus again. Maybe the stranger was right about the Ediphone. Once the mountain folks had heard the wonderful new machine, maybe they would help him collect the music.
As the stylus moved along the grooves in the wax, the music flowed out of the horn. Her father's singing was almost too faint to hear, but the sweet strains of Jesse's violin sounded almost as good in the reproduction as it had when he'd played it.
"Is that how my fiddle sounds?" Jesse asked curiously.
"Well, you sound better than that," Roe told him. "But it's close."
Jesse shook his head in disbelief. 'This machine is like the magic in one of Meggie's stories."
He turned to smile with pride at his sister.
"Meggie's stories?" Roe asked.
The young man nodded. "Meggie, she reads real good. And she don't just read the Bible, neither. She's got a book of them fairy tales they're called. Sometimes she reads them to me."
Her cheeks were bright red with the stain of embarrassment. Meggie began to move back from the men and toward the dirty dishes she'd left behind.
"They's magic in them fairy tales," Jesse continued. "Things can happen that a feller wouldn't believe could never happen."
"So I understand," Roe agreed.
"And this machine of yours, it's like that. A feller wouldn't never believe that it can listen and then talk and play near as good as me."
"No, Jesse," Roe assured him. "The machine isn't magic. The machine can't talk or play at all. It simply records you and plays what it's heard back. Magic is only in fairy tales."
Chapter Seven
FROM THE JOURNAL OF J. MONROE FARLEY
April 17, 1902 Marrying Stone, Arkansas
The family who have given me shelter are an interesting yet peculiar trio. Their speech and ways are old and curious and I find myself observing them as if they were living fossils. They are a musical family and have agreed to help with my work and to introduce me to other people nearby. The farmer himself at one time made his living in these hills playing the fiddle. His son is simpleminded, but is a very accomplished fiddler and has in his repertoire a wide range of tunes that he has begun to share with me.
On Friday next we are set to attend what the Bests call "the Literary." This is apparently a local social gathering where music and cultural events take place. I am very anxious to attend, but find much here in this wilderness homestead to draw my interest. It is as if I have stepped back into time.
The typical day begins with breaking fast before dawn. The personal habits of the Best family are difficult for me to accustom myself to. On the first evening I asked of Jesse, the son, directions to the privy. The young man looked momentarily confused and then explained in his simple way that the homestead did not boast a privy.
Subsistence farming in this rough, unbroken stretch of mountain that the Best family calls home proves to be laborious, backbreaking work. Due to the farmer's age and bad leg, the toughest and the dirtiest jobs fall to the younger and stronger son. And, to my dismay, the young man eagerly shares these chores with me.
Although I find the backwoods life interesting in an intellectual context, I can't help but think wistfully of Cambridge and the bustle of eager students and the musty aged smell of the library. I am eager to return to the world that I know.
The family also has a daughter. Her name is Margaret.
Chapter Eight
Roe’s muscles ached and the back of his neck was red and scorched from the sun. He carried the bucket of fresh eggs he had collected from the wily and cantankerous old hens into the cabin.
For three days he'd been living and working like an Ozark farmer. It wasn't a role he had taken up without a bit of protest. He had tried more than once to pay Onery Best for his room and board. Cash money was clearly in short supply. Still, the old farmer had insisted that work was what they needed. So with a willingness that was born of years of fitting in at schools and among strangers, Roe had "put his hand to the plow" both figuratively and literally.
He didn't expect thanks, and he certainly didn't get it from Meggie Best. It was a curious situation—one he'd never encountered before. First she'd jumped on him as if he were her long-lost lover and now she avoided speaking to him as if he were contagious.
"Good morning," he said evenly when he saw her. No matter how remote she appeared, civility was second nature to Roe Farley. He would treat his worst enemy with politeness. Meggie Best wasn't his worst enemy.
Her vague nod of acknowledgment irritated him. He could well remember the warmth of her smile as she gazed at her brother. Though she wasn't the musician her father and brother were, it was clear she was the brightest in her family. If only she would acknowledge him, he felt they could be friends of a sort.
"Thought I'd try to be of help to you." He set the egg bucket on the chopping stump and smiled.
She nodded wordlessly.
Her iciness irked him and prompted him to teasing. "I wanted to give you more time to burn the biscuits."
She glared at him but held her tongue as her father and brother walked in the door.
"Meggie-gal," Onery said as he made his way to the table. "It's mighty early in the morning to be having a lovers' spat." The old man chuckled at his own joke.
Roe had had quite enough of that nonsense himself and took his own seat at the table.
The three men sat together every morning in the gray light to plan the day's work. Roe had come to look forward to these moments. The camaraderie of working toward a common goal and the warmth of the two men beside him were new experiences for him. His hands were already callusing over and although he knew he was yet no farmer, he was working hard and he thought he might well be shouldering his share of the work. Meggie set his tin of cornmeal mush down on the table in front of him without a word. The finely carved wooden spoon, her spoon, was dipped in the mush.
Roe murmured his thanks but when he glanced in her direction she'd already turned her back on him.
"Meggie darlin'," Onery said loudly with a teasing wink toward Roe. "Feigning disinterest is right ladylike and all, but if you don't get out of this snit, the fellow's gonna plumb lose interest in ye."
Meggie shot her father a furious look that only made him laugh harder.
"She's really quite good-natured when you get to know her," Onery told Roe.
Roe smiled and cleared his throat a little uneasily. Still, as he watched Meggie bend over to hang the cookpot back on the fireplace crane, he once more regarded the young lady with favor. She was a fine-looking woman, he thought, and she probably should have married long ago. Roe fervently wished that she had.
Uncomfortably, he vividly remembered the sweet taste of her mouth and the pleasant roundness of her bottom against his lap.
The young woman stood up quickly and almost caught Roe admiring her. Determinedly, he turned his attention to his plate, raising his foot up to rest it on the first rung of the chair. This caused his knee to jut out from the edge of the table.
"You got a rip in your trousers," Jesse commented.
Roe glanced down and nodded. The three days of hard physical labor was more than the knees of his gray and brown striped worsted trousers had ever been expected to endure.
"Perhaps I can borrow a needle and thread," he said.
"You can sew?" Onery asked with surprise.
"No, not really," Roe admitted.
"Then let Meggie tend your tears," the old man said. "She's right handy with her needlework."
Meggie approached him, giving a studied glance to the ripped knee where the small expanse of pale flesh was exposed.
"Those trousers weren't made for working," she commented.
Roe agreed.
"I'll stitch 'em up for you, but I'd best be making you some butternuts."
"Butternuts?"
Jesse slapped his knee. "Butternuts like mine," he said.
Roe looked over at the trousers Jesse wore. The heavy dark yellow fabric was homespun and looked sturdy enough to withstand a stampede of wild boars. The homemade breeches were straight cut and wide enough in the leg to fit two men his size.
"If you're going to be working here," Onery agreed, "then you oughter have butternuts. Ain't no need for you to be ruining your good clothes."
Roe nodded, civility preventing him from mentioning that the trousers he wore were far from his best.
"I don't wish to put you to any extra effort on my part, Miss Best," he said.
Meggie raised her chin defiantly, seeing insult where none was intended. "My cloth is as good as any on the mountain," she said with some pride. "They're not city clothes, but they'll keep you from being threadbare. Jesse can cut you some galluses and show you how to attach them through the hitches with a peg and a horseshoe nail."
Roe stared in daunted wonder.
She continued. "I can sew up your good trousers and wash them clean for Sundays."
"That would be very nice, Miss Best," he said. "I thank you."
Meggie's lip stiffened to one thin line as if he'd said something indiscreet and Jesse giggled.
"You'll have to measure the feller, Meggie," Onery said. "He ain't neither my size nor Jesse's."
She blushed then. "I couldn't measure him," she answered in a scandalized whisper. "I'll just make them the same as Jesse's."
Roe nodded and turned to look at Jesse, who was quite a bit larger than himself and whose pants hung upon him like two sacks seamed together.
Onery began to chuckle.
"We praise her biscuits and her pies,
Her doughnuts and her cakes.
But where's the man who sighs for pants
Like Mama used to make."
Jesse snickered at his father's joke.
Meggie's expression turned from embarrassment to anger. "I'll measure him all right!" she said. "I'll make his butternuts to fit slicker than skin if he wants."
Roe reached over and took Meggie's hand and her eyes widened. Since their first embarrassing encounter, she had held her distance from him and he likewise. The trousers were being offered as a token of friendship, he was sure. And he wasn't about to let her father's teasing undermine that first step toward a more amiable relationship.
"I really do need the trousers," he said. "I hate to put you to the bother of sewing for me, but I would be very grateful."
"It's no trouble," she answered quietly. "I'll measure you after breakfast."
"Thank you, Meggie," he said.
Her father and brother's laughter faded away and Meggie nodded solemnly as she turned back to the fire.
Roe turned his attention back to breakfast. Onery began a long-winded story about the winter he'd had to make his own clothes out of hides and nearly got shot by mistake for being a bear. Again and again, Roe found his eyes and his attention returning to Meggie as she padded around the room in her bare feet.
He felt a light tap on his shoulder and turned to Jesse beside him, who was grinning with glee. The young man pulled something long and skinny out of his shirt pocket. At first Roe thought it was a piece of rawhide, but when Jesse lay the thin brown item on the table it twisted and wiggled.
Roe watched as Jesse held a finger to his lips to shush him. Casting a cautious glance toward his sister, Jesse carefully covered the squiggly little worm with Meggie's coffee cup.
They only had to wait a minute before Meggie took her place at the end of the table. Jesse was concentrating on the mush in his tin and Roe decided to do the same. He couldn't quite keep himself from occasional glances toward Meggie, who was listlessly stirring her mush with a makeshift spoon she'd fashioned for herself. Roe was still using hers.
As Roe watched he realized that the expression on Meggie's young face had changed. Slowly the worry and anger had faded from her brow and her visage was pretty and serene. She was obviously a million miles away from the dark, crowded little cabin in the Ozarks. It was a dreamer's expression, far removed from the hard work of everyday mountain life. Roe felt a strange yearning to touch her. But it passed as she raised her eyes to catch him watching her. Immediately, they glanced away, turning their attention back to the food upon the table. There was a strange bond between them that was disconcerting for them both.
When Meggie finally reached for her coffee mug, the worm, released from its prison, squiggled across the oilcloth on the table.
Meggie gasped, spilled her coffee, and jumped from her chair. Beside Roe, Jesse began to giggle cheerfully. Onery joined the chorus with a low, hearty chuckle.
"I hate varmints!" she screamed vehemently.
Gathering her wits about her, Meggie grabbed the unwelcome creature and threw it into the fireplace where the popping and hissing distinctly announced its demise. Scaring Meggie with unexpected small creatures was apparently so common an occurrence that not even a word was said.
But her brother, being cautious, didn't give her the time to get her anger wound up. Jesse jumped from the table and slammed his hat.
"Got to get to them hogs," he said as he hurried out the door.
Onery was chuckling also, but there was no rush to his gait as he left the table.
"You get some butternuts made for this feller of yourn, Meggie-gal. Roe, just take yer time here and mosey on out to help us when yer a mind to."
Meggie was blushing. Roe felt more than a little bit uncomfortable himself. He glanced around the woodbeam room where he was left alone with the daughter of the house.
"Well, let's get it over with," she said hastily as she rose from the table.
"You haven't finished your breakfast," Roe told her.
She shrugged and gathered up her straw sewing basket. "There is no call for you to be lolling around the cabin all day. I'll get your measure and send you on your way."
It sounded like a sensible plan. "Where do you want me to stand?" he asked.
"Here is the light," she said, pointing to the big rectangle of sunshine that shone along the dirt floor in front of the doorway.
Meggie's measure was a long piece of rough cord. When she wrapped it around his waist, Roe raised his arms out of her way. She was very close and Roe closed his eyes to savor the moment. Her scent was sweet and it was woman. A combination that had been absent from Roe's life for what now seemed a very long time. The touch of her hands at his waist was gentle, but sure. And once more he recalled the hot wonder of their illicit kiss. He recalled it with great pleasure.
"Your waist is half a hand narrower than Jesse's," she commented as she marked the spot on the cord by tying a knot in it. "Guess they don't have much good cooking back in the Bay State."
