Marrying Stone (25 page)

When he got as close as he dared, Roe pushed the grease lamp up near the creature's head. As before, the noisy green fellow was stunned stiff into silence. Roe took a deep breath. Raising the gigger high, he plunged it with a goodly amount of force right through the wide, slick, slimy back of the big old frog.

"You got him!"

Roe heard Jesse's cry of congratulations and it distracted him prematurely. The bullfrog jerked strongly at the gigger and dived headlong into the safety of the creek.

"Whoa!"

"Hang on to the cord," Jesse urged.

Roe managed to hang on and a minute later pulled the still fighting and protesting bullfrog back onto the bank. He picked up the gigger and held it high. The angry frog was kicking and twitching on the sharp, pronged metal piece.

"Now all we got to do is get him into the sack without letting the other one out."

It took a good deal of maneuvering, a couple of false starts, and some laughter to get both frogs in the sack at the same time. But by the time the two had managed to spear a couple dozen of the hoppy critters, they'd become experts at slipping one frog off the gigger without allowing any of the others access to the opening in the sack.

They were still walking the rustling length of the river-bank listening for the noisy croak when the rustle of something much bigger was heard in the brush behind them.

Roe started. But Jesse looked back with more curiosity than concern. "Ain't no bear steps that careless," he told Roe. "Over here," he called out. "Is that you, Pa?"

"It ain't your Pa, Simple Jess," the voice answered back.

A moment later a big strapping man in a wide-brimmed felt hat stepped out of the shadows. "It's Gid Weston."

"Oh, it's
my
Pa," Roe answered jokingly.

When the man looked at him curiously, Roe hid his grin at the small private joke and offered his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Weston. I'm J. Monroe Farley."

The man nodded slightly, his eyes moving over the newcomer as he took Roe's measure. Roe obliged him by doing the same, wondering what there was about himself that the pastor had mistaken for a son of the man before him. He found Weston to be near his own size and frame, although he was a whole generation older and wore his age like a sagging sack of beans around the middle of his waist. He didn't appear to be all that clean and his odor was pungent with sweat and wood smoke, bear grease and stale liquor.

"You're the city man what come and married up Best's daughter," he said.

Roe cleared his throat and nodded.

"He was my frien' afore he was her man," Jesse stated proudly. "I'm teachin' him how to gig and we got near a full poke of the biggest ole bullfrogs on the river."

The man nodded and held out his hand. Jesse handed him the sack of bullfrogs and he weighed it thoughtfully. He made a small approving sound.

"You done caught this many already and the night ain't even half over," he said.

Jesse shook his head proudly. "It's a good night for it and Roe and I, well, we ain't bragging but we ain't missed but two frogs all evening and one of them weren't hardly big enough to worry about."

"That's awful good giggin'," Weston said. "I ain't had no time for such myself lately." He looked thoughtfully from one young man to the other for a moment. "A mess of fried frog legs sure sets well on a man's belly, don't it?"

"It sure do," Jesse agreed easily.

"Suspect I oughter send some of my boys out to fetch me up a mess myself."

"They's plenty on the river," Jesse said.

"Course, those boys of mine don't listen to their daddy worth nothing no more. And they's all about half lazy. Take from their mama's side of the family, I think."

"Pa always said that you was pretty lazy, too," Jesse told the man with innocent honesty.

Weston chuckled lightly, not bothering to take offense. "Well, when it comes to night giggin', I guess your pa maybe is speaking the truth. Tell you what, boys," he said, stepping closer and eyeing the frog sack assessingly. "You got the whole rest of the night to get as many of these bullfrogs as you've a mind to. I'll trade you halves of what you caught already for a gallon jug of donk. It oughter make the hunting of them a sight more pleasant anyhow."

"What's donk?" Roe asked.

"Donk?" Weston said. "You don't know donk?"

"But I do, Mr. Weston," Jesse answered eagerly. "I know donk and it's a trade!"

It was very late and Onery was already snoring loudly in the bed as Meggie stirred the hot kettle next to the fire. She wrinkled up her nose at the smell and grabbed up the already discolored battling stick that she was using to stir and agitate the material. The concoction, known as a blue pot, was a mix of indigo and madder root boiled together in lye. It was not as easy a fotched-on dye as walnut leaves or sassafras bark, but it could make her plain homespun cloth into the color of the prettiest periwinkle-blue on the mountain. And a pretty new dress was just what she needed. Meggie was downright determined to have one for her new life on the mountain.

Being a married lady, even a pretend one, was a good deal more interesting and exhilarating than Meggie had expected. She hadn't thought that folks would treat her differently or that the approach of the world around her would change. But it had, quite suddenly, and Meggie hadn't caught up to it yet.

She put the lid back on the kettle to try to keep the stench of hot lye from escaping out into the room.

She could hear her father's rhythmic snores from the one-poster bed on the far side of the room. Dying cloth was usually done outside. And no one dyed cloth in the middle of the night. But if she was to have a new dress by next Sunday, she needed to get the fabric colored right away. And she had to have a new dress by Sunday. If she didn't, folks might start thinking that her marriage wasn't going so well, or that her new husband was not a good provider. She blushed at the lame excuse. At least she should be honest enough with herself to admit that what she really wanted was to look something special when she walked into church next Sunday with Roe at her side. Not so that other folks would notice them, but so that Roe Farley might notice her.

She was Farley's new bride. At least that's how everybody she knew saw it. Unfortunately, she knew that neither she nor Roe could ever see it that way.

It was amazing how easily the people of Marrying Stone had accepted their little lie. She had thought there might be trouble, questions, curiosity. But her father had warned her to the contrary.

"None of these folks on the mountain is going to be worrying one iota about you and Farley. But, Meggie-gal," he'd said with a concerned furrow in his brow, "I'm a-worrying. And you ought to be, too."

"Pa, there is nothing to worry about." Meggie had spoken with a lightness that she didn't really feel.

Her father shook his head. "Ye can't just pretend you got feelings for a man for the rest of the summer and then jest let him walk out of yer life. Yer gonna get attached to this feller just as sure as the world. I don't want to see ye hurt, Meggie."

"Oh, Pa," she said. "Don't worry about me. I'm not about to get attached to some city feller," she lied, knowing full well that she already was. "I know exactly what I'm doing," Meggie insisted. "I'm helping Monroe get some of his work done and enjoying myself a little."

"What kind of enjoyment do ye get from pretending like you's married? Seems to me it's kind of like pretending ye got a bad head cold."

"It is fun," Meggie said. "Pulling a little joke on everybody on the mountain. Having people think that this city feller is wed up with me. And," she added with deliberate laughter, "it sure makes Eda Piggott turn greener than persimmons in springtime."

Her father tutted in disapproval. "That kinda green jealousy ain't a bit like you, Meggie. You are either changing, girl, or you're pretending with your ole daddy, too."

Meggie had no answer for that and didn't offer one.

Onery gave her a long look, clearly worried. "I cain't see that no good can come of this thing." His tone softened. "You watch yer heart, girlie. I'm afeared that you're likely to get it broken."

Meggie had similar fears. It had seemed easy, right at first. They'd just let people think that they were married. A little harmless lie that would allow Roe to do his work and maybe let her spend some more time with him, smiling at him, pretending with him. It didn't occur to her that being married would change her status in the community and that the opinion of both Roe and herself was now as intertwined as poison ivy in the pussy willows.

"That man of yours is gonna need another string for his bow," Granny Piggott had insisted when she had come to call along with half the married womenfolk of the community. Bearing recipes and helpful counsel, the women crowded the small area within the cabin. They stretched a quilt frame across their knees and chatted openly as, they sewed together a wedding ring quilt for the new couple and offered their congratulations.

"You've always been a good worker, Meggie, for all your silly dreaminess. It's yer task to convince this city feller that scaring up a passel of old tunes and saving them on wax ain't going to put victuals on this table come wintertime."

"They pay him cash money for his work," Meggie answered. "It's not like he's doing his collecting just simply for the pleasure of it."

"You'd best get that cash money from him and sew it into a mattress tick," Beulah Winsloe said. "Men ain't got no sense about currency."

"Roe has sense about everything," Meggie said. "Any woman would be real lucky to have him."

"I'd say that you was especially lucky," Beulah Winsloe said as she tacked a curved piece in place. "Everybody knows what a poor cook you ere. If that don't bother him, then he must be a real tolerating and forgiving man."

The women all giggled. But Lessy Phillips scolded Beulah for her unkindness. "Don't you worry none about it, Meggie," she said. "You know you've got you a fine man that'll stay with you, even when you're at your worst. And you always have the comfort of knowing he didn't marry you just to get free victuals and housekeeping."

There were nods of agreement all around on that.

"You'll just get one word of advice from me," Wyla Pease said as she stopped to thread her needle. "It's real tempting once yer wed to let yerself go." The middle-aged woman gave a meaningful glance to her young daughter-in-law, Ruth, who since Sidney's birth four years ago had simply continued to get broader and broader in the backside. "Just because the man knows what you look like at your worst, don't mean he wants to look at you that way all the time."

Young Ruth snappped the thread she was sewing and gave her mother-in-law a stricken look.

"Ruth's built jest like her mama," Granny Piggott defended. 'That boy of yourn saw the mother afore he seen the daughter. If he was going to be complaining, he shouldna' ever said the 'I do.'"

"My son would never utter a word of complaint!" Wyla protested.

"Good," Granny answered. "So if it don't bother him none, it shouldn't bother you."

Firmly put in her place, Wyla turned her concentration to the tiny line of stitches she was putting in the quilt. Meggie caught Ruth giving the old woman a grateful look.

Deftly changing the subject, Granny turned to Meggie and asked if she knew how to tell when she was taken to nesting.

Choking slightly on her words, Meggie answered with some embarrassment. "It's when your bleeding don't come."

The women all nodded.

Granny still saw fit to enlighten her. "As soon as you start waking in the morning all dauncy and like to puke, you tell yer husband to start taking swims in the cold creek. When you're carrying a babe, don't you be shaking the ticks out of the mattress more than oncest a week."

Around the quilt from the old woman, young and old giggled with immodest delight.

"Now that's an old rusty," Dorey McNees, a young cousin of Beulah's, said emphatically. "As long as your man can remember to be gentle and caring when you're in the family way," she told Meggie with a reassuring pat on the hand, "you can do all the sweetems and pleasuring you want, right up until yer lying in."

Granny snorted. "Remember to be gentle and caring?" She shook her head in disagreement. "I don't know about these young fellers today. But I never heared of a man what could remember so much as his own name when he's stiff as a poker and into the short rows."

The women laughed heartily.

Flushing a bright pink, still Meggie came quickly to Roe's defense. "Mr. Farley is always gentle and caring," she stated unequivocally.

Granny raised an eyebrow. "Now that surprises me, girl." The old woman scooted back away from the quilt frame and pulled her pipe out of her pocket and made to light it. Although Meggie never allowed smoking inside the house, she wouldn't have even attempted to try to stop Granny Piggott. 'That Farley reminds me of my man, Lord rest his soul," she continued. "Both ere quiet and deep thinkin'. Slow to decide, but sure when they've resolved. My Piggott was a gentle feller, like yourn, in the daytime. But, lands-a-mighty, when I blew out the light of an evening, he'd batter the bedclothes 'til they was nothing but rags and lint."

The women around the quilt frame squealed with delight and worthy applause. Meggie, who could remember Granny's husband as a quiet, old gray beard, was shocked.

"Granny Piggott, you oughter be shamed," Beulah told her, laughing. "Look at this little gal. Lord, Meggie, I never dreamed that yer cheeks could get so red. You look like you've been plowing in summer without a hat."

"Well, she's only been married for little more than a week." Wyla chuckled naughtily. 'That city feller's probably still telling her that he's got the only pepper pole that does that."

The wild married-women talk nearly embarrassed Meggie past living. Even now, days later with none to see but the blue pot, she still found herself blushing at the memory.

After the men had returned to the cabin, Granny had checked the foundation of the new room to the cabin. With a fine good humor, Meggie thought, Roe had taken up the project of the walls and roof. With Jesse helping and her father giving the direction, the little eight-by-eight room being raised on the back of the cabin would nearly double the space that they already had.