In the Shadow of the Big Yellow Mama: The Spud Gristwall Story

By Jim Traylor

Southern Gothic rags to riches. When the Gristwall boy was born prematurely, he was no bigger than a baking potato, so they called him Spud. His grandparents let him live in the cowshed, when he was good. When he was a bad boy, he lived under the back porch. The good fairy that brought him riches and his escape from poverty, owned the town and the souls of everyone in it. While Europe suffered under the shadow of Adolf Hitler's Swastika, Taloowa County, Alabama dealt with Spuds benefactor, Rudolf Kitler and the shadow of his Big Yellow Mama. Times were tough; there was the depression, and then came World War II. When Spud found out his boss was not just into vice but eugenics and genocide as well, life went from hard times to deadly dealings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Traylor
• Release date: Feb 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370139989

Jim Traylor

Jim Traylor lives in Chandler, Arizona with his jewelry designer wife Louise and his Pomeranian therapy pup T-La. In addition to writing, jim enjoys music, RV Travel, Guitar and visiting children's hospitals and elder-care homes with T-La. The Monkey Soldiers was his first novel, followed by Regena Guitar and Other Short Stories, and A Poets Passion. and Siam Song is a mystery romance novel. His latest novel is The Spud Gristwall, a Southern story He is a Vietnam era Army Veteran with nine years’ service. A more detailed Biography and information on works in progress may be seen at www.jimtraylorsbooks.com If you wish to contact Jim, please send your email to [e-mail]

Book preview

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Part Two

River Bend

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Part Three

The Big Yellow Mama

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Acknowledgements

About the Author

PART ONE

THE COWSHED

CHAPTER ONE

Accordin’ to Opel Annie Monroe, I was born in an old fishin’ shack on the backwaters of Lake Okachokee. Opel Annie, she was my Mama’s midwife an’ my wet nurse, an’ for the first five year of my live, she was my Foster Mammy. I called her Mammy all my life because she was more mother to me than anybody else.

To hear Mammy tell it, I was born more dead than alive. You was way early born, near ‘bout three months the best I can figure. She’d laugh an’ say, You’d never know it to look at you now, but I could hold you in one hand Spud Gristwall! You weren’t no bigger than a good size bakin’ ‘tater, an’ that’s how I come to call you Spud.

Chile, there weren’t much midwifin’ to do when it come to birthin’ you. Yo Mama just squatted over a hole in the floor, strained herself red-faced an’ dropped you between them boards, an’ right in the mud below. All I did was stand there an’ hold her hand an’ cry… for the few minutes it took.

Mammy said, That was at first light on a Saturday mornin’, September first, nineteen hundred an’ nineteen, when you was born, an’ I ain’t likely to forget it no time soon. Come that evenin’ when yo Mama got up enough strength, she went down to the lake, bathed herself off, an’ just walked out into the dark. She left me sittin’ right there, holdin’ you, without even sayin’ goodbye or thank ya kindly. That’s when I come to be yo Mammy, chile, on the very first day of yo life.

I can’t say as Mammy was none too happy with another youngun to feed an’ care for, but she never let on. She was the kind of woman that when somethin’ needed doin’, an’ it fell to her to do it, she did it the very best she could. She already had one suckelin’ youngun, Magdalene was her name, but they called her Maggie.

In my part of the country nobody goes by their given name. I come from Parson’s Gap, Alabama an’ my given name is Sir Walter Raleigh Gristwall. My birth Mama, her name was Marguerite Marie Gristwall, but everybody called her Sister.

Sister was buck wild an’ hell bent on gettin’ out from under yo Grandpa’s rule, Mammy told me. I know I heard Sister say it a hundred times, ‘Cain an’ Virgie Gristwall are damn good jailers, but a sorry excuse for a Ma an’ Pa.’

Sister was quick to speak her mind an’ she’d tell you right now that Parson’s Gap stunk like a barnyard. Welp, it really did stink, because there was a bunch of cattle holdin’ pins between town an’ the railroad tracks.

Sister’d say, ‘it ain’t the cow lots that stink, it’s the dirty minded men that can’t keep they nasty hands offen me, an’ their dirty minded wives who can’t get enough of their vulgar whisperin’ an’ spittin’ at me.’

If it hadn’t been for Mammy, Ida died in the mud right there under that ol’ shack. Mammy told me, You looked like a strawberry/chocolate pie with eyeballs, just layin’ there lookin up at me. You weren’t even cryin’. I cleaned you up, wrapped you in my apron, an’ took you to the Gristwall place.

Yo Grandpa disowned Sister the very day he found out she was pregnant with you, an’ he didn’t waste a minute puttin’ her out of the house neither. He always talked down-right hateful to her. When he put yo Mama out he said, ‘woman, you’re the devil’s harlot, an’ you an’ that bastard spawn in your belly are doomed to eternal damnation. May Jehovah God cast you into a whore’s din of inequity in River Bend an’ burn yo sinful soul in the fiery pits of hell.’

So when I brung you to their house, that evenin’, yo Grandpa had a shore nuff conniption fit. He broke dishes, tore up stick furniture, an’ throwed yo Mama’s cloths out in the yard. Then he rolled around on the floor yellin’, ‘I ain’t risin’ no youngun what’s branded with the 666.’ He chased me outa the house, so I took you to my place.

Preacher Mann come by the Gristwall’s after church that Sunday afternoon, wantin’ to know how come yo Grandpa an’ Grandma weren’t at church. I was there helpin’ to clean up the mess Mr. Cain made the night before.

When Preacher Mann seen the broke stuff all over the house, yo Grandpa grabbed up his bible an’ commenced to spinnin’ a yarn. He said, ‘Lucifer himself sneaked into my house in the form of a slitherin’ Water Moccasin, an’ birthed a bastard right there on the livin’ room floor.’ He pointed to a spot where somethin’ had broke durin his fit, an’ made a big wet stain on the wooden floor.

Then he told Preacher Mann, ‘we fought tooth an’ nail, me an’ that ungodly serpent, an’ tore up the house in the name of Jesus Christ, hallelujah! We wrestled from the front door to the back, an’ from sundown till sunup. When that demon slithered up the chimney, we went to fightin’ on the roof, an’ that’s where the snake showed who an’ what he really was.’

Yo Grandpa said he had the Holy Ghost in his soul an’ he finally whooped that red-horned beast an’ sent him hightailin’ it back to hell. After all that fightin’, yo Grandpa said he was sick, tired, plum wore out, an’ just too week to sit in no church pew.

When Preacher Mann wanted to know where that snake-birthed bastard was, yo Grandpa said, ‘it turned into a baby an’ then he pointed at me and said, ‘she’s raisin’ it at her house until it’s big enough for me to work it’.

I asked Mammy one time if she thought Preacher Mann believed Cain’s story.

Mammy slowly nodded her head up and down. I ‘spect he did, at first. I hear tell that the next Sunday Preacher Mann had yo Grandpa stand up in front of the congregation an’ tell his serpent fightin’ story to the congregation. When he got done, the preacher brung out this here basket of snakes an’ Cain was to show the believers how he could lay hands on, an’ lift up them snakes. There was two cottonmouth water moccasins an’ one timber rattler in that basket an’ all three took a turn at bitin’ him. Yo Grandpa ended up that Sunday evenin’ in the River Bend Hospital. He near ‘bout died

I stayed at Mammy’s house for the first five years of my life, due to the fact that the Gristwalls didn’t want nothin’ to do with me. Because of it, I always called them people Cain an’ Virgie Gristwall, never Grandpa and Grandma.

Mammy took me under her wing like I was one of her natural born younguns an’ she’s the one that gave me a name. She named me after that fella with the funny lookin’ collar on the cigarette pack with gift coupons on it. She said she picked that name ‘cause it sounded dignified. But it didn’t make me no never mind, she coulda named me Mill House Tadpole an’ Ida been just as happy with it, an’ loved her all the same.

Besides me, Mammy had four other younguns of her own: Nicodemus (Nick), Bathsheba (Lil Sheba), Bartholomew (Bart), and Magdalene, (Maggie). Bart was the knee baby and me and Maggie was the arm babies. I’ve got all their birthdays’ writ down in my journal.

Nick was my best friend even though he was five year older than me. Me an’ Maggie were the same age with just one month betwixt us. Lil’ Sheba an’ Bart shied away from me for the most part, so I didn’t get to know much about them. Mammy said to pay them no mind, so I didn’t.

One time I asked Mammy how come she named all her younguns with bible names. She had this far-off look come over her face an’ she said, I don’t rightly know Spud darlin’, but sometimes I used to holler Oh God! Oh God! when me an’ my man made love. Whenever I yelled that, seems like I always come up pregnant. I expect the Good Lord thought I was callin’ on him for a youngun so he’d give me one. I naturally felt obliged to name that baby from the bible. But once I figured it out an’ started yellin’ go faster! go faster! he didn’t give me no more younguns.

Mammy called her man Messiah. I never knowed his real first name, so I called him Messiah like everybody else. I asked her how come she called him Messiah an’ she told me, Because that’s who he thinks he is. He’ll tell you right now that Jesus could turn water into wine but he can turn hog shorts an’ sugar into moonshine.

Folks all ‘round these parts call his liquor miracle whiskey. Mammy would always laugh out loud an’ slap one of her big hips when she said that, an’ then she’d say, They call it miracle whiskey because if it don’t eat a hole in yo gizzard or blind you in both eyes, it’s a miracle.

My cousin Frankie, she lived just up the road between Mammy’s house an’ the Gristwall place. She used to come an’ tend to me even before I could sit up by myself. She’s seven year older than me, an’ Mammy said she could change my diaper an’ bottle feed me as good as any growed up woman.

After that big yeller bus brung Frankie home of an afternoon, she’d bring us stuff from school: colorin’ books, Crayola crayons, little scissors with rounded tips an’ white paste for gluein’. Bart et the glue as fast as Frankie brung it, so we finally made our own glue outa white flour an’ water. He et that too.

Mammy said Frankie taught me to color inside the lines by the time I was two, but I was too young to remember it. I do remember recitin’ my ABC’s, I sung them to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. An’ I recollect repeatin’ the words in Frankie’s first grade reader. I can also remember Mammy learnin’ me to tie my shoes, an’ how to comb my hair while lookin’ in the mirror. I couldn’t have been more than three year old at the time.

On the day of my fifth birthday, Cain Gristwall come to Mammy’s house an’ fetched me. I reckon he figured enough of the evil had done wore offen me to where he could work me. Mammy didn’t put up no fuss, she knowed all along that he would come for me one day. She just huddled her younguns up close like a momma hen with her bitties an’ stood there watchin’ the old man put me in his buggy; there weren’t nothin’ she could do ‘bout it no how. It marked the end of the best years of my young life an’ turned things around so I couldn’t even tell I was livin’ in the same world.

Cain put me out in the cowshed with old Ned the mule an’ Bessie, the milk cow. Now, old Ned looked like he was on his last leg but Bessie, she was a pretty little light tan Jersey cow with big brown eyes. Cain bought her from a Pennsylvania Dutchman named Fritz Gunter; he wrote out a receipt that said ‘I got $2.00, cash money from Mr. Cain Gristwall for Bessie die Kuh’. I figured die Kuh was her last name, but I ain’t never heared of a cow with a last name so I didn’t call her that.

I put fresh hay in her feed trough every night an’ slept in it. It had a wooden vee shape with wide spaced slats on the side, so she could pull hay out from between them. It was nailed to the inside wall of the Cowshed, just below the big window of the hay storage room. I could pitch the hay through the window an’ right into the feed trough.

Old Ned was a sorry lookin’ mess. He was sway back an’ his hair looked like it had done rubbed clean off to where you could see his skin in spots. I didn’t have to worry about puttin’ out no hay for him because he didn’t have no teeth, an’ couldn’t eat it. Virgie boiled up a big pot of oats every mornin’ an’ that’s what Ned et. To me, it didn’t seem like near enough to keep a mule going, so I reckon that’s why he looked so poor, with his ribs poking out an’ his sides sunk in.

The first night I spent in that shed, I was goose bump skeert. I needed Frankie or Mammy, or some older, wiser person who would hold me close, sooth my shiverin’ fears an’ dry my tears. I tried to talk to God but I wasn’t sure he’d bother listenin’ to a whimperin’ youngun. I didn’t get no answers from him, anyway. Mammy told me that the bible said, in Ephesians 5:8 that I am a light an’ the dark is afraid of me. Welp, that was good to know, but hard to believe.

I laid there stone still in the hay trough that first night, playin’ possum while shadows jumped an’ flew about the shed with terrible shapes of youngun-eatin’ creatures that growed darker an’ blacker until they sucked up all the light in the shed an’ all the energy out of me. I couldn’t a moved iffin Ida wanted too. So, I laid there with my eyes paralyzed closed ‘til mornin’ come.

After a while, I took comfort with Ned an’ Bessie bein’ in the Cowshed with me. I heared Bessy bumpin’ around in her stall an’ I felt better. She was big an’ wouldn’t let anythin’ get me. I figured it was less scary bein’ in the Cowshed with the livestock than bein’ in that house with Cain an’ Virgie.

It was hard times back then, Cain hadn’t had no foldin’ money since he bought Bessie. He did a little handyman work from time to time, when he weren’t havin’ one of his lazy spells, an’ what little change he made, Virgie kept tied up in the corner of a bandanna. Cain always wore patched bib overalls but never hooked but one strap, an’ a faded gray shirt that was sweat stained an’ sun bleached across the back. It had long sleeves that he kept rolled up to his elbows. I seen him without his shirt once; he was brown from his neck up an’ his elbows down. The rest of him was sheet white.

He never tied his work boots an’ they had holes in the bottoms that he patched with tar paper, which he tore off the side of the Cowshed. The bottoms of his feet were black because he didn’t wear no socks, an’ the tar come off the paper. I reckon them boots was too tight because he’d cut slits on the outside so the corns on his little toes could have some room to move about.

He kept an extra big plug of home grown an’ cured tobacco on the left side of his mouth, ‘cause he didn’t have no teeth over there. The chaw was so big it muffled his words an’ made his jaw pooch way out like he had the one-sided mumps. When he sat down to eat, he’d lay his hat on one side of his plate and that big wad of spit-slimy tobacco on the other’n. Then he’d pick up his knife an’ fork, one in each hand, an’ glare at Virgie until she put his food on the table.

I never et at their table, but I watched ‘em a heap of times through the kitchen window. When they got done, Virgie raked the table scraps in a little tin dishpan, iffin there was any scraps, an’ sat it on the top step of the back porch for me. I et with my fingers an’ a Army mess-kit spoon I found behind the shed. It had the letters C.S.A. stamped on it. It had a hole in the handle, an’ I put it on a cord an’ wore it around my neck.

Cain got him a strong woman when he married Virgie. She was tall, big boned and had long, yeller gray hair that she platted an’ wound into crown braids around her head. She was a little bit stooped shouldered which I figured come from wearin’ a yoke an’ toted many a buckets of water up from the spring. She had real pale blue eyes that looked like they had faded from too much sun an’ a heap of secret cryin’. She always wore the same flour sack dress with faded, pink rosebuds printed on it an’ a dirty white apron. She had a sunbonnet, ‘bout as dirty as the apron, she wore whenever she went outside.

Virgie chewed Cain’s home cured tobacco too, an’ when she needed to spit, she’d walk out on the front porch, make a vee with her first two fingers, press them to her lips an’ spit a two inch spurt of brown juice a good fifteen feet, right over the banister an’ out into the dirt yard. The chickens would always run up to where the spit hit the ground an’ peck at it a time or two. I used to wonder what them hens thought when they tasted that blob of mud an’ tobacco juice. Reckon can chickens taste?

In body size I was a good four or five year ahead of my age. Mammy said I flew right past the size I was supposed to be, ‘cause I started out as a runt an’ had to catch up. She said the same thing happened to my brain, I was twice that much or more in my brain too. Right from the start, Cain put my size to work with plenty of chores: sloppin’ hogs, feedin’ chickens, gatherin’ eggs, milkin’ Bessie, an’ cleanin out the chicken coop... Which I hated most of all. When I weren’t doin’ nothin’ else I was either choppin’ stove wood or weeds in that garden. Cain would inspect the garden for weeds every Saturday an’ he’d give me one lick with his razor strop for every weed he found.

There was a big ol’ tree stump in the yard behind the house. I reckon it was about as big around as a rear tractor tire, maybe bigger. The ol’ folks said slaves were bought an’ sold under that tree ‘til lightenin’ struck it an’ blowed it into kinlin' wood. Them again’ slavery said that lightenin’ bolt was God’s message for folks to stop tradin’ in human flesh.

Cain said that tree was the first cousin of Abraham’s Oak tree in the bible, where all them Jews got sold into slavery. That stump might have been kin to Abraham’s Oak all right, but it didn’t grow from no acorn, ‘cause Sycamores can’t do such.

Since I knowed Cain would make me lean over that stump for a stroppin’ whenever he found weeds in the garden, I’d go out at sun up an’ chop every last weed I could find. By the time he got out there to inspect, new ones would have done popped up. So I might as well say I got a stroppin’ every Saturday, no matter what I did in that dad-blamed patch of dirt. The only two things that strop did was thicken my hide, an’ make me hate Cain Gristwall that much more.

Back then, I didn’t have no clothes to speak of. Cain give me just enough to keep the sheriff from puttin’ me in jail for neckedness. If it hadn’t been for the law, Cain’s stinginess woulda kept me buck necked. I had one pair of bib overalls that the crotch hung to my knees, an’ I had to roll up the legs four turns. I had one feed sack shirt, a bunnet cap for my head and when I got ten year old I got a pair of hand-me-down brogan boots; I went barefooted up ‘til then.

And one more thing about that neckedness business: Folks say that writin’ one of these here biography books is the same as takin’ off all your clothes in public, so I reckon after all these years that ol’ codger Gristwall is fixin’ to get his way.

~~~***~~~

These days, now that I’m an old man, I live in a trailer in my daughter’s backyard. The property is surrounded by a high stone wall an’ beyond that, on the back side, is the Peaceful Meadows Cemetery. There used to be a twenty yard boundary of green grass on their side of the wall before the tombstones begin. But I’ve noticed the boundary has gotten a heap more narrow over the years, as them Episcopalians bury more an’ more of their dearly departed. I call it graveyard sprawl.

My daughter, Rusty, said it was up to me, I could either live in this here trailer an’ complain about the graveyard, or go to a nursin’ home. Welp, you can see by where I’m livin that I ain’t stayin in no dadgum nursin’ home.

When I was a young man I used to love goin’ to Tarzan movies. I reckon I’ve seen ‘em all. Sometimes I get to thinkin’ ‘bout them movies an’ a powerful hankerin’ comes over me to stick my head outta the trailer door, an’ yodel like Tarzan. Now, I ain’t no slouch with my Tarzan yodel, an’ I call as loud as I can but, other than my little dog, Butterbean V, no other animals answer. The cops came one time when I yelled one of my best yodels in the middle of the night. They said they got a complaint of a howlin’ dog. I told them it was me an’ I was just tryin’ to see if I could wake up any of them Episcopalian folks over yonder in the graveyard. They didn’t think it was funny a’tall, an’ give me a ticket for disturbin’ the peace.

Nowadays I do my Tarzan calls in the daytime, but just once me an’ Butterbean V would love to look out the window an’ see a herd of jungle animals grazin’ in that graveyard. It’d dang shore give them Episcopalians somethin’ to talk to the Lord about. I’ll keep practicin’; I might hit the right notes yet.

My daughter says I’m bored an’ depressed, but I ain’t done it. I’ve got my pain pills for my arthritis an’ I’ve got Butterbean V for company. Me an’ her have some good conversations about all kinds of things. But my daughter says, Diddy, you should make some human friends. Go over to the senior center, they have hot lunches. I think she feels guilty for not cookin’ for me. But she has her own life to live, an’ as long as the grocery store stocks potted meat, soda crackers, an’ Co’Colas she needn’t worry, I’ll get by.

There’s a reason I live alone. I like myself an’ I’m comfortable with me. Another person in my life would be jealous of my relationship with me. I wouldn’t bother to explain it to them because they danged shore wouldn’t understand.

I ain’t got the energy or time or patience for a senior center friendship, where you talk about the weather or the price of gasoline or other such hogwash. I’d rather be friendless then to wear out the seat of my britches a squirmin’ in a chair an’ listenin’ to geezers tell how it was back in their day.

Rusty don’t give me no trouble about my ways, though. She says, At your age you’re entitled to act however you want Diddy, but please stay out of jail. Go ahead an’ eat what you want, so long as it’s not out of the dumpsters behind the fast food joints. Welp, I’ve et some things out of a dishpan that was a heap better than the slop you get at that senior center. But anyway, when you’ve got somebody in your life who knows you ain’t perfect but treats you like you are, you’re blessed.

There’s a park just down the road an’ when me an’ Butterbean V get the cabin fever, we go for a walk down yonder. Welp, I do the walkin’ an’ she does the riding in my pocket. Her legs are too short to go for a real walk; she takes ten steps to my one. She likes to bark at the ducks while I gawk at the pretty young secretaries that come there to eat their lunch.

Butterbean V sounds like a squeaky toy when she barks. She is really talkin’, an’ if you tune your ear just right you can understand every word she says. You can laugh if you wanna, but I’ve been able to talk to every one of my little pups in the past.

Her little bark makes all the girls an’ younguns at the park gather ‘round to see her sit up, an’ roll over, an’ dance on her hind legs. I let the girls hold her if they’ve a mind to. They cuddle her up to their breast an’ Butterbean V smells like their powder an’ perfume when they hand her back. I don’t let the younguns handle her though, ‘cause they always get somethin’ sticky in her fur.

It ain’t a bad life, livin’ out my days here in the trailer. Rusty got me this here tape recorder that I tell my story to, an’ then she types it all out for me. We make a pretty good team.

Here’s somethin’ I writ by hand:

~~~***~~~

A Trip to the Park

Butterbean, my tiny love

She owns this shady park

It’s hers in the bright of day

An’ in the blackest dark

The trees belong to her as well

She claims them with a sniff

The air, its secret treasures

She owns them with a whiff.

The pond, the grass, the rocks

The splashin’ waterfall

That sings out like the children

She owns ‘em one and all

To run an’ jump an’ splash

She shows the children how-to

Then romp an’ bark at white ducks

An’ yes, she owns them too.

Butterbean the little pup

An’ I, the old gray man

We take our walk through her park

An’ through our life, so grand

CHAPTER TWO

Monday, September 1, 1924, 3:00 O’clock PM

My name is Sir Walter Raleigh Gristwall. My Nickname is Spud. Today is my birthday. I am 5 year old today. I live at Route 2, Parson’s Gap, Alabama. Frankie Farone give me this writin’ tablet an’ this here pencil for my birthday present. I will write every day an’ make a journal. I love Frankie Farone. Me an’ her will get married when I’m growed up.

P.S. Cain Gristwall is comin’ to get me today. I ain’t gonna cry when he does.

~~~***~~~

Them were my very first journal words. Frankie hoped me with near ‘bout every one of them words that day, but over the years I reckon I filled upwards of two hundred of them school tablets on my own.

When Cain Gristwall come an’ got me from Mammy’s house, I learnt that bastards don’t need no schoolin’. Accordin’ to him, mongrels what sprung from sinful fornication had no need for letters an’ number an’ I weren’t gonna get none.

Cain said I knowed how to speak when spoken to an’ do what I was told. If I ever ask for anythin’, no matter how small, he would say, The Almighty God give you the will to talk, an’ my razor strop will give you the will to do as I tell you, an’ you don't need nothin’ else. So I learnt better than to ask for so much as a drop of water... even when I was outside workin’ in the heat of the day.

He had no ide’ ‘bout Frankie schoolin’ me; She didn’t like Cain Gristwall no better’n I did an’ after he come an’ took me away from Mammy, Frankie kept right on givin’ me my schoolin’ on the sly. She said iffin I didn’t learn my three R’s, I’d grow up dumb like Cain, an’ she nor nobody else would take up any time with an ignoramus. Ida bit the tail offen a Polecat iffin it woulda kept me from lookin’ like an ignoramus in Frankie’s eyes.

As sure as rain falls down, Cain Gristwall woulda had another one of his conniptions if he’d a knowed Frankie was learnin’ me out of her school books. Near ‘bout once a week he’d tell me, "You’re big enough to chop weeds an’ tote water from the spring, an’ when you’re ten year old, I’ll put Brogans on your feet an’ you’ll go to the woods, pulp-woodin’.

It ain’t hard to hate. The first easy hatin’ I ever did was aimed at them two, Cain and Virgie. I hated him for runnin’ off my Mama an’ ‘cause of all the things he done to me, an’ how they both treated me. I hated Virgie for just goin’ along with him without raisin’ a hand or makin’ a peep to stop him.

As easy as it is to hate, it’s twice as hard to love. Preacher Mann said love is hard to give sometimes an’ sin is easy to come by. I can’t say as I ever come even close to lovin’ Cain an’ Virgie Gristwall an’ somehow, iffin I did manage to love them two, I felt like it wouldn’t be a good thing... like I’d be sinnin’. I reckon that makes me of poor character an’ if that be the case, welp, alright then, a sorry sinner I’ll be.

Frankie told me to pay no mind to Cain. She said I learnt quick, which made me powerful proud. But truth be known, I had to pay attention to Cain Gristwall, he was the one with the strop. I’d growed a thick hide, an’ could take a good deal of stroppin’ as I got a little older, but I was so skeert he’s catch us, an’ make me stay away from Frankie, that I hurried up an’ learnt as much as I could, thinkin’ that would somehow keep us together.

After Cain come an’ got me, Frankie learnt me my lessons at night by kerosene lamp, on her back porch, after I got all my chores did. Cain an’ Virgie was in bed by the time the chickens went to roost, an’ I’d slip off down through the woods an’ follow the branch that fed into Sandy Creek. Cain said if he ever caught me slippin’ off at night, he’d chain me to the back porch, but I did it anyway.

One of the worstest things you can do is to keep yourself ignorant on purpose or outa fear. I know my English ain’t no good, but if I hadn’t spited Cain Gristwall, an’ Frankie hadn’t taught me as much as she did, I’d be a total ignoramus, shore nuff.

Frankie said for me not to fret over not gettin’ no regular schoolin’. She said the schoolhouse ain’t nothin’ but a day jail where you’re forced to learn what strangers think is important. She told me to go to the li-berry every chance I got, ‘cause I could choose what I wanted to learn… An’ that there’s exactly what I did.

There weren’t no school for Nick in Parson’s Gap an’ they wouldn’t let him in the li-berry. The closest school was near ‘bout twenty mile off, way over yonder on the other side of River Bend, so he’d come to Frankie’s house an’ she’d learn both of us. We got away with our night schoolin’ for about six months before Cain caught on. Welp, that there ain’t exactly true, he didn’t so much catch me in the doin’, as things just happened that put an end to it.

One of my mornin’ chores was to milk Bessie. She was a sweet an’ purdy cow an’ I always thought she favored that young heifer on the Pet Evaporated Milk can. But somethin’ happened, an’ Bessie started goin’ dry. The first couple of times I brought less than half a milk pail full to the house, I got cussed out for layin’ back on my chores. On the third day Cain went an’ milked her himself, an’ got even less in his pail than I did.

From then on, Cain let me stay with Bessie every night. I slept in her stall with her an’ petted her an’ sung soothin’ songs to her. But every day for the next two weeks, Bessie give less an’ less until finally she just hauled off an’ dried up; not nary ‘nother drop of milk. Then, when I woke up one mornin’, she had done fell over, sometime in the night, an’ died. I remember she was layin’ on her side, an’ her legs were stickin’ straight out, stiff as planks. I was mighty relieved to see that her eyes was closed, I think I would have broke down an’ squalled iffin they’d been open. But, her tongue was flopped way out of her mouth. It had swole up, turned blue, an’ looked like it growed a foot longer durin’ the night.

Cain told me to hitch up ol’ Ned an’ drag Bessie down to the back of the pasture an’ bury her. I tied a rope around her neck, hooked it to Ned’s plow harness, an’ dragged her down to the fence line on the north end of the pasture. She must have weighed a ton ‘cause I had to switch Ned’s rump good to keep him pullin’. Mules are so danged stubborn an’ ol’ Ned was a hundred percent mule. He kicked an’ bucked an’ bellered like a jackass, but the more he cut up, the more I switched his tail end. He finally got it through his thick head that I was serious an’ he went on an’ did his job.

After I took Ned back to the shed an’ put him in his stall, Cain came out an’ handed me a shovel. He didn’t say nary a word, just handed me the shovel, then he turnt an’ went back in the house. I dug on Bessy’s grave all the rest of that day an’ all through that night. I’d shovel a while then bend over an’ dig with my hands, pushin’ the dirt an’ big rocks out betwixt my legs. It didn’t look like I’d ever get it deep an’ wide enough.

While I was diggin’ that night I struck a couple of medal objects. From what I could tell by the kerosene lamplight, they was fancy, silver, soup servin’ bowls or chamber pots an’ both had the lid sealed with silver so you couldn’t get in them without a torch to melt the seal. They was covered with a hard waxy stuff an’ then wrapped in burlap which had mostly rotted away. One pot made a rattlin’ noise when I shook it an’ the other’n was so heavy I couldn’t hardly lift it by myself. I took both of ‘em off in the woods an’ buried them in a spot I’d be sure to remember. I figured if Cain asked me if I found anythin’ I’d just lie an’ say no. I was gettin’ purdy good at straight-faced lyin’ to him, an’ he’d never find where I hid them.

The next mornin’ poor, sweet Bessie had done swole up really big an’ blowflies was startin’ to buzz around. When Cain finally come out an’ caught me diggin’ doggie style, he swatted me so hard on the butt with the shovel that it knocked me flat of my face. Stop acting like a danged idget, boy, an’ bend your back to slidin’ this here stinkin’ cow in the hole. Like I said, I never did get the grave wide enough an’ I had to get the hacksaw an’ cut Bessie’s legs off at the shoulders so she’d fit.

For weeks after that I had bodacious nightmares. I’d go to fetch Bessie for milkin’ an’ she would be strugglin’, tryin’ to get up with no legs. She would always look up at me with her big sad eyes as if to ask, how come you went an’ cut my legs off after I worked so hard to give y’all my good, sweet milk?

Thankfully, most of the stuff that goes on in dreams an’ nightmares don’t last the mornin’. They’re like powdered sleep that falls away when I climb out of bed. I’m powerful glad of this for my nightmares, but I wish a lot of my good dreams weren’t so apt to fly off like dust in the wind.

Even though Cain never caught me right out, I reckon he had suspicion about my nighttime doin’s at Frankie’s house. The day I buried Bessie he started chainin’ me to the back porch at sundown.

Youngun, Cain said, you’ll sleep under this here porch from now on, an’ if I don’t hear that chain of yourn rattle durin’ the night, I’m comin’ after you with my strop. It was just as well, I couldn’t sleep in the