“Hit’s a far piece,” Lark said. “I’m afraid we won’t make it afore dusty dark.” We squatted down in the road and rested on the edge of a clay rut. Lark set his poke on the crust of a nag’s track, and I lifted the saddlebags off my shoulder. The leather was damp underneath.
“We ought ne’er thought to be scholars,” Lark said.
The sun-ball had turned over the hill above Riddle Hargin’s farm and it was hot in the valley. Grackles walked the top rail of a fence, breathing with open beaks. They halted and looked at us, their legs wide apart and rusty backs arched.
“I knowed you’d get dolesome ere we reached Troublesome Creek,” I said. “I knowed it was a-coming.”
Lark drew his thin legs together and rested his chin on his knees. “If’n I was growed up to twelve like you,” he said, “I’d go along peart. I’d not mind my hand.”
“Writing hain’t done with your left hand,” I said. “It won’t be agin’ you larning.”
“I oughtn’t to tried busting that dinnymite cap,” Lark said. “Hit’s a hurting sight to see my left hand with two fingers gone.”
“Before long it’ll seem plumb natural,” I said. “In a little spell you’ll never give a thought to it.”
The grackles called harshly from the rail fence.
“We’d better eat the apples while we’re setting,” I said. Lark opened the poke holding a Wilburn and a Henry Back. “You take the Wilburn,” I told him, for it was the largest. “I choose the Henry Back because it pops when I bite it.”
Lark wrapped the damp seeds in a bit of paper torn from the poke. I got up, raising the saddlebag. The grackles flew lazily off the rails, settling into a linn beside the road, their dark wings brushing the leaves like shadows.
“It’s nigh on to six miles to the forks,” I said.
Lark asked to carry the saddlebag a ways, so I might rest. I told him, “This load would break your bones down.” I let him carry my brogans though. He tied the strings into a bow and hung them about his neck.
We walked on, stepping among hardened clumps of mud and wheel-brightened rocks. Cowbells clanked in a redbud thicket on the hills, and a calf bellowed. A bird hissed in a persimmon tree. I couldn’t see it, but Lark glimpsed its flicking tail feathers.
“A cherrybird’s nigh tame as a pet crow,” Lark said. “Once I found one setting her some eggs and she never flew away. She was that trusting.”
Lark was tiring now. He stumped his sore big toe twice, crying a mite.
“You’ll have to stop dragging yore feet or put on shoes,” I said.
“My feet would get raw as beef if’n I wore shoes all the way till dark,” Lark complained. “My brogans is full o’ pinchers. If’n I had me a drap o’ water on my toe, hit would feel a sight better.”
Farther on we found a spring drip. Lark held his foot under the cool stream. He wanted to scramble up the bank to find where the water seeped from the ground. “Thar might be a spring lizard sticking hits head out o’ the mud,” he said. I wouldn’t give in to it, so we went on, the sun-ball in our faces and the road curving beyond sight.
“I’ve heered tell they do quare things at the fork school,” Lark said, “yit I’ve forgot what it was they done.”
“They’ve got a big bell hung square up on some poles,” I said, “and they ring it before they get up o’ mornings and when they eat. They got a little sheep bell to ring in the schoolhouse before and betwixt books. Dee Finley tuk a month’s schooling there, and he told me a passel. Dee says it’s a sight on earth the washing and scrubbing and sweeping they do. Says they might nigh take the hide off o’ floors a-washing them so much.”
“I bet hit’s the truth,” Lark said.
“I’ve heard Mommy say it’s not healthy keeping dust breshed in the air, and a-damping floors every day,” I said. “And Dee says they’ve got a passel o’ cows in a barn. They take and wet a broom and scrub every cow before they milk. Dee reckons they’ll soon be brushing them cows’ teeth.”
“I bet hit’s the truth,” Lark said.
“All that messing around don’t hurt them cows none. They get so much milk everybody has a God’s plenty.”
The sun-ball dropped behind the beech woods on the ridge. It grew cooler. We rested again in a horsemint patch, Lark spitting on his big toe, easing the pain. Lark said, “I ought ne’er thought to be a scholar.”
“They never was a puore scholar amongst all our folks,” I recalled. “Never a one went all the way through the books and come out yonside. I’ve got a notion doing it.”
“Hit’d take a right smart spell,” Lark said.
We were ready to go on when a sound of hoofs came up the valley. They were far off and dull. We waited, resting a bit longer. A bright-faced nag rounded the creek curve, lifting hoofs carefully along the wheel tracks. Cain Griggs was in the saddle, riding with his feet out of the stirrups, for his legs were too long to fit. He halted beside us, looking down where we sat. We stood up, shifting our feet.
“I reckon yore pappy’s sending his young ’uns down to the forks school,” Cain guessed. “Going down to stay awhile and git a mess o’ fool notions.”
“Poppy never sent us,” I said. “We made our own minds.”
Cain lifted his hat and scratched his head. “I never put much store by all them fotched-on teachings, a-larning quare onnatural things, not a grain o’ good on the Lord’s creation.”
“Hain’t nothing wrong with larning to cipher and read writing,” I said. “None I ever heard tell of.”
“I’ve heered they teach the earth is round,” Cain said, “and that goes agin’ Scripture. The Book says plime-blank hit’s got four corners. Whoever seed a ball have a corner?”
Cain patted his nag and scowled. His voice rose. “They’s a powerful mess o’ fancy foolishness they teach a chap these days, a-pouring in till they got no more jedgment than a granny hatchet, a-grinding their brains away with book reading. I allus said, a little larning’s a good thing, sharpening the mind like a sawblade, but too much knocks the edge off o’ the p’ints and darks a feller’s reckoning.”
Lark’s mouth opened. He shook his head, agreeing.
“Hain’t everybody knows what to swallow, and what to spit out,” Cain warned. “Now, if I was you, young and tenderminded, I’d play hardhead down at the forks, and let nothing but truth git through my skull. Hit takes a heap o’ knocking to git a thing proper anyhow, and the harder hit’s beat in, the longer hit’s liable to stay. I figure the Lord put our brains in a bone box to sort o’ keep the devilment strained out.”
Cain clucked his nag. She started off, lifting her long chin as the bits tightened in her mouth. Cain called back to us, but his words were lost under the rattle of hoofs.
“I bet what that feller says is the plime-blank gospel,” Lark said, looking after the disappearing nag. “I’m scared I can’t tell what is truth and what hain’t. If’n I was growed up to twelve like you, I’d know. I’m afeared I’ll swallow a lie-tale.”
“Cain Griggs don’t know square to the end o’ everything,” I said.
We went on. The sun-ball reddened, mellowing the sky. Lark trudged beside me, holding to a strap of the saddlebag, barely lifting his feet above the ruts. His teeth were set against his lower lip, his eyes downcast.
“I knowed you’d get dolesome,” I said.
Martins flew the valley after the sun was gone, fluttering sharp wings, slicing the air. A whip-poor-will called. Shadows thickened in the laurel patches.
We came upon the forks in early evening and looked down upon the school from the ridge. Lights were bright in the windows, though shapes of houses were lost against the hills. We rested, listening. No sound came out of all the strange place where the lights were, unblinking and cold.
I stood up, lifting the saddlebag once more. Lark arose too, hesitating, dreading the last steps.
“I ought ne’er thought to be a scholar,” Lark said. His voice was small and tight, and the words trembled on his tongue. He caught hold of my hand, and I felt the blunt edge of his palm where the fingers were gone. We started down the ridge, picking our way through stony dark.