“I had written the short story ‘Tetch ’n Take’ for Kentucky Writing. It was based on a true incident in the enormous Giles clan.”
Around Our House
“TROUBLE WITH YOU, JED,” says Grampa Clark, propping his foot on the lowest fence rail and laying a puddle of tobacco juice in the dust of the road, “trouble with you is yer too pa’tickler. Ary woman’ better’n none at all. If she kin bake a biscuit she’ll do to tie to. Yer too choosey, an’ a man yore age cain’t be so picky. You jist got to tetch ’n take.”
Jedediah hitched at his overalls and, taking careful aim, laid another puddle of tobacco juice right alongside of Grampa Clark’s. “Well do I know it,” he says, “but I jist cain’t get up my narve to ast the Widder Shanks. Ever’ time I go over thar I aim to, but they’s a thing jist ties my tongue, like. She’s as fat as a meat hawg, her jaws is allus aflappin an’ besides she won’t have no truck with them hound dawgs of mine.”
“Aw, shoo,” says Grampa, “a leetle weight never hurt no woman. I like ’em on the chunky side myself. Good as a stove to snuggle up to of a cold night. An’ you kin allus close yer ears to her jawin’. As fer the dawgs, ain’t you the master of yer own house? Jist set yer foot down, man! Jist tell her to take me, take my dawgs. I’ve heard the Widder dishes up the tastiest vittles in Bear Holler. If hit was me, now, I’d consider it a right smart trade to git to eat good an’ have a handy woman to do fer me. Ain’t no two ways about it, a lone man makes a pore job out of doin’ fer hisself.”
Jed laid his bony shanks against the fence and pulled a deep sigh out of his chest. “He does that. I know fer shore. I stir soon of a mornin’, never layin’ no longer than cock-crow, an’ I try masterfully to dish up tasty vittles. But hit’s allus the same. My cornpone’s soggy, my side-meat’s greasy, my gravy’s lumpy and not even the dawgs’ll swill my cawfee. I’ve nigh ruint my stummick, to say nothing of the dawgses’.”
“I know jist what you mean,” says Grampa. “I was a widder man fer ten long year myself. Jist too pa’tickler. ’Lowed I could hold out. But when my stummick give out on me I was powerful glad to wed up with Agnes. An’ that’s jist what you better do with the Widder Shanks, whilst they’s time. You ain’t likely to find none that’ll suit you better. Besides,” he says, slipping it in kind of slylike, “I’ve heard the bachelor man from over at Yaller Dawg Holler has been acastin’ eyes at her of late. In my opinion, you’d best git yerself over to the Widder’s come Sunday an’ take the day with her. You’d best waste no time gittin’ into motionment. That bachelor man is liable to sneak her right into matrimony on that black mule of his’n.”
Jed unglued his bones from the fence. His hackles rose like a dawg getting ready to fight. “The bachelor man!” he says, nigh strangling on the words. “Why that ornery low-life! Ever’body in these parts knows I’ve been courtin’ the Widder these past six years. They ain’t a soul but knows I’ve staked out my claim. Why, I’ll skin that polecat an’ stretch his hide to my smokehouse door! I’ll roll him like a barr’l! I’ll . . .”
Grampa Clark laid a hand on his arm. “I’d not mix nor mingle none with the bachelor man if I was you, Jed,” he says. “He’s a right smart stack of man. I’d jist take the day with the Widder come Sunday, an’ leave him wake up a Monday with the Widder snuck clean outen his way. That’s what I’d do, was I you.”
Jed fisted his hands and pondered. Then he pointed his chin whiskers at the sky and nodded his agreement. “I’m beholden to you, Grampa,” he says, “fer handin’ me yer advice. I’ll foller it. Come Sunday I’ll take the day with the Widder, and I’ll lead her to the halter come Monday. That’ll fix that there bachelor man!”
“Hit will that,” Grampa says. “Hit will fer shore. Now don’t go losin’ yer narve. Jist stiffen up yer backbone, an’ remember the worst is jist gittin’ it said. Oncet that’s done, the rest is easy. Iffen you don’t now, Jed, folks all up and down the holler is goin’ to be p’intin at you an’ sayin’, ‘Look how the proud has fell. Look to what Jedediah Spears has come. Alettin’ the bachelor man from Yaller Dawg Holler sneak his woman away from him.’ ”
Jed shook his head at the idea. It wouldn’t bear thinking on. “My narve,” he says, “has stiffened. An’ hit’ll not weaken.”
Grampa Clark slapped him on the back. “Good. Now, don’t fergit yer store teeth. The Widder sets a heap of prize by appearances. You want to look yer best. Well, I’d best be gittin’ on. Jist go with me.”
“Cain’t,” Jed says. “Jist stay on.”
“Got to be moseyin’, I reckon. Wish ye luck, Jed.” And Grampa Clark laid one foot in front of the other down the road, raising a dust behind him. Jed kept his eye on him to the curve, then, mournfully, he laid one foot in front of the other down the road, raising a dust behind him, up the holler to his cabin. He had a unknown sight of things to do to get ready for Sunday.
Come first light easing the sun up over the ridge Sunday morning, Jed stirred. His stomach was all of aquiver with excitement. It could likely be this was the next day but one he’d have to dish up his own vittles. He ate his breakfast, and then he scoured himself with hard soap. His clothes were laid handy on a chair nearby. He’d washed his overalls and patched the hole in the knee. He’d got out the white shirt he’d not worn since Idy was laid in the ground over in the Lo and Behold churchyard. He’d scraped the mud off his Sunday slippers, and he’d turned the band on his blue felt hat. On top of his clothes, so as not to forget, he’d laid his store teeth. Plague-taked things wasn’t worth a nickel for chewing, but they was mighty white and shiny. Pretty as pearls, even if they did fill up a body’s mouth a heap. He reckoned he’d have to remember to laugh some this day, so’s the Widder would take note he was wearing his teeth.
The mist was riding high in the trees when he whistled up the dawgs and sloped off down the holler toward the Widder’s. Solomon and old King David were the two best fox hounds in these parts. Never missed a track or a trail. Never lost a fox. Jed ruminated on his dawgs. Hit did beat all, he thought, how quare wimminfolks was about dawgs. Allus ajawin’ about ’em trackin’ in an’ smellin’ up a place. Idy’d been the same in the beginnin’, but ere long she’d give over the idee. Said she reckoned they was her cross to bear. But he misdoubted the Widder would give over as easy as Idy. They was a sight more of her to hold out. But be they ever so good, he remembered, dawgs couldn’t dish up vittles. No matter how many foxes they could trail and track, they was still just dawgs. An’ hit wasn’t to be borne no longer, this doin’ fer hisself. He was diggin’ a early grave with his own teeth. He clapped a hand to his hip pocket. By grannies, he’d like to fergot them store teeth. He slid them into his mouth and eased them into place.
Up hill and down holler he followed the trail. Solomon and old King David slanting low on the ground ahead, sniffing and panting like they hoped to come up on a fresh scent any minute. It fair made Jed’s heart bleed in his bosom to think what all unbeknownst to them he was doing. It made him feel like a Judas, when he looked at those two pore innocent dawgs. But he stiffened his nerve and kept to the trail.
When he came out on top of the ridge in sight of the Widder’s cabin, he pulled up short. For there, in plain sight, hitched to the fence post right spang in front of the Widder’s house, was a long-eared black mule. A long-eared black mule with red tassels on his bridle and a saddle on his back. And who could such a mule belong to but the bachelor man from Yaller Dawg Holler!
A fast-burning anger wheezed through Jedediah. By grannies, he says to himself, the bachelor man is taking the day with the Widder. Adippin’ from a man’s own spring. Athievin’ from a man’s own chicken yard. Atrailin’ a man’s own fox. Jed was so wrathful he chomped down hard on his store teeth and blew his cud of tobacco right out onto the ground. He sharpened his feet against the dirt, and he tightened his belt a couple of notches. He sizzled and he fried. He wiggled his ears forward and backward. By grannies, he says, I’ll pick the pin feathers outen that bachelor man! I’ll grind him up an’ make mincemeat outen him! I’ll chaw him up and spit him out! And then he balled himself up and took off down the hillside, his arms windmilling the air and his breath puffing steam before him.
The Widder opened to him, but there was no joy in her greeting. “Leave them dawgs of yore’n outdoors, Jed,” she says, and she never so much as told him to fetch a chair. “Me an’ Bruh,” she says, “is jist aimin’ to leave fer the all-day singin’ over at Tabernacle. Ain’t got time to more’n wish you good day.”
The air whistled through Jed’s nose. So! Her an’ the bachelor man was going to the singin’, was they? He laid his eyes on the bachelor man. He was a heap of man, that bachelor man from Yaller Dawg Holler. Grampa Clark was right. He was a right smart stack of man. Jed took him in and decided maybe he’d better smooch talk him a little before making mincemeat out of him. So, slick as butter, he says, “How you all aimin’ on goin’?”
The Widder tossed her head. “On Bruh’s mule. How else?”
“Single or double?”
“Double.”
Jed slewed a look at the bachelor man who hadn’t so much as spoke a word yet. Not even a mannerly howdy. “I misdoubt that mule’ll carry double,” Jed says.
“He’ll carry,” says the bachelor man, and he stood up six foot tall and went past Jed out the door like he wasn’t even there.
The Widder tied her bonnet on. “Hit’s a pity,” she says in passing, “hit’s a pity you’ve not got you no mule, Jed. Jist them two wuthless old hound dawgs.”
Jedediah was struck all of a heap. Wuthless! Wuthless! Solomon and old King David? The two best fox hounds in Bear Holler? Well, by grannies! He could feel his wrath foaming inside of him. Wuthless! He choked on his lower plate and all but swallowed the whole set of teeth, he was that mad. He coughed them around a minute and then slid them clean out of his mouth into his hand. Much good they was doing, anyhow. Then he followed the Widder and the bachelor man out to the gate.
The bachelor man crawled onto his mule and gave the Widder a hand to hoist her up behindst him. She lunged, but she never even left the ground. There must of been a good two hundred pounds of the Widder, and it took a right smart hoist to budge her. Jed snickered. The Widder withered him with a look. He wiped the grin off his face. “Leave me holp,” he says politely, and he commenced to go around the south side of the mule toward the Widder.
It was then the idea come to him, and he never resisted long. Like a flash his hand snuck out and lifted the saddle blanket, and he slid his store teeth under, teeth side down. Quicklike, he done it, patting the blanket into place, and then he bent to hold a hand for the Widder’s foot. He heaved and the bachelor man hove. The Widder puffed and panted. Finally they got her off the ground and swung in a wide curve over the back of the mule. She settled like a pan of yeasty dough.
But not for long. When she landed the mule laid back his ears and rolled his eyes, and he brayed a mighty trumpet to the skies. He leaned his nose to the ground and then he stood on it, his hind legs splitting the air so clean they whistled. When he landed, stiff-legged, the Widder bounced like a flapjack being turned in the skillet. When she went up her bonnet lit on a rose bush and when she come down her side-combs grated themselves on the fence paling. All two hundred pounds of her was jolted plumb to her hairpins. When she landed, those store teeth of Jed’s must of sunk to the helve in the mule’s hide. With a blast like thunder, and a couple of wicked side kicks, the mule took off down the holler, the bachelor man sawing at the bit and cussing a blue streak, the Widder screeching and clawing like a wildcat around his neck. “Lawdy, lawdy,” says Jedediah, thunderstruck and awed. “Look at what them store teeth has went an’ done. I do hope the Widder don’t pulverize ’em. Man, man, look at that mule go!” Then he greased his heels in a hard run after them. Solomon and old King David was belling that mule like it was a fox. “Stay with ’em, boys,” Jed whooped, and he fanned the breeze right behind them.
When he rounded the curve and come in sight again he skidded his heels in the dirt. What he saw was a sight to behold. The Widder was leaving the south end of the mule, aflyin’ just like she’d took to wings, right through the middle of the air. Jed didn’t allow there’d been another good bite in them teeth, but he must of been wrong. His mouth flew open and he swallowed his Adam’s apple. Then he hid his eyes in his shirt sleeve. He never wanted to see the finish. Likely, he thought, I have committed murder this day. Likely hit’s a ball an’ chain fer me the rest of my days.
Then he heard such a screeching and abellowing and agoing on as never had he heard in all his born days. Such a yelping and howling! He peeped through his fingers with one eye, expecting to see the Widder smashed six ways to thunder all over the holler. But what he saw froze him right in his tracks, and plumb filled him with anguish. For the Widder had landed plunk in the midst of Solomon and old King David! There they were all in a heap, the two best fox hounds in Bear Holler, with the Widder lying sprawled on top. Oh, woe! Oh, misery! A groan come up from Jedediah’s toes. Likely, he says to himself, I have committed several murders today.
Like the west wind he blew down the path to his dawgs. He couldn’t even take any pleasure in the sight of the bachelor man high-tailing it on down the holler, raising such a dust as hardly to be seen. For his heart was chunking in his throat, and the salt tears were flowing down his cheeks and his stomach was heaving like jelly.
“Git me up from here, Jed,” the Widder begged. “Git me up. Oh, rue the day I ever paid heed to that there bachelor man! My bones is melted an’ broke! My chest is caved in! My hide is skun an’ roe! I’m all of aquiver. Git me up from here!”
But Jed had no thoughts for the Widder. “You ain’t kilt,” he says. “But hit may well be my dawgs is ruint. Git over an’ leave me see.” And he shoved the Widder to one side.
Solomon moaned and old King David groaned, but they staggered up to their feet when Jed called them. Their sides were heaving and their tongues were hanging out, but they wasn’t split asunder. Jed felt all over them and satisfied himself they weren’t spavined or disjointed in any way. He patted Solomon and petted old King David and he hugged them both a hundred times, he was that glad. It was like a miracle they hadn’t been stove clean in and their insides mashed to glue.
The Widder hoisted herself up. She shook down her skirts and hitched up her stockings. “I’ll never agin say a harm’s word about them dawgs of yore’n, Jedediah,” she says. “They’re all that’s kept me from gittin’ a broke neck this day. I’ll feed ’em an’ tend ’em like they was younguns. They shall eat my meat hawg an’ my fryin’ chickens, too. An’ I’ll give ’em the run of the heartfire if you want. When we’re wed, I will, Jed.”
Jed blinked at her. He had plumb forgot he had aimed to ask her to wed with him. She went on talking. “Now, the way I see it, Jed,” she says, “when we’re wed you kin jist move yore things over to my place. That shack of yore’n fitten fer nothin’ but kindlin’ wood noways. But I’ll come over an’ see if they’s ary thing of Idy’s I kin use. I allus had a fancy fer that brass bed of her’n. You got a Rastus plow you better bring along, too, fer come spring you kin use it in the corn patch . . .” She went on and on, barely pausing for breath.
Jed watched her tongue flicking the words against her teeth, disposing of him and his house and property, and he watched her jaw keeping time with her tongue. He blinked again and swallowed hard. All at once he felt like there was a noose around his neck. He opened his mouth when she stopped long enough for him to get a word in edgewise, but the words of agreement wouldn’t come. He swallowed again and loosened his collar, took a deep breath and tried once more. Some words came out, but they wasn’t what he intended. He’d aimed to say, “Yes, ma’am,” and get it done and over with. What he said was, “You had best git the bachelor man to bring his Rastus plow over, ma’am, and you had best l’arn to ride his black mule, fer I allow me an’ Solomon an’ old King David won’t be movin’ over amongst you. Thank you kindly, though, fer the offer.” Then he tipped his blue felt hat mannerly and he parted the bushes and stepped lightly onto the trail. On second thought, he turned back and spoke again. “When the bachelor man gits through pickin’ them teeth outen that mule’s hide,” he says, “you kin tell him I make him a gift of ’em. I misdoubt I’ll ever need ’em agin.” And he left the Widder standing with her hair knot hung like a doughnut over one ear, and her jaw loose like it had come unhinged.
My, but he felt fine and fancy free. He fair pranced when he walked, like the ground under his feet was clouds. He stretched his neck and breathed easy. Glory, but that had been a close call! He could feel that rope around his neck yet.
Next day he made his apologies to Grampa Clark. “Hit wasn’t,” he told him, “that I lost my narve, Grampa, fer I never. Hit was just that of a sudden I lost my notion. Thar she was as willin’ as the risin’ sun, but I had got unwillin’. She had me roped, throwed and hog-tied, Grampa, an’ all I could think of was gittin’ loose. Of a sudden I knowed I’d ruther die of my own cookin’ as to be listenin’ to that Widder tellin’ me come hither, come yon, fer the rest of my life.”
Grampa squinted at him judiciously, and then he laid a puddle of tobacco juice in the dust of the road. “In my opinion,” he says, kind of slowlike, “you jist ain’t the tetch ’n take kind of man. They’s some is, some ain’t. Likely you ain’t.”
“Likely I ain’t,” Jed says agreeable. “But anyways,” he says, brightening up, “I’m a-improvin’ with my vittles. They was right tasty fer supper last night. Even the dawgs et with relish.”
“Well,” Grampa says, “seein’ as how you’ll be doin’ for yerself a right smart time now, I believe if I was you I’d send off an’ git me one of them cookbooks tells you how.”
Jed pondered. “I might,” he says. “I might do that. I’m beholden fer yer advice, Grampa.” He whistled up his dawgs. “Jist go with me.”
“Cain’t. Jist stay on.”
“I got to be moseyin’. Solomon an’ old King David’ll be wantin’ to run tonight, I reckon. Might raise the old red one.”
“Might,” Grampa says.
Jed laid one foot in front of the other up the holler, and a dancey little cloud of dust, as free and easy as the air, followed along behind him.
(This story, published in Kentucky Writing, July 1954, was the nucleus of a book written many years later, called Shady Grove.)