My Heart Belongs in the Blue Ridge: Laurel's Dream

The song floated over the morning breeze as Laurel hung a load of clothes on the line to dry, a hum and tune so familiar she didn’t need to hear the words. Her mama’s voice, gentle and sweet, carried the melody like a lullaby, the song twisting into Laurel’s heart. “The Touch of My Love.”

It was the song Mama always sang when she thought of her distant children. Three now. Betsy, married off and living on the other side of the mountain on Patton Ridge; Jeb, fighting on some distant shore; and Kizzie. Laurel’s throat tightened at each remembrance of her younger sister, her closest sister. The wild-and-free daydreamer. Always lookin’ beyond the horizon for a better life.

Laurel squeezed her eyes closed, hands paused on the wooden pins as she pressed a shirt into place on the laundry line. “Dear Lord, wherever she is, take care of her.”

“My love will bind your heart and mine

Though seas and lands divide us

The warm sun on your face in the morn’

Will be the touch of my love

Will be the touch of my love.

My song will carry my love to you

O’er fields and forest and rivers,

And when the wind kisses the curls of your hair

Twill be the touch of my love.

The heart is strong at rememberin’

The heart holds fast to what’s true

And days may pass, and miles grow long

But nothin’ can keep my love from you.

No, nothin’ can keep my love from you.”

Laurel wiped away a tear and retrieved her basket, walking around the hanging clothes to return to her mama, who sat on a stump with the wash bin between her knees. Strips of the silver-tinged golden bun blew in the wind as she scrubbed at a pair of Daddy’s overalls, water slapping a rhythmic swish between the washboard and tub.

“We got a letter yester eve.” Mama turned the clothes over in the tub and scrubbed some more, her voice low. “It’s a hard world over there.”

Nothing but the splashing of the water and a hard scrub of cloth filled the silence. Mama wrung out the overalls and gave them to Laurel, picking up a plaid shirt next.

“Aye.” Her mama’s soft reply blended in with the harsh sound of the scrubbing. “Aye.”

The longing in that one word nearly tore open Laurel’s heart. A mother’s ache for her child, even if her child was a twenty-one-year-old grown man. And surely the pain swelled even greater after Kizzie was sent away. Not even a year ago yet. She’d have had her baby by now, though, if she’d survived this long on her own.

Laurel swallowed back knotted tears and waited, allowing the silence and the steady work to loosen her mama’s thoughts into words.

“He’s strong, your brother. Strong like your daddy.” She handed over the shirt and pulled a dress from the basket. Maggie’s pale blue church dress, with a few paint stains at the wrists of the right sleeve. Dark blue. Elderberry mixed with saffron stain. She must’ve been painting another mountain sky scene.

Laurel pinned the overalls on the line, followed by the shirt, giving her mama ample time to share.

Those piercing blue eyes fastened to Laurel. “You’re strong too, girl.” Mama gestured toward the water, her worn fingers working over the dress with familiarity. “The Almighty’s called you to something different than the rest of us. From your first days, I seen it. You and Maggie and Isom too. The world’s a changing place. Y’all got a hunger for learnin’.”

“College don’t mean I’ll be gone forever, Mama.” Laurel knelt by her mama’s knee. “A few years, mayhap.”

Mama smiled, a slight crease forming around her eyes. “I know, but my heart is gettin’ ready for whatever the call. I feel it comin’ like the smell of rain on the wind or the look of snow round the moon.” She pushed the dress into the rinse water and then wrung it out. “Ain’t no cause for frettin’ though. You’ll be as close as a thought, won’t ya? Just like Jeb.”

Laurel pinched her lips against adding one more name, but her mama supplied the words.

Laurel nodded, taking the dress. “I wish we knew where she was. Even if we couldn’t see her, just to know she’s livin’.”

“Aye,” came the soft answer again, relinquishing control she couldn’t take. “Maybe someday, Laurel.” Mama drew in a deep breath as if coming up from a dream. “Go on and finish hanging them clothes. You and your brother need to git on down to meeting Teacher.”

“Be careful at the Greers’. Some men hold to their dark days all year round.”

“Ever seen an autumn-leaf rainbow, Teacher?” Isom bounced up ahead of Jonathan and Laurel, Butter trailing his every move like the faithful hound he was.

Jonathan sent her a curious look and then called back, “No, I don’t believe I have.”

“Well now. You gotta see one afore the leaves take their fall.” He slowed his pace and surveyed the forest on either side of their path, most likely looking for the perfect spot.

Laurel leaned close to the confused teacher. “It’s somethin’ our mama’s done with us every autumn since we were little. She’s always stopping the work to admire the Almighty’s creation. Paints extra color into life, she says.”

His eyes lit with his smile. “I see she’s had a profound influence on all of you with her bright outlook.”

“Come on, I found a good spot. Right here.” Isom waved for them to follow him, as he scuttled up underneath a low-lying oak.

“What is he doing?” Jonathan looked from Isom’s disappearing form back to Laurel.

“He’s taking you to see an autumn-leaf rainbow.” She raised a brow. “You don’t wanna miss one of those.” Without another word, she ducked beneath the limbs and followed her little brother into the thicket, a giggle waiting in her throat.

Something about introducing city fella Jonathan Taylor to her world brought a funny feeling into her stomach, akin to being tickled. Kind of. But not exactly. Even in the little while she’d come to know him, it was plain as clouds in the sky that he needed some joy in his life, some shine. Most folks did, though.

The crunch of leaves behind alerted her that Teacher followed, but he didn’t ask for more clarification. She reckoned he’d learned by now to just follow along for a discovery.

Isom collapsed on the ground up ahead, cozying up beneath a brilliant red maple. The color lashed through the other trees like lightning at midnight. She looked upward and her grin grew. He’d found the perfect place. Butter licked Isom’s face before lying down too.

With a glance behind her, she lay back on the pillowed leaves and stared up into the crimson sunlight.

“What are we doing?” Teacher whispered as he settled beside her, shoulders nearly touching.

Laurel looked through the branches of the maple, and the rainbow appeared as the trees of various kinds raised one above the other. A yellow birch, an orange sassafras, a hint of brighter red from the black gum, and a golden oak towering above them all. Each color, filtered with sunlight, complemented the next, like a God-made quilt. Laurel sighed. Now that would be some kind of quilt to behold.

“Sure is.” She breathed in the earth, the scent of pine, and the faintest hints of mint from the dainty dittany nearby. She might dream of seeing the world beyond her mountains, but home would always call her back.

Isom’d had his fill of rainbows and scurried back toward the path, but Laurel turned her face toward the schoolteacher.

He had a strong profile. His thick hair, a mingle of gold and brown, fell back from his forehead giving an unhindered view. He was too handsome to be a backwoods schoolteacher, but there was a comfort in knowing him—a spring blossom–scented sweetness. Like she’d always known him. “What’d you mean back there on the path?”

“Ah, yes.” His attention didn’t waver from her face. The haven of maple leaves closed in around them, urging her to stay where she was, with Teacher. “There’s a difference with your family than most of the others I’ve met. A light. A joy. I knew it had to come from somewhere, and I saw it in your mother when I stayed at your home. There’s something in her countenance that lights the conversation, if I may.”

She’d never heard anything so pretty in all her living days, except what came from the Good Book sometimes. It nearly brought her to tears. She looked back up at the leaves. “She’d say it’s Jesus. No good without Him.”

“I’ve only seen such a clear indicator of His presence in my uncle, a contentedness despite the situation or circumstances. It’s one of the reasons I agreed to come to Maple Springs. I wanted a chance to be near him and understand better what kept his…”

She turned to him again, scrunching up her nose. “I don’t reckon it comes easy.”

She stared at him a little longer, his eyes a shade of brown-gold that fit the surroundings. Her chest squeezed in a confusing response. “The greater the prize, the harder the journey, Mama says.” Laurel slid out from under the maple, waiting for him to join her in a stand before leading the way back to the path. She thought about her daddy, long years of pushing away Jesus and filling his dark days with liquor instead of something to…quiet his soul. Would Mama ever see the prize of her loving him long?

They walked on in silence for a piece, listening to Isom’s chatter about one critter or another. The mountain path rose higher, leading toward Copperhead Peak.

Teacher’s breath came hard, his limp more pronounced, so she slowed her pace. “I don’t mind a’tall. It was Maggie’s turn and I needed a little break from Mrs. Cappy’s breakfasts. Law, she makes the awfulest eggs you ever did see. Every single mornin’ it’s the same. What does she call ’em?” Laurel looked up at the sky for answers. “Pinched? Naw, that’s not right.”

“Poached.” She shuddered at the much too vivid memory. “They look like an eyeball peekin’ up from the plate at me. What body wants to eat something like that?”

Teacher’s laugh exploded, full and deep. “When you describe it in such terms, I don’t think I’ll see a poached egg in the same way ever again.”

“I’ll take scrambled or fried any day of the week, but poached?” She shuddered again.

“Well, that’s one of the reasons we go to work for her in the first place. Mrs. Cappy’s scared of bein’ by herself at night. My granny had a friendship with her, since Granny was the wife of the blacksmith, and they lived just a stone’s throw from each other’s houses. Mrs. Cappy was like Granny in the sense they both was used to strangers, and thinkin’ outside the mountains, and seeing different sorts of people pass through and all that. It’s why Mama’s a little different than some of the other mountain folk, like you were sayin’. And since Daddy works outside Maple Springs, in town, he knows about things beyond too. Doesn’t mean he likes those things, but he knows about ’em.” She sighed. “But Mrs. Cappy pays us for afternoon work and a full night’s stay, so that’s what we do. I work more often than Maggie, since she’s still in school and all, but the pay’s nice, in spite of them poached eggs.”

She shifted her attention away from him, to the trail ahead. “We help out with family costs and such. Ever once in a while I buy a book or two that I’ve been longing to read.” She opened her mouth to continue and then snapped her lips closed. Could she trust him with the truth? “How’s teaching going? Maggie yammers on about your bein’ the best science and math teacher she ever laid ears on.”

“Well, she’s always been fascinated with science, but not math, so if she’s sayin’ good things, it means you must be fair to middlin’ on the subject.”

“I can tell the students aren’t as engaged with my English and history lessons. And though many of them look tired during the other lessons, I actually catch some of them falling asleep during history.”

She grinned over at him, feeling a kinship to this stranger from beyond the mountains. “Yeah, I hear’d ya a few times. You just read the words from the book.”

“I wanted to ensure they had the facts, understood the specifics. There are a lot of dates in history.”

She chuckled. “But you grab ’em with the story. That’s where you gotta start. Heads can only hold so much talkin’, so they’re gonna hold what matters more than what doesn’t, right? You can still tell history, but maybe something like…this.” She looked up at the sky. “He was a southern boy. Born in South Carolina but traipsed the mountains between there and Tennessee, learning the wild wilderness and the love of the land. They called him Andrew, and as a young’un, life wasn’t easy for him at all. His daddy died early, and his mama had a hard time making ends meet. The mountains taught him a lot, but so did the rowdy mountain folk etchin’ out their lives in places that didn’t even have roads or houses yet.”

Her grin shifted to him. “And bein’ the rowdy bunch of folks we was, and King George bein’ the hoity-toity sort he was, a war broke out. A war agin’ the people who lived on the Continent, as America was called then, and the ones in England. Andrew was only a boy of thirteen, but you know what?”

Teacher’s eyes lit with the power of the story. Laurel loved this fire, this spark of sharing one imagination with another. It was one of the reasons why teaching called to her. Stories breathed through her. She felt them. Drank them. Dreamed them.

“He joined right up in the war. Only thirteen. Crazy young’un, but a spitfire, for truth. When he was captured by the British at the battle of Hanging Rock, he thought he was done in for sure. After the war, he traveled on to Tennessee to live a spell and took up lawyerin’. Why, he got so good at it, he even helped Tennessee become a state instead of just a no-named piece of wild land. The folks there was real grateful. And since Andrew had gotten the taste of warrin’ so well, he got right back into the thick of it in the War of 1812. You know what? Folks seemed to like what he was all about. His fightin’ spirit and determination. He got so good at talkin’ to folk and learnin’ and figurin’ out the politics and such, well…they made him president.”

“And I figure you can tell me back a whole heap of facts about that story, if I was to ask you.”

“You didn’t tell the part where he got hit in the face by the gun of one of them rotten, no-good British soldiers, just ’cause he wouldn’t shine the soldier’s boots,” said Isom.

A hint of pink rose in Laurel’s cheeks. “Well, I was trying to keep the war from startin’ back up between Teacher and us, Isom.”

“I don’t know if I can tell stories like that, Laurel.” He hesitated and shook his head. “It seems so easy for you.”

“I think you have it in you. If you enjoy reading all these books you keep handin’ off to me, I already know you can. You just got to see things in pictures instead of only in words.” She tapped her lips and looked up at the sky. “What’s your house like?”

“Right. The one you growed…grew up in. Is it big? Small? Brick, wood, or stone?” She winked. “Did you grow up in a hollow tree?”

He chuckled and drew in a deep breath. “No, I did not grow up in a hollow tree, though I’m fairly convinced you did.”

“All right.” She drew out the words, urging him forward. “Brown? Black?”

“Gray?” She stopped walking altogether and pierced him with a look. “Okay now, Teacher. Don’t stop there. You ain’t done nothing to paint a picture in my head. Come on. Is it gray like the rock cliffs standing guard over the view at Devil’s Hold, or is it dark gray like a storm’s getting ready to rage from the sky?”

He grew quiet, and she decided he needed a little rescuing. Besides, the Greer house was just around the bend in the creek and there wouldn’t be any talk about imaginations and fancy houses in such company as the Greers. “That’s your homework, Mr. Taylor. Next time we meet, I want you to tell me the story of your house.” She pointed a finger at him. “And if you want a good grade, you’ll be prepared.”