Chapter 3

 

Blue Ridge Spring

 

Alerted by the creaks and groans of an approaching buggy, Jacob hurried over to open the kitchen door. Impatiently, he watched Doc Jensen descend and stretch before he tied his horse to the hitch rack.

“Mornen, Doc. Come on it. I fer one sure am glad to see y'all,” Jacob greeted heartily as he hobbled out of the doorway to let the doctor duck inside.

“Did I see you putten weight on that leg, Jacob?” Doc admonished, shaking a finger in Jacob’s direction.

“Reckon, Doc, just a little. Just testen it,” defended Jacob.

Hearing a rustling sound, Doc turned to see Nannie standing in the bedroom door. “Hey, Nannie, nice day, ain't it?”

“Sure is, Doc, now that yer here,” interrupted Jacob.

“Mornen, Doc,” Nannie greeted and smiled. She realized how eager Jacob was to get the splint off his leg. She was more concerned for her child at the moment than her husband so she turned to Lydia lying by the fireplace. “Lydia, look who's here to see y'all. Doc, she's been right lonesome since the other younguns went back to school.”

Lydia sat up on her pallet, and propped herself against a chair leg before she answered. “Hey.” She smiled weakly at him.

“Hey, yerself, youngun,” said Doc, grinning at the little girl as a feeling of sadness ached in him at the sight of her.

He could see the little girl was even thinner than she had been on his last visit. Lydia dark brown eyes appeared larger then they really were, set in their sunken sockets above the skin tight framework of her sallow cheeks. Her short cropped, dark brown hair, shaped in a bowl cut, had thinned until the white of her scalp showed through in places.

“Well, let’s check ya over, youngun.” Doc Jensen knelled down beside her and pulled her away from the chair, placing his large hand on her chest to steady her while he listened with his stethoscope to her back. “Breathe deep, Lydia. That's a girl.” Gently, he leaned her back against the chair, stood up, and turned to find Jacob and Nannie standing right behind him. “Folks, Lydia's lungs sound much better. She’s just weak. Keep feeden her all she'll eat and get her up each day to walk around some. She will feel better when she can get some fresh air and sunshine after the weather warms up enough that she can stand being outside. Now, Jacob, you’re making me nervous hoveren over me. Let me check that leg. Go sit down by the table.”

Jacob plopped down in a chair. He stretched his splinted leg out in front of him. The doctor placed his bag on the table and opened it. He reached in for a knife and cut away the bandages. The kindling sticks clattered to the floor among the dingy strips of once white cloth, exposing the pale, white flesh of Jacob's right leg.

As the doctor pushed on the mended spot, ne asked, “Does that hurt, Jacob?”

Jacob winced. “Still feels tender, Doc.”

“The break looks to be mended. Just keep putten a little more weight on that leg each day. When it hurts, rest a spell. You're not hiken down to the river any time soon, but that time will come. Do you have any of Genon Mitt's bamhegillie salve? The skin on yer leg is flaky and dry. Y'all need to rub some salve on that leg for the itching.”

“Why, Doc, thought ya would be again usen Genon's home remedy medicines,” teased Jacob.

“That ole witch of a midwife's all right in her place,” the doctor said brusquely, “I wouldn't exactly call what she gives folks medicine. Usen bamhegillie salve for a liniment works as good on horses as it does people, Jacob, and y'all know that.”

Nannie handed the men coffee. “Doc, tell us what ya think about Lydia.”

“Nannie, she's got to mend at her own speed just like Jacob’s leg. When the weather warms up in the afternoons, get her out on the porch in the sunlight, but don't let her over do. There isn’t any reason for me to make another call unless ya send for me. I’d tell the other younguns if I were you about Lydia's heart so they can help ya watch out for her. If they know they will not tire her out.”

“We'll do that, Doc,” Nannie agreed. “Now drink that coffee afore it gets cold.”

At school that morning, Bess tired in a hurry of concentrating on arithmetic problems. She laid down the slate and chalk on her desk. While she gazed out the sun drenched window beside her, she felt the warmth of the golden rays, dancing on her and the other children seated along the school room's wall of windows. Impatiently patting her bare foot on the floor, she wished to be outside, enjoying the day.

The first thing to go when Spring arrived were their shoes. The children needed to save the pair Pap made them until there was an important reason to wear them. Usually that reason was winter. Not that the children minded going barefoot. That was just the way things were done on the ridge. The children could hardly wait to get out of their stiff leather shoes that hurt their feet.

While they walked the two and half miles to school that spring morning, the Bishop children had bounced around the thought of playing hooky. They agreed the day was much too nice to be stuck inside the school, especially with the teacher, Mr. Steincross, whom the children had nicknamed Ole Mr. Crosspuss.

Before they knew it the one room schoolhouse with a row of windows on the south side loomed in front of them. Not one of them had the nerve to turn and leave.

At her desk, Bess watched out the windows while birds fluttered from the trees to the freshly mowed school yard, filling their beaks with fresh grass clippings to make nests. Red blurs of two squirrels, playfully scampering around, darted up a tree trunk as one chased the other. Bess caught the streak of a white and gray form melting into the underbrush as a rabbit, startled by the antics of the squirrels, disappeared from sight.

“Bess! Bess Bishop!”

With a start, Bess looked toward the teacher. “Yes, sir.”

The teacher gave her a stern look. “Pay attention to your lesson, will you please?”

“Yep, I will,” answered Bess, meekly. She heard the snickers around her. Bess picked up her slate and held it in front of her warm, blushing face.

At the front of the room, the younger students practiced spelling at the blackboard. Dillard raised his hand, waving it back and forth and spoke, “Teacher, kin I be excused to go to the outhouse?”

“May you,” the teacher corrected. “It's almost time to eat lunch. Are you sure you can't wait until then?”

“No, I cain’t,” Dillard assured him. Uncrossing his legs when the teacher nodded approval, he pattered across the room to the door. He sprinted across the yard, and disappeared into the boy's outhouse in the far corner of the yard.

Suddenly a dark shadow crept over Bess and across the room. She glanced toward the windows. An eerie hush had fallen over the timber. A lone brown leaf left over from winter skittered across the yard. All the animals had disappeared, but the most terrifying sign of a fast approaching storm was the way the sky had changed. Bess had never seen anything like it. Once a peaceful, clear blue, the sky was a rolling turmoil as dark green as a mallard duck's head. Dipping down as it rolled, the one huge cloud touched the tree tops, edging toward the school.

Bess checked around her. She realized the other children hadn't noticed the change. She waved her hand in the air to get Mr. Steincross's attention, but he had already spotted the approaching storm. He was standing at the window near his desk at the front of the room, staring at the cloud.

“Mr. Steincross!” Bess called out.

“Yes, Bess, what is it?” The teacher asked in his precise tone without taking his eyes off the storm.

“There's a bad storm comen!”

That got the attention of the other students.

“There is?”

“Where?”

“Let's see!”

“Settle down, children. I've been watching the storm's progress. No need for alarm.” The teacher spoke calmly, but nervously, he rubbed his hands together and paced in front of the windows. “To be on the safe side, all of you in the middle of the room slide under your desks. Those of you with seats by the windows join the children under their desk in the middle of the room. All of you stay there until I tell you to come out.”

Bess and the other children by the windows darted across the room to do as the teacher instructed. Bess went around the potbelly wood stove in the middle of the room. She squeezed down under Susie Kate Parkin's desk along side of her friend. The girls peeked out from under the desk toward the windows to keep an eye on the storm.

The dark, green cloud boiled, descending closer to the clearing. The room turned from a gray cast to gloomy darkness. The tree tops swayed frantically back and forth in the strong wind. The temperature dropped fast, creating a damp chill in the air when the pelting rain rattled on the tree leaves in the distant timber. The rattling leaves was a sound that grew louder as the rain moved closer to the school. A sudden strong gust of wind blew through the open windows, scattering slates and chalk onto the students under the desks.

“Don and Lue, help me close these windows,” the teacher commanded.

Lue grabbed the top of a window and felt a blast of cold air push against him. As he shoved the window down, he noticed a movement by the boy's outhouse. “Mr. Steincross, Dillard is still at the outhouse! The wind jest pulled the door out of his hands and knocked him down. He cain't walk in this wind by himself. I'm goen after him.”

Crack! Kaboom!

“You will do no such thing. That lightning is wicked. I'll go get Dillard. You get under your desk. Now!” Mr. Steincross ordered when Lue hesitated.

The teacher ran for the door and turned the knob. He pushed with all his might, struggling to shut the door behind him. Don and Lue rushed to help him. Despite the teacher’s orders once the door was shut, they eased along the wall to the windows to look out.

Leaves and small twigs filled the air as the gale force winds carried to the school cries of help from the small, frightened boy, laying face down in the grass with his arms folded over his head. The teacher tried to walk straight toward Dillard. He staggered sideways against the storm's intensity.

Crack! Kaboom! A vivid lightning bolt forked across the dark sky. The teacher blinked from the brightness that lit up the yard for an instance then steeled himself to the deafening boom. He felt the earth shuttered beneath his feet. The lightning's target, a large oak tree at the edge of the school yard, toppled to the ground in a crash of limbs and leaves.

Finally, the man reached the little boy as the rain hammered down on them. “Dillard, get up. We have to get back to the schoolhouse quick,” he shouted.

“Mr. Steincross, I can't -- sob -- sob. I'm scared,” Dillard cried.

“Nonsense. This is just a little rain storm.” The teacher knelt down by Dillard. “Come on, boy. It's just like being on a pirate ship in the middle of a choppy sea. Get up and take my hand. Let's sail this stormy sea back to the schoolhouse, me mate.”

“All right,” Dillard said, staggering to his feet. Holding the boy close, the teacher bent forward to shield the child from the flying timber debris while they struggled to walk in the down burst and gusts of wind.

“Let's hep them, Don,” said Lue. He watched the two wet forms, one big and one small, blurred by the pelting rain, struggle to get back to the schoolhouse. “They'll never make it alone.”

“Ole Crosspuss will be mad as a hornet if we don't mind him,” warned Don.

“I don't care. That's our little brother out there in that storm.” Lue ran out the door with Don right behind him.

Large drops of rain and pea size hail stung their faces as the brothers joined hands and moved slowly across the yard to meet the teacher and Dillard.

“Here take Dillard's hand,” Mr. Steincross shouted. “I'll get back on my own. You boys go on.”

“No sir! Give me yer hand, teacher. We came to get both of y'all,” Lue ordered. “Don, take Dillard's hand. We're goen back together.”

With an effort the four of them, bent almost double, fought against the storm to get back to the schoolhouse. Once they were through the door, they all pushed it shut. Exhausted, the four of them leaned against the entry hall walls, dripping water on the floor which was already soaked from the boys leaving the door open.

“Thanks for the help, boys,” said Mr. Steincross. He reached around Lue for a towel on the nail above the wash basin, wiped his face, then Dillard's and handed the towel to Don.

“Ya ain’t mad cause we didn't stay put under our desks?” Asked Don, sounding surprised and relieved.

“No, I'm not mad.” Then Mr. Steincross did something the boys thought they would never see happen. He smiled at them.

Dillard smiled back, hugging the teacher’s legs. “Thanks, Mr. Steincross. I'm glad our pirate ship made it back to the school. I don't mind sayen I was mighty scared.”

“What pirate ship? Dillard, are ya feelen all right?” Don reached over to feel the little boy’s forehead.

“Never mind, boys. He's just fine. Listen! Sounds like the storm has let up. Children, you can come out from under your desks now. When the rain stops, how would you all like to go home early?” announced Mr. Steincross.

“Yes! Yes!” The children cried in unison, gleefully thinking about what they could do with the remainder of the day.

That afternoon, the Bishop children rushed home to tell their parents about their exciting day. The last one in the house was Dillard. He let the screen door bang shut behind him.

“Sh! Younguns, Lydia is taken a nap,” Nannie scolded. “Hey, what are y'all doen home this time of day anyways?”

“Mr. Steincross said we could go home cause of the storm,” explained Lue.

“What storm?” Asked Jacob.

In a hushed voice, the children took turns telling their story about how the teacher rescued Dillard with Lue and Don’s help.

“Mercy sakes, sounds like y'all had quite a day, and we never saw a drop of rain here,” declared Nannie.

Dillard turned to survey his napping sister. “Mama, when is Lydia gonen to get better so we don't have to be so quiet all the time?”

“Soon, youngun,” Nannie said.

“Mama, it does seem like a long time, she's been sickly,” reflected Bess.

“Why ain't she getten better faster?” Veder asked, coming directly to the point.

“Jacob, Doc said the younguns should know the truth. This looks like the time to tell em,” Nannie surmised. “Y'all gather around the table and sit down. Pap and me have somethin to tell ya. Jacob, ya do need to sit down, too. Ya've been on that leg long enough.

Good news, younguns. Did y'all notice Doc took the splint offen Pap's leg today? Pap’s almost as good as new now if he takes it easy on that leg fer a while.

Don, will ya go hollar at Sid and Tom. I think they’re in the barn wateren the horses, and Cass went to gather eggs. Ask em to come to the house. Pap and me want to talk to ya all about somethin.”

After the children sat down at the table, Nannie glanced in Lydia's direction to see if the child was still asleep. She began in a quiet voice, “I know y'all have been wonderen why Lydia's been sick so long. Doc says we should tell ya all what's wrong with Lydia so ya can hep take care of her. He says she has a bad heart so she needs a lot of rest. She won't be able to play with ya as much as she did afore she got sick, but ya can play with her jest like ya always have. It's jest that she'll get tired easy and needs more time to rest.”

“Mama, is Lydia goen to die?” Squeaked Bess.

All the children turned instantly to look at the tiny, slumbering figure by the fireplace to see if she was breathing.

With tears in her eyes and unable to speak, Nannie looked at Jacob for help. “Now, now, younguns.” Jacob cleared his throat, hoping he’d be able to say the right thing. “We don't know that. Doc says jest keep her happy and comfortable while she's with us so that's what we have to do. Right?”

“Yep, Pap,” Sid said with a look of concern. “We’ll do jest that, won’t we?” He looked from one to the other of his brothers and sisters.

The other children nodded their heads in agreement.

Nannie studied the sad, young faces looking at Jacob. “Now the first thing ya can do is get rid of those long faces afore Lydia wakes up. She doesn't know she might not get better so smile and hep make her feel better. All right?”

“Yep, Mama,” The children agreed together.

“Now this meeten is over,” Jacob announced with a sigh of relief that Nannie and he had finally managed to tell the children the truth.