Читать книгу Hillcountry Warriors - Johnny Neil Smith - Страница 9

The spring of l862 was late in coming. The older Folk who had seen many come and go said this delay meant a season of unusual beauty. Across the woodlands, at first glance it seemed that a young snow lightly covered the ground. But closer examination revealed that what appeared to be snow was nothing but multitudes of dogwood trees in full bloom. Many of the hardwood trees were still dormant, so these white blossoms dominated the forestlands.

Among the dogwood trees were purple blossoms of native redbud trees dotting the landscape. In the open meadows where deer had once fed in abundance and where no plow had yet disturbed the earth, thousands of wildflowers displayed their colors.

Back in the quiet farmhouse, the pre-dawn breeze gently pushed John’s bedroom curtain back and forth while outside the rays of daylight were just illuminating the sky. Down through the hollow came a chorus of music from the whippoorwill. Occasionally the plaintive call of these lonely sounding birds would be interrupted by a screech owl somewhere near the creek bottom. Everything was peaceful, but Old Preacher Jack, the king rooster of the barnyard, began to let everyone within a good country mile know of his presence with one of the loudest voices God had ever given a creature. Jack could give ole Satan himself a headache.

But worst still was a sound John Wilson hated to hear. “John... John Wilson...Son...it’s time to get up. Yore paw’s already gone to the barn. You got work to do and ole man sun’ll be up ‘fore long.”

John couldn’t believe it was time to start another day’s work. It seemed only a minute ago he had put his head on his pillow to sleep.

“Mom, you sure this ain’t Sunday and I’m just havin’ a bad dream?”

John said jokingly. Being a religious family, the Wilsons never worked on Sunday. John settled deeper under the cover and before long was sound asleep.

This time, a more aggressive and mocking sound woke him. "John... John Willy...it’s time to get yore lazy butt out of bed. Yore good friends who you loves and resembles is a waitin’ for ya. I’m talkin’ ‘bout Zek and Abner, the mules, you know...jackasses as Professor Hendon calls them.”

“Sister, how dare you talk to yore brother like that. He’s worked hard since the boys been gone,” scolded Sarah.

Lucretia, called Sister, was the only daughter and the youngest child in the family and her parents had overprotected her. The boys felt she was a little spoiled.

Before the feud with the North began, Lucretia seemed to always be getting her way around the house. Now, that the South needed men, some of the young girls, like Sister, seemed to become less important. The Wilson boys were enjoying their moment of triumph.

John slowly dressed and made his way across the open hall to the kitchen at the back of the house. There he found a breakfast of bacon and eggs with the best biscuits in Little Rock.

He finally finished and as he rose to leave the table, Mrs. Wilson also rose as if by habit, "John, let me look at ya boy. I want to see what kind of young man you is growin’ up to be.”

“Maw, why do I go through this inspection might near every day? You can see I’m still a growin’ and I wash my face and comb my hair every morning. This is embarrassin’,” John stated in frustration.

“Stand tall young man,” Sarah commanded.

“Yes Ma’am, I’m a-standin’ tall.”

And so he was. John would not turn seventeen until October, but he was already over six feet with a slim, but muscular build. The hard work on the farm had shaped him well.

His hair was black and straight, except for a small curl in the back and his eyes were a deep sparkling blue. He wore his hair long; but when working he would wet it, comb it straight back, and tie it up with a piece of cloth to keep it off his shoulders. As the summer sun tanned his upper body, he could almost pass for one of the neighboring Choctaws.

Mrs. Wilson, acting like a military officer, slowly looked him over. “Okay, Mister John, I guess you look good ‘nough for me this morning. You can go help yore Paw now.”

She gave John a kiss on the cheek and tenderly pushed him toward the door. “I love ya boy.”

“I love you too, Maw,” John responded as he bounded down the front steps and trudged through the dark toward the barnyard located across the road from the house. As he walked, he could hear his mother and sister clanging pans and discussing his new status in the family. They seem to always be arguing lately, especially since James Earl and Thomas had left.

“Mamma, why does John get all the special treatment ‘round here? All I hear is ‘John works so hard everyday/ and ‘Oh, John is such a good student/ and ‘John was first in his class/ and ‘John has been savin’ his money so’s he can attend college at Oxford/ and ‘John is going to study law and come back to Newton County and ‘John this/ and ‘John that/” mimicked his sister.

“That’s enough, Mary Lucretia,” her mother sternly interrupted. “I’m proud of that boy and I’m proud he’s got the ambition to make sump’n of himself. Since his brothers has gone away, yore paw and I has got to depend on him. He’s got to help us hold this here farm together. He’s not a boy no more—manhood has kind of been pushed on him.”

Sarah put her arm around Lucretia, tenderly pushed her silky blonde hair away from her face, and quietly in almost a whisper said, “Daughter, you’re important to us too. I don’t know what I’d do without you to help me keep up this household.”

She paused for a moment and looked at her rough and callused hands. “I ain’t as young as I used to be. I would have a hard time doin’ everything without yore help. You know I love ya.”

As Lucretia moved silently toward the sink, her eyes wet with tears, she reached back and grasped her mother’s hand and with a weak voice murmured, “I know you loves me, and I know you’re worried about what could happen to James Earl and Thomas up in Virginie, but just tell me, just sometimes, that I’m special too.”

John glanced back and instead of seeing a mother and daughter confrontation, he saw his mother wrap her arms around Sis and give her a hug that seemed to say everything is going to be just right.

John then picked up his pace and made his way across the front yard and on toward the barn. Once across the road, he could see a faint glow from an oil lantern hanging on one of the beams in the barn. Lott already had the mules harnessed, fed, watered, and ready to go.

“John, that you comin’? These mules told me they is going to make a man out of ya today,” he joked.

“Yes, it’s me, Paw,” reassured John.

It wasn’t long until they reached the fields, and there they stood, silhouettes in the soft morning light. Way up the hollow behind John and his dad, they could hear Joe and Spot, Lott’s prize hounds giving some critter a run for his life.

“Paw, you think they’s after a coon?” John asked, as he turned to catch a clearer sound.

“Naw, Son, they sound like they might be after that cat who’s been a-catchin’ our chickens. I hope they is.”

The two stood silent and seemed to forget about the day’s work before them. But all of a sudden one of the mules snorted as if to get their attention.

“John, I believe I can see to plow a straight row now. How ‘bout you? You ready boy?”

“I’m ready as I’ll ever be, Paw.”

Every day, Monday through Saturday was the same schedule...up before dawn and in the fields until it was too dark to see. It had to be like that. It was the only way they could keep the farm going. Lott placed the harness lines around his neck and John and he stood together facing over a hundred acres of young corn to plow plus seventy-five acres of cotton land to be broken and prepared for planting.

“John Willy, this here land ain’t going to get worked with our eyeballs. Let’s hit it one row at a time.”

Occasionally, when things were going well and Lott felt that he had the fields in control, he would give John Saturday afternoon off. But Saturday afternoon off was a rare event at this time of the year.

Finally, John heard what he longed for, “Okay, Mister John Willy, we ain’t workin’ this afternoon. I don’t want to see hair nor hide of ya till dark. No hard liquor, no wild women, and ya better bring me a fresh mess of fish from the creek. Ya hear? Oh, by the way, I don’t mind if’n you do go see that cute little Walker gal.”

“Yes sir, Paw.” John gave his father a brisk military salute and ran toward the house hollering as loudly as possible.

For this moment, John Wilson didn’t have his mind on the beauty of the spring nor on the war raging in the East and along the Mississippi River. His thoughts were on simpler things—the afternoon off and his fishing trip to the rock hole.

As John strode down the road toward the creek, he could still hear his father’s morning prayer. “Dear Lord, thank Thee for this another day to see Thy beauty. Help me to be able to feed and clothe my family; and Lord, take care of my two boys away fightin^, with Mister Bobby Lee. And, Dear God, thank Thee for my faithful wife and hardworkin’ son; and, Dear Lord, please forgive me for all the things I’ll be a-callin’ that stubborn animal of burden today. Amen.”

As John recalled all the long hours of work done to help the family, he was proud of himself; but his mind quickly returned to his fishing trip. He began to run, leap, and skip in joy as he savored this little time he could relax by himself.

Soon he reached the creek and worked his way through the underbrush that grew along the road. Once through the entanglement of vines laced with prickly blackberry bushes, he stepped into a large stand of virgin oak and hickory trees that grew in abundance along the creek banks. John was glad his father had not cut down any of the trees in this lower section and had left them exactly as the Choctaw Indians found these timbers hundreds of years before the first white settlers came. The trees were so large it would take several men holding hands to reach around their trunks. When the trees were covered with leaves, very little direct sunlight could reach the ground so little vegetation grew underneath. This lack of growth left a clear path of vision for almost a quarter of a mile.

As John worked his way through the woods and along the creek banks, he passed ferns and several different kinds of canes that grew in abundance. It took only minutes to reach the bend of the creek, and finally he approached the high bank overlooking his favorite fishing hole. Glancing down, John found the water clear enough to see the large stone boulders settled into the sand. Other stones reached up and out into the deeper part of the creek and gave John a perfect place to sit and dangle his feet in the cold, crystal waters. He quickly slid down the steep creek bank and settled himself on one of the larger stones.

John couldn’t believe the week’s work was over and not only did he have the afternoon off, but Sunday as well. As his father always said, “Sunday is the good Lord’s day. The animals rest, we give the fields a day off, and we thank God for givin’ us this land of plenty, and besides I need a day away from them damned ole mules.”

John took his shoes off, and before one could swat a mosquito off an ear, he had his hook baited and had cast it out into the deeper water near the bend of the creek.

“Okay, Mister Catfish, it’s time for you to head for our supper table. You hear me?” John whispered.

It wasn’t long before his fish line bulged with catfish and red-bellied bream. Confident that he could more than place a meal on the table, John’s mind began to wander. He stuck his pole down into the soft creek mud and lay back on the bolder that had now become pleasantly warm and comfortable, especially welcomed on this cool spring afternoon. As he looked up through the massive tree limbs, he studied a clear blue sky with puffs of white clouds moving slowly as if to say, “Can you make out my face?” or “Who or what do you think I might be?” John picked out funny faces and weird looking animals. Then one cloud caught his attention. It looked like a beautiful young lady. It suddenly began to look like his own Rebecca Ann. Her hair was bouncing just like when they were running the horses at full gallop.

He had known Rebecca since they were children. Her father had come to Little Rock to open a general store when she was three years old, and he and Rebecca were always taking up for one another...kind of puppy love, he often thought. It seemed Rebecca, or Becca, as they called her, was just one of the boys. She loved to go fishing and hunting with John and his older brothers, and it was many a late afternoon that she helped the boys clean a mess of squirrels out behind the woodshed. She also could outrun and outride most of the boys in Little Rock.

As the years passed, she grew into the most beautiful girl in the community. Not only was she pretty with her silky reddish hair, emerald green eyes, long but muscular legs, and full bosom, but she was a lady in every way, at least every way John could imagine. Becca always loved competing with John and the other boys. Whether it was in the classroom or in a political debate after church, when the ladies and girls were supposed to be cleaning up the tables after lunch, Becca always found a way to get the best of her adversary. She felt women didn’t have to be just housewives. Becca would often say, “Us girls, one of these days is going to change this country. I might even be the Gov’nor of this great and glorious State of Miss’sippi.” But what John liked the most was the way she could say, “Mister John Wilson, you know one day I’m going to be Mrs. Rebecca Wilson, whether you like it or not.” John would always answer, “We’ll see young lady, we’ll see.”

As the clouds were finally swept from the sky, John recalled the stories of how his grandparents came to this United States and how his father and Uncle Jake settled in this wilderness and carved out a farm and a home.