MOLLIE BRAGG
The nearest neighbors to the Arnolds were a family named Bragg, who
lived in a cabin some three miles distant, near the road leading to
Corinth. The Braggs’ cabin was not a comfortable, convenient home
such as the Arnolds had made their own mountain cabin. The doors of
the Braggs’ cabin sagged from clumsy leather hinges; the floor of the
rough porch was broken here and there, so that anyone entering the
house had to be careful where he stepped. Mr. Bragg announced each day
that he was “gwine ter try mighty hard to find time to fix that po’ch,
an’ mend up the roof.” But days, weeks, and months went by and no
repairs were made, although Mr. Bragg spent long hours on the porch,
tilted back against the house in an old chair, smoking, and, as he
would promptly explain to any visitor, “tryin’ to rest up.”
Indoors Mrs. Bragg swept and scoured, mended the poor garments of
her family, and tried her best to make the rough place pleasant for
her children. Mollie Bragg, the youngest of the family, was a little
girl about the age of Berenice Arnold, but not as tall or strongly
built as Berry. Mollie’s eyes were a pale blue, her hair, which hung
straight about her thin little face, was a pale yellow, and her arms
and legs were so thin that Berry sometimes wondered that they did
not break as Mollie ran down the rough mountain paths, or valiantly
followed Berry in climbing a tall tree to peer into the nest of a
robin or yellowhammer. Mollie’s elder sister had left home, the year
the Arnolds came to Tennessee, to live with an aunt in Nashville, and
the only son, a lad of sixteen, had run away to join the army of the
Confederacy, so that in January, 1862, Mollie was the only child at
home.
Although the Arnold and Bragg cabins were three miles apart, hardly
a day passed that Mollie and Berry did not see each other. Mollie
would often set out early in the morning and appear at the Arnolds’
door before they had finished breakfast, to be eagerly welcomed by
Berry, and urged to a seat at the round breakfast table near the big
window that overlooked the ravine by Mrs. Arnold, and helped to the
well-cooked porridge, followed by crisp bacon and toast, and often
a dish of stewed fruit, all of which the little visitor evidently
enjoyed.
To Mollie the Arnolds’ cabin seemed the finest place in the world.
Although it had only five rooms, and the family had their meals in
the kitchen, it was indeed a pleasant and attractive home, with its
muslin-curtained windows, its floors painted a shining yellow, with
rag rugs here and there, the open fire in the sitting-room that
blazed so cheerfully on winter days, the well-filled bookshelves in
one corner and the stout wooden chairs and settles with their big
feather-filled cushions. Mr. Arnold had spent a good part of his time
in improving the cabin from the rough state in which they had found
it, and had made most of the simple furniture. A vine-covered fence
enclosed the yard, where Berry had her own garden. Each spring she
began by planting lettuce and radishes, and then peas and carrots
and string beans; before these had time to sprout she had bordered
her vegetable beds with spring flowers. Mollie learned many things
from her new friends, and, in her turn, showed Berry where the wild
trillium and Jack-in-the-pulpit could be found, and where to look for
the nests of cardinal and mocking-bird, birds that the little Yankee
girl had never seen before coming to Tennessee. Therefore when Mr.
Arnold declared that it was time for Berry to have regular lessons,
“to begin school,” as he termed it, it was quite natural for Berry to
say that Mollie Bragg would also have to study.
There was no schoolhouse within miles of these mountain cabins where
the little girls could “begin school,” and Berry understood that her
father would be her teacher. And on the day after their excursion to
Shiloh church Mr. Arnold told Berry that she could go to the Braggs’
cabin and ask Mollie to be her schoolmate.
“Tell her school begins at ten o’clock each morning and closes at
twelve,” he said as Berry put on her cap and started toward the door.
“And say to Mrs. Bragg that we shall expect Mollie to stay for
dinner,” added Mrs. Arnold, who realized that the Bragg family seldom
had the kind of food that would nourish a delicate child like Mollie,
and welcomed the opportunity to give her small neighbor one good meal
each day.
“All right,” Berry called back, as she ran down the path, turning to
wave her hand before the thick growing forest trees hid her from sight.
Berry’s way led through the forest, across a wide brook that went
dancing down over its rocky bed toward the river, and then the path
turned into the highway near which was the rough clearing surrounding
the Braggs’ cabin. A tiny gray bird called “Chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” as
if to greet the red-capped little figure that ran so swiftly along the
rough path. Further on she heard the cheerful whistle of the cardinal,
and stopped for a moment to look up into the wide-spreading branches
of the big trees that towered above her, hoping for a glimpse of the
red-coated songster, but he was not to be seen.
The crossing of the wide brook meant stepping carefully from stone to
stone until the middle of the stream was reached, where a broad flat
rock gave a firm foothold, and from which Berry was accustomed to
jump to the opposite bank. She made the passage skilfully, springing
over the rushing water and landing on firm ground with the lightness
and sure footing of an active boy; before she had taken a further
step, however, a chuckling voice close at hand called: “Well done,
youngster! It takes a Tennessee lad to jump,” and Berry found herself
facing a tall man whose face was nearly covered by a brown beard, and
whose brown eyes twinkled with amusement at her surprise. He wore a
round, close-fitting cap of coonskin, a leather jacket, with stout
trousers of corduroy and high boots. A hunter’s belt held a revolver
and hunting-knife, and a knapsack was strapped across his shoulders.
It was seldom that Berry encountered anyone in her forest tramps, but
she had been taught to believe in the friendliness of the mountain
people, and smiled and nodded in response to the man’s greeting.
“I can jump farther than that,” she boasted. “I can jump farther than
most boys of my age.”
The man nodded approvingly. “Well, you ain’t so stocky as some,” he
said thoughtfully. “Guess your ma kind of likes to dress you up, don’t
she, sonny?” he continued, with an amused glance at Berry’s red silk
tie and scarlet wool cap.
Berry nodded. If this stranger mistook her for a boy she did not mean
to undeceive him.
“Well,” continued the man, “you can’t help that, my lad. What’s your
name?”
“Berry,” responded the little girl.
“Berry what?” he continued.
“Berenice,” said Berry, thinking that now the stranger had discovered
her secret, and that he would at once tell her that the place for
little girls was at home, helping their mother, as Mr. Bragg so often
announced.
But the man evidently had not understood her. “‘Nees,’ eh! Berry Nees.
Well, you mountain folks have queer names. But I’m glad to make your
acquaintance. I reckon you can run considerable as well as jump?”
“Yes,” Berry replied quickly, well pleased that she need not hear that
“Girls should not be running wild in boys’ clothes,” as had sometimes
been said to her. “I can run faster than Len Bragg, who is sixteen
years old.”
“Where does Len Bragg live?” questioned the man.
“Oh! He’s in the war! He’s with General Johnston’s army,” replied
Berry promptly.
“That’s right!” declared the man approvingly. “There’s not a finer man
in the Confederate army than Albert Sidney Johnston.”
Berry had heard her own father praise General Johnston’s character, so
she was not surprised, and replied politely, “Yes, sir.”
“I’m bound for Corinth myself,” continued the man. “I’ve journeyed
across country from Fort Donelson, and I reckon I shan’t stop long at
Corinth; like as not I may come back this way, long in the spring,”
and the man smiled to himself as if well pleased with such a prospect.
“If I do, Berry, maybe I’ll want you to let me see if you can run as
fast as you say. Maybe I’ll want you to take a message to Pittsburg
Landing in a hurry for me.” And the man’s eyes rested sharply upon
Berry.
Before Berry could reply the man spoke again, and in a sharper tone
than he had yet used.
“And see here, my lad! Don’t you let on to a living soul about
having met me. Understand?” and his hand touched the sheath of his
hunting-knife in a threatening manner. But Berry did not wait to
answer; she was off like a flash, not keeping to the path, but darting
behind big trees, circling around underbrush and at last hiding behind
a tall stump. She heard the man crashing along behind her, but Berry’s
boast of being a swift runner was well proved; the woodsman could not
overtake her. Berry smiled to herself as she heard him floundering
about through the thickets. She was not at all afraid of being
caught, for she knew all the forest ways, and many a hiding-place.
She kept very quiet, however, and did not venture out from behind the
stump until a hovering flock of nuthatches, who had been scolding
vigorously at being disturbed, settled down in a near-by thicket.
“He’s gone,” she whispered, and stepped cautiously out; “he didn’t
come this way or the nuthatches would not have stopped flying.”
Berry peered sharply about, however, as she made her way noiselessly
from tree to tree, stopping often to listen for any sound that might
mean she was being followed, but, except for the far-off call of
woodland birds, the forest was quiet. Berry was sure the man had given
up trying to find her, and hastened down the ridge to the Braggs’
cabin. She said nothing of her adventure to the Braggs, but told of
her father’s plan for morning lessons. “Mollie may come every day, may
she not?” she pleaded; “and Mother wants her to stay for dinners.”
Mrs. Bragg’s anxious face had brightened as Berry spoke of lessons,
and she answered quickly, “I reckon prayers are answered, fer I’ve
been a hopin’ and a prayin’ there’d be some chance for Mollie to
get book-larnin’, but no way seemed to open, and now your folks
come along an’ want to teach her. Of course she can come, an’ mighty
thankful fer the chanst,” and Mrs. Bragg wiped her faded eyes with
the corner of her worn apron, and managed to smile at Mollie, who
was jumping up and down as if too happy to keep still. Mr. Bragg had
started off to look after the traps he set along the river banks for
muskrats, whose skins he sold to a trader in Corinth, so there was no
argument about the “foolishness of book-larnin’,” for Mr. Bragg often
proudly announced that he “never had no schoolin’, an’ never was any
the wus’ fer it,” without any idea that his poverty and laziness had
been caused by his ignorance.
“School begins to-morrow,” Berry added, “at ten o’clock.”
“What will we learn to-morrow?” Mollie asked eagerly, her pale blue
eyes shining with delight.
Berry shook her head. “I don’t know. I expect it will be a surprise. I
don’t believe it will be like a real school,” she replied.
Mollie’s smile vanished. To go to a “real school” seemed the finest
thing in the world to the little mountain girl, who had not even
known the letters of the alphabet until Berry had taught them to
her, and who could now, at ten years of age, only read words of one
syllable, and was just beginning to learn the meaning of figures.
Berry was quick to notice the change in Mollie’s expression, and
added, “I mean we won’t sit behind little desks, and keep as quiet as
mice, the way girls do in schools.”
“P’raps we will,” Mollie rejoined hopefully; “p’raps I’ll learn
writin’.”
“Of course you will,” Berry declared, and Mollie’s smile promptly
reappeared.
“May I spin this morning?” Berry asked, going toward the big
spinning-wheel that stood in one corner of the kitchen, on which Mrs.
Bragg spun the yarn for the stockings worn by the family, and often
permitted Berry to spin the soft fleecy rolls of wool into yarn. Berry
always considered this permission a great privilege, and her father
had promised to make a spinning-wheel for her.
Usually Mrs. Bragg was quite ready to let Berry try her hand at the
wheel, but this morning she shook her head dolefully.
“The wheel’s give out,” she declared. “Steve promised to take a look
at it, but land knows when he’ll get ’round to it.”
Berry approached the big wheel and looked at it anxiously. “What’s the
matter with it?” she asked.
“’Twon’t move!” and to prove this Mrs. Bragg touched the rim of the
wheel, that usually responded to the lightest touch, but now kept firm
and steady.
Berry had watched her father in his work with tools, had seen him
oil hinges that would not move, or loosen nuts that held some wheel
or bar too tightly, and she had been taught to do many things that
most little girls never learn; so now she examined the wheel with so
serious a face that Mrs. Bragg looked at her in amazement.
“If I had a screw-driver and an oil-can I believe I could fix it,” she
declared.
“Fer the land’s sake!” muttered Mrs. Bragg. “We never saw a
screw-driver, but there’s a broken knife that’ll twist a screw mighty
fine.”
“Perhaps that would do,” Berry responded gravely, and Mollie ran off
to find the broken knife, while Berry peered under the wheel-bench to
make sure that she understood the simple movement of the wheel.
Mrs. Bragg watched Berry as the little girl carefully loosened and
adjusted the axle on which the wheel turned, until it would move, but
it did not move smoothly.
“It needs a drop of oil!” Berry announced.
But the Bragg cabin could furnish nothing better than a bit of melted
tallow, and Mrs. Bragg declared that far superior to oil, and hastened
to prepare it, and at last, to the amazement and delight of Mrs. Bragg
and Mollie, and to Berry’s great satisfaction, the big wheel revolved
as swiftly as ever.
“I reckon you know ter do sich things, Berry, on account of being a
Yankee girl,” Mrs. Bragg declared admiringly. “Steve says folks up
North prides theirselves on workin’, an’ on inventin’ ways ter make
work. I declar’ to it, I’ll have ter rest a spell,” and Mrs. Bragg
sank down on a wooden bench near the door.
“Maw, tell Berry that story you tole me ’bout the selfish mouse,” said
Mollie. “Maw kin tell gran’ stories, Berry,” the little girl continued
eagerly. “W’en we wus off up in the mountains she used ter tell a new
one mos’ every night.”
Berry’s face brightened at the prospect of a story, and Mrs. Bragg
said she would tell it as nearly as she could remember it.
“It’s ’bout a mouse that jes’ was set on gettin’ all he could fer
hisself,” she explained. “This mouse lived with his mother an’ four
brothers in a fine cabin whar thar was a big cupboard. Thar was cakes
an’ cheese an’ nice white bread, an’ cold meat; an’, like as not, thar
was raisins an’ nuts in that thar cupboard. But the door was allers
kep’ shut tight, an’ thar was a big white cat that, seemingly, was
allers lurkin’ roun’ that pantry door. So Mother Mouse warned her
children to be satisfied with the crumbs they could pick up ’roun’ the
kitchen. But one day one of the little mice found that the door was
open and he slipped in, an’ ’twa’n’t a minute afore that little mouse
found a big round cheese an’ began to nibble it; an’ he was so busy
and so happy that he didn’t hear the cupboard door shut, or notice
that ’twas dark.
“Wal, Mother Mouse didn’t miss him fer a considerable spell, bein’
busy collectin’ grain jest outside the cabin. But when it began ter
get dark she calls fer the young ones so’s to settle down fer the
night, an’ she finds one of ’em don’ come. The first thing Mother
Mouse thought of was the white cat, but the cat wasn’t anywhar ter be
seen; so Mother Mouse goes all about the kitchen calling the missing
mouse, an’ when she crept by the cupboard she heard a little bit of a
squeak, and then she stopped mighty quick. She knew the little mouse
was in that cupboard, an’ she prob’ly knew that thar war traps set in
it. So she calls her fam’ly an’ then says she, ‘Your brother is in
thar, an’ we mus’ get him out. Now the folks have all gone to bed, an’
we’ll begin work.’ So she began to nibble at the edge of the door, and
the little mice did their best to help her, and jes’ ’fore daylight
there was a hole big enough for the little mouse to come through. But
he wouldn’t come. Says he, ‘I only squeaked so you’d know that I’m
well fixed fer life,’ says he. ‘I ain’ no need ever to gather kitchen
crumbs again,’ he says, ‘an’ so you can all go your ways an’ ferget
me.’ An’ he ran back to his cheese. Wal, at that very minute the woman
of the house came into the kitchen to light up the fire, an’ she sees
the mice. ‘My land!’ she calls out; an’ off went Mother Mouse and all
her family into a safe hiding-place. But the woman opened the cupboard
door, and then she called, ‘Puss, puss!’ an’ the big cat came running,
an’ into the pantry she sprung an’ the little mouse, who had felt so
grand and had scorned his own folks who were tryin’ ter help him, was
so stupid and clumsy because he had eaten so much that he couldn’t
run, and in a minute the cat had grabbed him and fetched him out to
the kitchen an’ ate him up. Thar,” Mrs. Bragg concluded, “I guess I’ll
hev to stir up a corn pone fer dinner,” and she got up from the bench.
“What became of the Mother Mouse and the other little mice?” Berry
demanded.
But Mrs. Bragg shook her head, “I reckon they jes’ moved away,” she
said.
It was now nearly noon, and Berry realized that she must get home as
soon as possible; so reminding Mollie that “school” would begin the
next morning, she bade them good-bye.
As soon as she had left the Bragg cabin Berry’s thoughts flew back
to the man she had encountered that morning. Although she had not
spoken of him to Mrs. Bragg, for some reason that she could not easily
account for, she was now eager to reach home and tell her father
and mother of the stranger who had taken her for a boy, and who had
threatened her.
“I’ll go home another path,” she decided. “I never want to see that
man again,” and she made her way up the crest of the ridge, circling
about thick growths of trees and underbrush, and coming into the trail
that led to the cabin a mile above the place where she had encountered
the stranger.