One summer--it was a war summer--I thought by personal effort and
example to swell the national harvest. I had suggested, advised,
and implored. Now I would dig and plant and water, hoping that a
beneficent contagion would transform my land from a wasteful reproach
to a prolific blessing. My ambitious programme was interrupted midway
by a distant call that could not be denied, and I had been a forgetful
time away, when I realized, with aching insurrection, that Autumn must
be in the Unakas. In my weariness I thought of her as a giant matron,
seated amid her peaks, with hair flowing like rivers of copper, and
arms stretched out with a vast tenderness to take even me to her bosom.
And I fled toward her, my heart and mind exchanging jumbled murmurs of
extenuation. Did not the country need all its farmers?
Coretta and her dancing youngsters did not meet me as usual under
the white oak half-way up the mountain. I asked Serena, who joined
me there, concerning the omission, and from her discreet evasion I
surmised that a disclosure awaited me in Coretta’s trepidant breast. It
was several days in fledging. I ignored the mystery, and plunged into
the ardors of conservation. It became quickly evident that my example
was not to be the little candle that far rebukes a wasteful world.
Coretta did not come near me; and one morning, when I saw Serena
approaching, her radiance visible a hundred yards away, I knew that
only one thing could give such a tinge of glory to her countenance. She
was coming to announce one of her sudden journeys. Yes, Len had agreed
for her to visit a sister who lived sixty miles distant.
“With everything to do?” I cried.
“I can work harder after I come back. A ja’nt always helps me.”
That was true. She would look younger, by ten years, on her return.
“Can Len afford it now, Serena?”
“I told him I’d git the money from you, an’ work it out when I got
back. I can put in several days ’fore fodder-pullin’. I reckon you’ll
be wantin’ some help by that time,” she added, with a glance at the
beans and tomatoes in piles on the kitchen porch. By that time, indeed!
Her radiance began to fade. Was it possible I could hesitate?
“I told Len you’d never refused me _yit_.”
With the money happily clutched, she turned a shining back upon me.
I started meekly to Coretta’s. But so many evidences of neglect seen
on the way brought me to her in remonstrative mood.
She was very busy sewing. The children were to have new dresses. And in
harvest-time!
“I thought I should find you canning, Coretta.”
“I ain’t got no heart this year,” she said.
I tried to recall some of the mottoes of the period. Every mouthful we
save, and so forth. “And your brother is over there, you know.”
She dropped her head.
“I see your beans are not picked yet.”
“I jest ain’t got no heart.”
“Is that why you didn’t keep the weeds out of my garden?”
“Yes, Mis’ Dolly.”
“But I sent you the hat.”
Her head went lower. I had, while away, spent half of a much-needed day
in search of a hat that would withstand mountain wear and weather, yet
be pretty enough for Coretta’s taste.
“And you let the pigs get to my potato-patch.”
She turned to the machine. Well, it was my machine. I looked at the gay
pieces of gingham scattered about and resolved to be drastic.
“I’m going to have the machine brought home, Coretta. You won’t have
any time for sewing until you get your fruit and vegetables put up.”
She was dismayed. “Oh, I’ll never git ready!”
“Ready for what?”
“To go to the mills.”
“The mills!”
“We’re all goin’ to Georgia. Sam can git three dollars a day there.
Katy can keep house an’ tend to the young-uns, an’ I’m goin’ to work,
too. We can make ’tween five and six dollars a day. An’ I’ve got to
have the machine. How’ll I ever git their clo’es made?”
She ran on, but I shrank aside, looking about me and counting the curly
heads. Our supreme judiciary had that year annulled the law of the
people for the rescue of the child in the mills.
“Coretta, you can’t take these babies----”
“Oh, I knowed you’d talk that way, but please don’t, for we’ve got to
go. The tickets have come, an’ we have to use ’em inside o’ two weeks.
I’m jest worn out workin’ on the farm like a man, an’ in the house,
too. We’ll never git a start here.”
I had no argument against the truth. Once I had thought of making Sam
the legal owner of that part of the farm he was supposed to till, and
had consulted the village wise man about it.
“Let me see,” he said: “Sam gets the full product of his labor now,
don’t he?”
“Oh, you read the book?”
“Sure, I did! And you keep the place up? Pay for fencin’, and the like?”