The Hinterlands (3 page)

He looked at me in astonishment and started trying to climb
over the fence. It was higher than his straddle and he had trouble getting over still holding onto the pig.

I seen it was the son of that jackleg preacher that lived up the holler, the one named Roopy that didn't have hardly no sense but was caught looking in people's windows. He had a beard down to his chest.

“Hey you!” I hollered again. It looked like he was going to get across the fence and run. He didn't go to drop the pig. I don't know what come over me, for I had no thought of danger. I had the bucket of scraps and slop in my hand and I just slung it around to hit him. He was halfway across the fence and I swung to hit him on the shoulder to make him drop the pig. But he reached out his elbow to stop the bucket and the slop flew out all down his arm and across his face. You never seen such a look of surprise. His face was covered with crumbs of bread and bits of creesie greens, pot likker, and beet juice. He looked like somebody drunk that fell in his own puke.

He turned away and I hit him on the back with the bucket, and more of the slop splashed on his cap and run down his collar. He was in such a hurry of surprise to get away, he forgot to put down the pig. It squeezed out of his arm and fell back in the pen. I reckon he thought I was going to kill him with the bucket. I don't know what I was trying to do.

“I was just going to look,” he said over his shoulder. But I slung again and more slop hit him up side of the face. He lit out running through the cobs and manure that slipped out the lower side of the pen. I watched him jump the branch and keep hoofing it, wiping his eyes and face, till he reached the woods.

There I stood trembling with madness and excitement, and most of my slop was gone.

The next Sunday was the foot washing at the church. It was too cold in the middle of winter to have any foot washing at the meetinghouse 'cause they was no heat at all. When enough people got in the building, and Preacher Reece or another circuit-riding minister got to preaching, the little room would warm up fair enough. And in summer it was too hot, even with the door and windows open.

But along in spring, usually around Easter, when the weather opened up, they'd get water from the spring and fill a barrel by the church house. And from the barrel the deacons and deaconesses would fill their pans. After a long winter the grudges had built up in the community and in the congregation. A church is like a family and sometimes worser, with everybody arguing against everybody for leadership and authority. And the women like to pick at each other, always snipping and gossiping, and hurting each other's feelings.

Come spring it's time to wash it all away and start over. I think that's where they got the idea of a foot-washing service. That, and from the Bible where Mary washed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair. And it's a way of showing respect for your brothers and sisters in the fellowship, and humbling yourself. Of course, children, we know people can take pride in their humility.

I never was that religious, but I always went to service when the preacher come through. It was the only time everybody got together. I wondered if Realus would show up on a Sunday. He'd been staying at the tavern down the creek, and my Daddy almost had his tools made.

People had heard of me hitting Roopy up side of the head with the slop bucket. Some kind of grinned when they seen me at the store or along the road. The girls liked to giggle. Margie Travers said she heared I had a new boy friend, said better watch out,
hanging around the hogpen with the likes of Roopy. The men didn't say nothing, but they give me curious looks, like they wondered was I a dangerous woman. Everybody seemed to think they was more to the story than just pig stealing.

But I seen Realus twice near my Daddy's smithy. “I'm going to be careful not to steal any pigs,” he said to me and grinned. And I found myself blushing as red as his shirt. He was standing at the door watching Daddy hammer. He was so tall he had to stoop.

“Pardon me, sir,” I said and slipped past him into the shop.

Women are not supposed to like the place a blacksmith works. But I always enjoyed going down there. If it was a cold day you could feel the glow from the forge, and the warmth of the work being done. The noise of the hammer ached in my head, but I liked the smell of the hot struck metal. Daddy had set up a water trompe to blow air into the forge, and you could hear water pouring down the shaft from the trough, and the hiss of air running out of the pipe to the fire. I never did understand how it worked, but Daddy said it was like a suction of water pulling air down after it.

“It's too dirty here for a lady,” Realus said.

“Women has to work in all kinds of dirt,” I said. “Men just want them to look pretty and clean, like they don't spend their time scrubbing and washing diapers.” I was talking to cover my embarrassment. I didn't have no plan for what I said.

“It'll be the day when you're seen changing diapers,” Realus said.

I give my Daddy the knife Mama had sent for him to sharpen. “You coming to meeting?” I said to Realus on my way out. I didn't much care what I said.

“They wouldn't let me in no meetinghouse,” he said. “Take me a week to get cleaned up enough to go.”

“They'll let anybody into the meetinghouse,” I said. He had followed me a few steps beyond the door of the shed.

“Will you promise not to bring your slop bucket?” he said and laughed. He looked so proud of hisself I hauled off and kicked his leg. I ever did have a quick temper.

“Oh, oh, oh,” he said, hopping on one foot and exaggerating like I'd half killed him. My Daddy was watching from the door.

“You're a dangerous woman,” Realus said. “Was you to go to the West, the Indians would all run.”

I walked on back to the house. I didn't want to say nothing else to him.

But your Grandpa come to the meeting on Sunday. He stood outside with the other big boys talking until service started. Then he come in and set on the back bench with the backsliders.

The foot-washing service ain't like nothing else. They's a solemnity and dignity to it. The preacher and the deacons and the deaconesses put white towels over their shoulders, and they fill pans from the barrel of spring water that has been warming outside church. Sometimes they'll build a fire to heat water in a cauldron on a chilly day. Nobody wants their feet washed in cold water, except on a hot day.

It was dark in the meetinghouse, with only two windows and the door, and it took my eyes a few minutes to get used to the gloom. Something about the shadows makes the church seem more sacred. But us kids had always used the cover of the dark to punch and kick and tickle each other while prayer was going on. I don't suppose you grandchildren ever did nothing like that when you was in church? No, I thought not.

Once I got seated by Mama, I didn't turn around to look, but I knowed Realus was watching me. It made my skin prickle all over
me, under my dress and down to my ankles. I told myself it was the excitement of the service, but I knowed better.

I set there trying to work out the truth of what my Daddy had said before we come to meeting. “An early Easter makes a late spring,” he said when we come out into the chilly air. I'd heard him say it a dozen times, a hundred times. But I'd never paid it no attention before. To keep my mind off your Grandpa I wondered what the saying could mean. How could the time of Easter have anything to do with the weather? Easter, I heard a preacher say once, was based on the Old Testament calendar, on the Passover, which was based on the waxing of the moon.

I could see how something as powerful and heavenly as Easter could have a great effect. But I didn't see how an early Easter would make a late spring, unless spring just seemed later because Easter had come and gone.

I couldn't puzzle it out. Maybe my mind was too much on your Grandpa, anyway. But some things you can't never study out. They remain a mystery, like things of the heart.

The deacons and deaconesses was bringing in the pans of water mixed from the cauldron and the barrel. Everybody on the front two benches took off their shoes. It was customary for the children to sit middle and back of the meetinghouse at foot-washing service. The elders of the congregation only washed the feet of adults. They was no law about it, but it wouldn't look right for men to wash women's feet and for a graybeard deacon to wash the feet of some snot-nose boy.

For the first time I realized what I had done. Thinking too much about your Grandpa and love things, I had set down on the second bench with Mama. And Mama hadn't reminded me. She must have thought I had decided to be one of the adults. Or maybe Mama, who could always read my mind, had decided to
let me make a fool of myself. In any case, she give me no warning, and then it was too late. The house was packed full as a box of prunes, and they was no place to move to. I could either stay where I was or get up and leave. Either way was embarrassing.

I glanced back at Realus and he was looking straight at me. I blushed then brighter than I had before. I must have lit up the little church.

The women all around me took off their shoes without raising their skirts or petticoats, and put their feet on the cold pine floor. Mama didn't give me no help; she took off her shoes like all the rest. I had to make up my mind quick. Maybe if I just left my shoes on the deaconesses would pass me by. Or they might order me to take off my shoes in front of the whole church.

The deaconesses Shirley Cantrell and Laura Blaine knelt in front of the first bench, the towels over their shoulders like the sashes of uniforms. On the other side, the deacons Cantrell and Blaine knelt in front of the first row of men. My Daddy stood at the side to follow them, as he was a younger deacon.

The preacher stood up at the front of the room. “Brethren and sistren,” he said. “If I have ought against thee, if I have offended thee, if I have raised my voice, if I have held a grudge, if I have born false witness, or if I have in any way wronged thee, let the offense be put away. By this act of humility we wash away our petty differences, our spites and proud words. Following the example of our Lord who washed the feet of his disciples, I ask forgiveness for deeds of malice and omission.”

The congregation begun to sing as the foot washing commenced. You could hear the slosh of water as the washers proceeded along the front benches. I sung too, but my heart wasn't in it. I wanted to ask Mama what to do, but she was ignoring me. I had got myself in a fix and she was going to let me solve it on my
own. I looked around and everybody was singing. The preacher was singing too. Soon as the deacons finished, he would wash their feet. And then the deaconesses would wash each other's feet.

I turned around again and it was like everybody in church was looking at me and wondering what I was going to do. Mama had took off her shoes and Mrs. Childress on the other side had took off her shoes. Realus was still watching me. And I even thought Preacher Reece was watching me too.

Because of my consternation I wasn't getting no good out of the service. I didn't feel no fellowship, and no easing away of grudges and fears. I just wanted to get away.

“I've got to go,” I whispered to Mama. It sounded like I needed to answer a call of nature.

“Are you sick?” she whispered.

Preacher Reece was looking at me.

“I'm going out,” I whispered.

I knowed it was bad to interrupt a service. I gathered up my cloak and stood. Every eye at the meeting was on me. They thought I was having some sort of fit or possession and was going to shout, or maybe speak in tongues. Then they seen me hurrying around people's feet and knees toward the door. It was like everybody's feet stuck out in front of me, and I almost tripped myself. Hands reached out to steady me. This is a disgrace, I thought, but I don't care. I had to get out of there.

As I got more desperate to reach the outside the faces blurred and all I could see was the door with people standing in front of it. The way out was blocked. Sometimes during a revival meeting when the preaching gets hot and the preacher begins the altar call a big man will stand at the door to prevent the sinners under conviction from running outside.

But just when I got to the back of the room somebody stood up and pushed the standers aside. I didn't even look to see who it
was. I pushed the door back on its leather hinges and rushed out into the cool Sunday air.

It was wonderful to be in the open. The air in the valley was different on a Sunday 'cause nobody was working, burning off brush on the creek bank or pounding iron. I could hear the tinkle of our cowbell off in the edge of the woods. I wiped my face on my sleeve. Hadn't realized I was sweating in the meetinghouse.

Somebody stepped behind me. They had followed me out of the service. It was your Grandpa, and he stood there in his red shirt looking at me. It had been him that pushed aside the crowd to let me out.

“I had to get outside,” I said.

“I seen that,” he said. “I seen all along you was fidgety.”

That seemed the most tender thing I'd ever heard a man say, that he had felt for me and seen what I was going through. That was when I fell in love, was right there. If I was falling before, that was when I admitted it. My knees was shaky, and I held onto the rail they tied the horses to.

“You need to cool off,” Realus said. And he took my arm. They was nobody in sight in all the valley because everybody was at the foot-washing service.

“Let's walk down to the branch,” I said.

“But we'll stay away from the hogpen,” your Grandpa said. I didn't feel like teasing or laughing a bit. I took his arm and walked toward the stream.

I never did tell Realus I agreed, but he knowed I had. I wanted to go to the West with him more than anything I had ever wanted. But it scared me to know we was going. Because I remembered how Mama had carried on whenever I mentioned getting married, and how Daddy disapproved of me courting.