The Pilgrim Song (17 page)

Kat, who was using a small paring knife, found herself grinning. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Jenny and Hannah had drawn their lips into a fine line at the noxious smell. The men did little better, but finally, after scraping for some time, the animal hung bald, slowly
revolving, its white belly bulging obscenely. Then Clint said, “Get that tub under here, will you, Josh?” He waited until Josh had the empty washtub underneath and then, with one smooth motion, slit the carcass. The entrails went tumbling into the waiting tub, and Jenny and Hannah gagged and turned away, their hands over their faces.

“Ugh, how awful!” Jenny choked.

“What’ll we do with that?” Lewis demanded, fighting to keep his own stomach from rebelling at the sight.

“Why, we can make chitlins out of them. You wash ’em, clean ’em out good, and stuff ’em.”

“I’m not eating any of that!” Josh said stridently.

“I don’t think I’d care for any either,” Hannah murmured, her face still averted from the scene.

Clint grinned. “All right, it seems unanimous. No chitlins. Well, we’ll get to the good stuff, then.”

They reluctantly watched as he lowered the animal and began cutting it up, explaining all the while exactly what he was doing. The women especially were having a difficult time of it. He cut the head off and opened the skull with an ax and removed the brains from their nest of glistening bone.

“Put this in a pan. It’s the best part of the hog.”

“You mean you’re going to
eat
that?” Jenny said, disgust wrinkling her nose.

“Why, sure. You scramble ’em with eggs and serve it up with grits and sausage. You’ll love it.”

Hannah smiled slightly. She was aware that Clint was making fun of them. “I think we’ll all surrender that part of the hog to you, Clint.”

“All right.” Clint showed Josh how to slit the carcass down the backbone and then he taught Josh and Lewis how to butcher it into standard cuts, the hams and shoulders reserved for curing. He let Kat slip off the fat in great wads, saying, “We’ll boil this down. It’ll make some of the best white lard.”

Then he cut the lean meat off and Hannah and Jenny diced
it. “We’ll grind this up. Put in some salt, red pepper, and sage. Make fine sausage.”

Clint looked around. His hands were bloody, but he was satisfied.
At least no one passed out,
he thought. Aloud he said, “It’s a good thing there’s a decent smokehouse here. I checked it out this morning. Why don’t we all carry this meat to the smokehouse, then I’ll get a fire going in there while the rest of you clean up.”

“I’ll help you, Clint,” Hannah said.

“All right. It won’t take long.”

They all helped Clint carry the hams, shoulders, and jowls into the smokehouse, after which they went back to the pump to wash up. Hannah stayed with Clint, who told her, “We’ll have to get a fire started with dry wood, but then we keep pilin’ on green wood. We don’t want flames, just smoke.”

The smokehouse was built with logs and chinked with mud. All of the meat had to be salted, and fortunately their previous tenants had left two large sacks. Clint explained what he was doing as the fire was beginning to smoke. “You cover each of these with salt. I like to use eight pounds of salt for every hundred pounds of meat. I wish we had some molasses to mix with it. Maybe I’ll get some tomorrow if we go to the store.”

“You put molasses on meat?”

“Sure, mix a quart of it with two ounces of black pepper and three ounces of red pepper.”

“All right. I’m learning, but I’ve got a long way to go.”

Clint turned around and smiled at Hannah. “You’re doing fine, Hannah. I’m proud of you. Most women who didn’t grow up on a farm would have fainted at the sight of a gutted hog.”

“I may do that yet.” Hannah smiled, but she felt good at the compliment.

****

Jenny stood in the middle of the kitchen floor and said, “I don’t care what it takes, I’ve got to have a bath.”

“It’ll have to be in a washtub,” Kat answered. “It’s too cold to go to the river.”

“Well, it’s the washtub, then, and you need a bath too, Kat.” Jenny set about making preparations. She dragged in the largest galvanized washtub and put it by the stove. She stoked the fire and filled every saucepan, kettle, and pot she could find with water. While the water was heating, she found a piece of rope, then went up to her room and removed some blankets from the beds. Coming back, she hung them over the rope to partition off the kitchen. “I’m taking a bath, Dad. You and Josh stay out of the kitchen.”

When the water began to boil, she poured some of it into the tub, mixing it with cold water until the temperature seemed tolerable. She got one of the three bars of soap they had bought at the store and was glad to find that they had brought a few towels and washcloths with them from their home in New York. She got some fresh clothes from off the clothesline and put them next to the stove to warm.

Stripping off her filthy clothes, she threw them on the floor and stepped into the water. It was too hot at first, and she did a little dance, but then as she waited for her feet to adjust to the heat, she was able to slowly, inch by inch, submerse herself. Of course, the tub was too small for her to be completely submerged, but she soaked the washcloth and wrung out the warm water over her face. She stood up, worked up a lather over her whole body, and then sat down and luxuriated in the hot water.
I never thought a bath would feel so good!
She put all of their troubles out of her mind and thought of nothing but the pleasure of the hot water and the smell of soap. She washed her hair, rinsed it as well as she could, then stepped out and dried off. The feel of the clean clothing was almost sinful. She called out, “All right, Kat, let’s empty this, and you can take your bath.”

Night had fallen, and most of the family had gone to bed, exhausted from the busy day. Jenny was sleepy also, but she hated to leave the warmth of the fire in the living room and go to the cold bedroom. She had already planned to put on as many garments as she could, but for now she sat in one of the cane-bottom chairs, soaking up the heat. The fire crackled and snapped and sent the fiery embers up the chimney.

“Hard to leave the fire and go to bed, isn’t it?”

Jenny turned and saw that Clint had entered. He had a load of firewood in his arms, and he dumped it in the woodbox. “I think I’ll just sleep down here in front of this fire tonight,” he remarked. “I need to go out every once in a while and be sure the smokehouse fire is doing all right.”

“That’s what I’d like to do too.”

Jenny watched him covertly as he pulled up a chair and sat down. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, and cupped his chin. The firelight outlined his strong features as he sat there silently staring into the fire. Finally she said, “I never knew life could be so hard, Clint.”

Turning to face her, he smiled. Even from where he sat he could smell the freshness of her clean hair. The fire highlighted its red tone, and he thought that she was a beautiful young woman indeed. “I guess it’s all relative,” he remarked. “A friend of mine spent some time in India. This seems hard to you, but they really have it tough there. People live on the streets and eat garbage. A place like this would be heaven to them.”

“I suppose that’s true. I never thought of it.”

Longstreet stretched his muscles and blinked sleepily. He was tired, but he felt good about all that had been accomplished. He reflected back on his first encounter with this young woman and wondered if she still remembered it. He knew that he would never mention it again.

“You know,” he said, “I read in the paper on the way down
that several people have killed themselves because they lost money in the stock market. One of them, they said, was down to his last million, so he jumped off a twenty-story building. His last million,” he whispered and shook his head with wonder. “Poor fellow.”

“That was foolish, but I suppose he loved his fortune.”

“I guess so.”

Jenny had pulled her feet up in the chair like a small girl, wrapping her arms around her knees. She laid her head over to one side, relaxing in the warmth of the fire. “You’ve had a pretty hard time I guess, haven’t you?”

“No harder than some others.” Clint picked up a poker and jabbed at the logs. They shifted with a groaning sound, sending a myriad of golden flecks upward. He looked around the room and commented, “I wonder what’s happened in this room?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, you never know. This is an old house. Somebody may have been murdered in here.”

“Murdered! What an awful thing to think!”

“People do get murdered. Could have been right here. Or maybe a man and woman fell in love here—right in front of this very fireplace.”

“I suppose that could be true.” She carried on his line of thinking. “Maybe right here in this room some girl found out that life isn’t fair, or some boy made a mistake.”

Clint turned to face her, surprised by the depth of her imagination. “There are a lot of echoes in an old house.”

The two of them sat silently for a time, and finally, without meaning to do so, Jenny blurted out, “You must despise me.”

“Despise you? Why, no, ’course I don’t, Jenny. What makes you say that?”

“I haven’t forgotten how I treated you the first time you came. I’m spoiled to the bone, Clint. I’ve always known it, but it didn’t seem to mean much until now.”

“Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

She turned to him and lowered her feet to the floor. Leaning forward, she asked, “Are we going to make it, Clint?”

He knew exactly what she meant. “Yes, if you want to, you will.”

“But we’re all so weak, all except Kat.” She wanted to be reassured. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“These are the hardest times you’ve ever had, but you’ll make it. You just have to dig in and do what needs to be done.” He stood up and looked down on her. When she looked up at him, her eyes were glistening, and he knew she was depressed and frightened. “I worked with a blacksmith once,” Clint said. “I wasn’t very good at it, but I found out one thing. He had to heat the iron in the fire until it could be molded. I expect that’s true of people. It seems that the hard things are what make us strong, not the easy things. Maybe that’s what’s happening to you.”

“I heard something like that in a sermon once, Clint,” Jenny said, nodding seriously. “Maybe God has brought these hard times on us to make us strong. Do you think He would do that?”

Clint shook his head. “I don’t know, Jenny. You’ll have to ask Hannah about that. I don’t know much about God. Good night.” He turned and walked out of the room abruptly.

Not wanting to stay by the fire alone, she went up to her room, put on another pair of socks and a sweater, and climbed under the covers. For a time she lay there thinking about the strange conversation she had had with Longstreet. She was frightened by their situation and anxious about the future, but she was determined not to cry.

“I won’t let this beat me,” she whispered to herself. “I won’t!”

****

By Saturday some sort of order had been imposed on the home place. The house was slowly being cleaned of the worst of the filth that the Cundiffs had left behind. Years of disuse
had added a patina of grime, but by attacking one small area at a time, Hannah could see that this could be a beautiful house again. The floors, for example, were black with grime and stained, but when she struggled to thoroughly clean one section, she saw the beautiful golden color of the heart pine, as Clint had called it.

Joshua had gone to town to buy a few supplies while the rest of them continued to clean. The smokehouse had to be tended constantly, and Clint showed Kat how to lay the green wood on the fire so that it would not ignite but simply smolder. Clint had left after lunch to go hunting and had not yet returned when Hannah heard a vehicle approaching the house. She walked to the door and said, “Father, someone’s coming.”

Lewis came over to look out the window. “I wonder who that is?” he murmured.

Hannah watched as a tall, gangly man got out and then two children piled out of the ancient Ford. He reached out and grabbed their hands, and they pulled away, trying to make their escape. By the time he had stepped up on the front porch, Hannah had opened the door. “Hello,” she said, smiling at the man.

“How do you do? My name is Crutchfield. I’m the pastor of the church in town.”

“Well, Reverend Crutchfield,” Hannah greeted him, smiling more broadly, “come in out of the cold. This is my father, Mr. Lewis Winslow, and I’m Hannah Winslow.”

Crutchfield released the hands of his children but gave them each a warning look. He shook hands with Lewis and bowed slightly to Hannah, saying, “I’m glad to meet you both. I heard that someone had moved in, and I’ve been trying to come by for a visit.”

“Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

“I’m afraid not.” Crutchfield was a tall, gangly man. He wore a black suit and removed a fedora, rather the worse for wear. He had warm brown eyes, very deep set, and his brows
were as black as his unruly hair. He was a homely man, actually. Hannah thought he looked somewhat like a younger Abraham Lincoln with his cavernous, sunken jaw. He smiled and introduced the children. “This is Dorcas,” he said as he indicated the taller girl, “and this is Jeff.”