Simple Jess Read online

  Simple Jess

  Pamela Morsi

  Kiel Publishing

  For my daughter

  * * *

  LEILA

  * * *

  One of God's favorites.

  * * *

  She will never read this book but she can recognize her name.

  Chapter One

  Althea Winsloe was hopping mad. Her face was red, her teeth were clenched, and she was marching down the well-worn mountain path with such determined haste that she was completely unaware of the bright blue sky, the lush fall colors of the oak and ash and elm—the beautiful autumn day that surrounded her. Her anger was a typical consequence of her morning visit with her mother-in-law.

  Beulah Winsloe had apparently made it her goal in life to frustrate, subjugate, and infuriate Althea. This morning Beulah had been in fine form.

  Althea couldn't still her thoughts as her hands tightly clenched the handle of the woven market basket.

  "That woman! That woman!" she whispered furiously to herself. "She will not run my life. I swear my soul upon it."

  Her vow offered no immediate comfort. The young woman still seethed. She made her way angrily along the steep forest path at such a pace that the little cherub-faced boy who followed her could hardly keep up.

  "Slow down, Mama," he pleaded at last.

  Startled, Althea halted immediately. She turned to the little fellow coming up behind her, her expression a mixture of surprise and guilt. She had been walking way too fast for the short legs of the small person who accompanied her. In her furious haste she'd not given a thought for this child, her son.

  "Baby-Paisley!" she called out to him as he hurried toward her. His homespun overalls were still a bit big for him. The rolled up cuffs at his ankles were at least three inches wide. He was fair and freckled, sturdy and determined. His face was flushed from exertion. His short, chubby legs had to make three strides for every one of hers.

  "I'm sorry, Baby-Paisley," she said, bending down waiting to sweep him up into her arms. "I suspect I'm walking as fast as I'm thinking. Mama didn't mean to leave you behind. Why don't you let me carry you?"

  The little boy ran up beside her. Ignoring her open arms, he dropped to his knees, taking a grateful breath at the respite. Looking up at her, he shook his head.

  "You cain't carry me, Mama," he told her, his brow furrowed in serious contemplation. "I'm too big."

  Althea's bright brown eyes twinkled. "You are a pretty big boy," she admitted. "But I can still carry you."

  "I'm the man of the house," he stated flatly and with considerable consequence as he stuck his thumb against his chest.

  The curve of Althea's smile hardened and sadness extinguished the bright stars in her eyes.

  "I suppose your grandma told you that," she said.

  The little fellow nodded proudly. "Gwamma says I'm the man of the house. So I cain't be Baby-Paisley no more."

  Althea squatted down next to him and set her hands lovingly on the small expanse of shoulders so eager to take on the weight of the world. She loved him. He was the only thing in her world that mattered and she vowed she would protect him. Planting a kiss on the top of his head, she smiled down at him, her words careful but tender.

  "You're a very brave little boy and you're my Baby-Paisley," she told him. "You and me, we don't need any 'man of the house.'"

  "But Gwamma says—"

  Althea shook her head. "What Grandma says is what Grandma says," she told him firmly. "But what Mama says is the law."

  "Yes, ma'am," the little boy answered, clearly disappointed but accepting the truth when he heard it.

  She tousled his sandy blond curls. "They'll be plenty of time for you to be a man, Baby-Paisley," she said. "You're only three years old, you know."

  "Three and a half," he corrected her boastfully.

  She nodded in agreement. "Still," she said. "Three and a half is not too old for a boy to let Mama carry him if his legs get tired."

  "I not tired, Mama," he insisted.

  Althea smiled proudly at her young son. "Why don't you hold my hand at least," she suggested.

  Baby-Paisley was thoughtful for a long minute; finally, he nodded. "I'll hold your hand," he agreed. "So you woan get lost."

  The two began to make their way along the path, Althea deliberately kept her pace slow. She smiled down at the sturdy youngster by her side. He was, to her eyes, a living, breathing miracle. From that first awful day when he came squalling into the world he was an unending source of amazement to the woman who had given him birth.

  Who would have thought, Althea often mused, that two very ordinary people like herself and Paisley Winsloe would have created this perfect little human being, this bright, happy, wonderful child.

  Paisley Orville Winsloe was smart and strong and tender and funny. Being all that at age three, his mother could only ponder in amazement what an estimable man he might grow up to be. It was Althea Winsloe's sworn duty to see that he realized his possibilities.

  And she would do that, she swore silently to herself, without the interference of Beulah Winsloe or the Piggots or anyone else. Once more she silently seethed.

  The community of Marrying Stone, it seemed, had plans for her. Plans about what would be best for her and for Baby-Paisley. Plans about what would be best for her farm. Plans that Althea was very intent upon rejecting.

  "She cain't raise that boy without a father," Beulah had declared publicly whenever she'd been given half a chance. "My own dear Paisley has been dead half that child's life. It's time he had a man to look up to."

  The whole thing had come to a head last Friday night.

  Folks had gotten together for a Spelling Bee, but it had ended in a shouting match.

  Her mother-in-law spoke for the Winsloe clan. Granny Piggott, the oldest woman in the community, usually the keeper of what wisdom ever prevailed there, spoke for their neighbors.

  "Ever' child deserves a daddy," Granny stated with conviction. "Be he upstanding citizen or piss-poor ne'er-do- well, ever' child ought to have one."

  The folks on the mountain wholeheartedly agreed with her and most of them felt compelled somehow to offer, at least, some stupid opinion of their own.

  Althea did not remain a meek and biddable daughter-in-law through this debate.

  "I have no intention to remarry," she said over and over again.

  Granny Piggott snorted in disapproval. "Of course you'll marry again," she said. "It's just a matter of who it'll be. You can take your choice among my grandsons and

  nephews."

  Those were fighting words for Beulah Winsloe. "You're just wanting the Piggotts to get their hands on my boy's farm."

  "It ain't your boy's no more," Granny answered. "It belongs to the gal and the next feller she marries up with."

  Beulah didn't argue the former. It was the latter that stuck so painfully in the old woman's craw. "That's McNees ground and always has been," her mother-in-law stated flatly. "That place is got the best corn bottom in these parts. We'd never a-given it up if we'd known that our boy was fixin' to die young."

  Mrs. Winsloe made it sound as if somehow Paisley had betrayed his family when he'd choked on a fish bone.

  "It's land up for grabs," Granny stated.

  "It's McNees and Winsloe ground," Beulah snapped right back.

  "It's Baby-Paisley's!" Althea shouted, shushing the both of them. "It's my son's farm and I intend to keep it for him until he's old enough to tend it."

  "It needs tending now."

  Althea made every effort to remain calm. Breathing deeply, she recited the Golden Rule inside her head, a tried-and-true method for avoiding trouble.

  "Perhaps I'll put in a crop next spring," she said quietly.

  "You should not
have ever let them fields go fallow." Beulah shook her finger at the young woman accusingly.

  "And there ain't no telling where you're a-going to get game this winter," Granny scolded. "Your man's gun is a-rusting and his dogs are going wild."

  "That's why she ought to marry up," Beulah said with conviction. "And she ought to be marrying up with a McNees."

  McNees was Beulah Winsloe's maiden name. It was also Althea's. Besides being in-laws they were also distant cousins. And like the Piggotts, the McNees family made up a considerable portion of all the inhabitants of the mountain.

  "Lord have mercy," Granny huffed. "Althea's a McNees herself. You don't want a gal marrying up too close with her kin."

  Beulah raised a haughty eyebrow. "You should know well about that. It's the Piggotts that brung feeblemindedness to the mountain."

  Granny's eyes narrowed, but she let the insult pass. "Who you gonna marry her up with, Beulah?" she asked. "The McNees ain't got no bachelors right now, 'cepting some babies and yer brother, Tom." Granny hooted as if she'd heard a good joke. "You gonna marry her up with that old man?"

  The fact that Tom McNees was a whole generation younger than Granny notwithstanding, Beulah's favorite brother was old enough to be Althea's father.

  "Tom'd make a good husband, if he were of a mind," Beulah defended. "But now that he's the new preacher, he has no time for farming anyway."

  "There is always time for farming," Granny answered with certainty. "It's just that when a man's been a bachelor for close to fifty years, like your brother Tom, well I don't suspect he'd be much of a bridegroom for a squirmy gal still full of hominy."

  Beulah drew herself to full height with fury. "Are you a-saying that my boy's widow is prone to rollix?"

  Granny raised her chin and pursed her mouth in disapproval. "Ain't saying nothing of the sort. She's just a young woman and a healthy one. And nain brittle when it comes to man tending. The Good Lord surely meant to give her a houseful of children to raise and it's time she get at it."

  "I don't need any more children," Althea declared adamantly as she stepped between the two women. "It's my life and my son is all the babies I want."

  "A woman always needs more children," Beulah insisted. "And don't you be a-telling me otherwise. I birthed six and done buried ever' one, your husband was the last. I got nary a one to comfort me in my old age."

  "I'm sorry for that," Althea told her. "But I don't think—"

  Beulah interrupted her. "You don't need to think, Althea. You're young and the young are too busy for thinking. I'm an old woman. I got time to ruminate and consider and I've figured out what's the best for all of us."

  "Mother Winsloe—"

  "Seems to me, Beulah," Granny stated, "that you oughter be thinking more about this here gal and less about that corn bottom you're so fond of."

  "Don't you be puttin' that sin on me, Granny," Beulah snapped. "It's you Piggotts that's got your greedy hands out."

  "It ain't greed to do right. This gal'll be wanting a young man. One that'll keep her warm of a cold night. One that tends toward a breeding nature. And I'll bet she likes fellers what are handsome. They ain't none finer-looking than the Piggotts, on this mountain or the next."

  The argument had gone on and on. Ruining the whole evening as far as Althea was concerned and accomplishing absolutely nothing. Only the lateness of the hour had finally broken up the confrontation. Althea had gratefully taken herself and her sleepy child home.

  She hoped that she'd heard the last of it for a while, but this morning at her mother-in-law's that had proved not to be the case.

  "I've been thinking about what that old windbag Granny Piggott said the other night," Beulah told her.

  "I don't want to talk about this again," Althea answered sharply.

  "No, some of the things she said is true," Beulah said, nodding. "So I been studying and studying about it."

  "There is really no need—"

  "Course there's need!" Beulah interrupted. "You are a-goin' to wed, sure as the world. It's just a matter of who and when. The when needs to be soon. You'll need a man to take care of you come winter. My Orv cain't barely fend for the two of us. And as for the who . . ." Beulah stopped to shake her head. "Well, truth to tell, gal, I won't be havin' no stranger coming in and takin' over our land."

  "Mother Winsloe, I will never remarry. I'm willing to promise you that. I would never give Paisley's birthright to a stranger," Althea assured her.

  "Sure you won't, 'cause you don't have to," she said. "We got just the right feller for you here in the family."

  "What?"

  "I sent word over to my cousin, Eben Baxley."

  "Eben Baxley."

  "You remember him from your weddin' day, don't you?" she asked.

  Althea did remember. Paisley and his cousin had gotten so drunk together the night before that even by that afternoon the bridegroom could hardly stand up for the ceremony.

  "That Eben," her mother-in-law continued. "He's a fine, good-looking feller with a way with the ladies, or so it's said. Don't worry about that, of course. A wife can always turn that nature into attendin' to breeding."

  "Eben Baxley!"

  "I know what you're a-thinkin'," her mother-in-law assured her. "You're a-thinkin' that he likes the gals what's a bit younger and prettier than you. But don't ya give it a lick of worry. I been studyin' on it and I know that Eben sets a fine store by them dogs of Paisley's. A man'll do a lot of things to get himself a fine pack of hounds."

  "Ouch, Mama! You're squeezing my hand."

  Baby-Paisley's complaint brought Althea's thoughts back to the present. They had just come around the last bend in the trail. Before them was the Phillips Store and in the distance the Marrying Stone church and school.

  "Mama's sorry, darlin'," she said to the little boy. "Do you think Mr. Phillips may have a bite of candy in his big store?" she asked.

  The little boy didn't answer, but his eyes widened and he licked his lips.

  Althea smiled at him for a moment before drifting back to her thoughts.

  "Do a lot for a fine pack of dogs, indeed," she muttered under her breath.

  * * *

  "Sugar, coffee, cartridges," Jesse Best whispered to himself as he walked the narrow path along the ridge. "Sugar, coffee, cartridges."

  It was important that he didn't forget. Being given the responsibility of going for supplies was no small thing. It was a job that a man would do. Jesse didn't want to forget anything. Of course, there was the list in his pocket. His sister Meggie always gave him a list. She had read it to him before he left home. Meggie was practically a scriber. She could read and write pretty near anything. She'd read him the list in his pocket and it said sugar, coffee, cartridges. Jesse wanted to remember that. He wanted to just tell Mr. Phillips what he was there to buy. That's what other men did. Jesse wanted to be like other men.

  In many ways, he was. He was tall. Taller than most who lived on the mountain. And he was big, too. Pushing the plow, hauling water, and chopping wood had made his chest broad and his arms as thick and muscled as a pair of hams. His legs and back were just as sturdy.

  "Jesse is stronger than a mule," his father would tell folks proudly.

  But Jesse knew that he wasn't a mule. He was a man.

  He had his looks from his mother's side of the family. The Piggotts were good looking people. Everybody said so, especially the Piggotts. They were fine-featured and blessed with good teeth. And it was strong in the blood, those fine features. As Granny Piggott often pointed out, no matter what kind of warthog a Piggott was to marry up with, the younguns came out pretty as roses. Jesse was not a rose, of course, he was a man, but he favored the Piggotts, as did his sister and many of his cousins. He had big eyes, very round and very blue. His nose was well shaped and proportionate in size, and his smile was gleaming white. His skin was too fair, of course. It reddened up with the first hot days of springtime. Only now with autumn in the air were his arms and face the toasty
brown of a man who worked outside. His hair was blond. More than blond, really. Granny Piggott said it was "white as cotton and thick as an Injun's." This morning his hair was covered by a glove cap of homespun gray as he hurried down the trail.

  "Don't you dawdle!" his father had called out to him as he'd left the cabin. He had shoved his hat on his head and nodded in promise. Men didn't dawdle. And Jesse Best was a man.

  "Sugar, coffee, cartridges," he said to himself once more.

  The place where he lived was called Marrying Stone Mountain. At least that was what his brother-in-law, Roe Farley, called it. Roe hadn't always lived here. That's why he called it something, Jesse believed. If a person had always lived here, he didn't need to call it nothing but home.

  To Jesse that was exactly what it was. He knew the mountain from the top of the tallest tree at the summit to the lowest swampy places in the hollow. And he knew the peaks that surrounded it nearly as well. It was good that Jesse knew this place so well. Because there was a lot of things that Jesse didn't know.

  Something at the side of the path caught his attention and his eyes lit up in excitement.

  "Mushrooms!" he said with delight and dropped to his knees on the ground next to a big mockernut hickory brightly colored in the leaves of autumn. Three big morel mushrooms stood like sentinels beside the tree, their long white stems were tall and stately and the big brown tops looked much like Jesse's own homespun hat.

  His blue eyes twinkling with expectation, Jesse carefully removed the leaves and duff around the base of the tree. He giggled out loud when he found the half dozen smaller mushrooms that had been concealed in the debris.

  "Always some little fellers hiding in the leaves," he said.

  He reached to pluck them from the cool damp earth, but his hand stopped midway. He jerked his hand back and pushed his hat to the back of his head as he dug his hand in his hair. Something wasn't right.

  Sugar, coffee, cartridges.

  Don't dawdle.