Spencer's Mountain (21 page)

“Bless you, honey,” said Olivia. “Come on back here in the kitchen and get somethen to eat. I'll bet you're starved to death.”

After Lisa had her supper, she sat at the table with Olivia and Clay-Boy. All the time she had been eating Clay-Boy had been looking at her with a curious gaze.

“Is there anything you want to ask me, Clay-Boy,” Lisa said finally.

“Yes,” he said, “but I'm not sure it would be all right.”

“Well, try me,” she said.

“What is a Jew?” asked Clay-Boy.

“I'm a Jew,” Lisa replied.

“I mean what makes you so different?”

“Do I look so different?”

“That's what I mean,” the boy said. “You don't.”

“It's a religion,” said Lisa. “We believe in God and the Ten Commandments. We believe that man has a soul, that he should love good and hate evil and that his soul is eternal. We don't think we're the only religion there is. I remember hearing a rabbi say once, ‘We Jews know there are many mountain tops and all of them reach for the stars.'”

“It's just what I thought it would be,” said Olivia. “It's just about the same thing as being a Baptist.”

Down at the car an unsteady voice started a new hymn.

One by one the other voices blended in harmony.

“You want me to go down and see if I can get 'em to turn in for the night, Mama?” asked Clay-Boy.

“Wouldn't do any good,” said Olivia. “They'll just pull you in the car and keep you down there singen with 'em. You go on to bed if you're tired.”

After Clay-Boy went to bed, Olivia and Lisa sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and talking.

It was midnight before the singing down in the car came to a quavering halt. After a while Olivia and Lisa took a flashlight and went down to investigate. With their arms around each other and tired happy grins on their faces, the Spencer men had gone to sleep.

“What are we going to do?” asked Lisa.

“I reckon we'd better get some sleep too,” said Olivia, and they followed the circle of light from the flashlight across the dew-covered grass toward the house and rest.

It was good for all concerned that Friendship Corner, as Clay-Boy's library had come to be called, was not run on a profit-making plan. During the weeks it had been open the library had attracted only a few regular customers. Geraldine Boyd came once a week. If Clay-Boy were alone she would stay and make stilted bookish conversation. If Claris happened to be there Geraldine would make her selection quickly and escape as soon as possible from Claris' curious and merciless questions. Alabama Sweetzer quickly exhausted the supply of Western books which she supplied to Craig Godlove. At Clay-Boy's suggestion she had switched to murder mysteries, but Mr. Godlove consumed them so quickly that Clay-Boy was already wondering what to recommend when his supply of mysteries was exhausted.

Most of the time, left alone, Clay-Boy spent reading. He consumed more books during that summer than probably the entire population of New Dominion had read in a lifetime. At first he read indiscriminately. He would take down any volume from the shelf and paying no attention to the title or whether it was fiction or biography, a book on medicine or a single volume of an encyclopedia, he would read it from cover
to cover. Every book he read only whetted his appetite to read more and he began forcing himself to read more slowly lest he finish all the books in the library before the summer was over.

Late one afternoon a shadow fell over the page he was reading and he looked up to see Claris.

“You and I are going places, son,” she announced.

“I'm going home to supper,” said Clay-Boy.

“Where would you like to go? Name it.”

“Well, I'd like to go to Jerusalem and see the Dead Sea. I was just reading it's got so much salt in it you don't have to swim. You just float automatically.”

“Would you settle for the Dixie Belle Traveling Tent Show? It's over at Faber.”

“Sure I would, but how would we get there?”

“I'll drive us. The Colonel's gone to Tennessee on business and left the car. Said I could use it.”

“I'd sure like to go,” said Clay-Boy, “but I don't know if Mama and Daddy will let me.”

“Son,” said Claris, “you disgust me. Here you are, about to go out in the world and get yourself an education and you're still asking permission to turn around. When are you going to stop asking them if you can go and just go?”

“If I told them I was going to a carnival, I'd never get out of the house. Mama would say it was sinful and Daddy would want me to go with him to work on the house and there I'd be.”

“Don't tell them you're going to the carnival. Tell them you coming over to see me and I'm going to teach you to play the fiddle or something. God, you're dumb. I can't stand you.”

“Then how come you're always hanging around?”

“I guess it's that soulful little choirboy face and the fact that you're the only hillbilly in a hundred miles I can talk to. Now, do you want to go or not?”

“If I can get away.”

“I'll wait until eight o'clock. If you're not there by then I'm coming over and tell your family you've ruined me and
you're going to have to do the right thing and take me to the preacher.”

“Boy, you really talk big. I bet if I said
boo
to you you'd break a leg getting out of here.”

“I really don't know what you mean,” said Claris airily.

“I mean if I tried to do it to you,” said Clay-Boy.

“Do what?” she asked.

“You know,” said Clay-Boy and blushed.

“
Pow!
” exclaimed Claris and jumped up from her chair and strode around the room. “Pow! Pow! Pow!” she said, striking her fists against the book-lined shelves.

“What's the matter with you now?” cried Clay.

“Oh you hillbillies!” she cried. “All you can think of is sex, sex, sex!” She stood in front of him now, mocking and teasing him with her eyes. “I came down here, an innocent girl from the city, trying to be friends, trying to invite you to enjoy a pleasant evening with me at the Dixie Belle Traveling Tent Show, and I haven't been here more than ten minutes before you start making indecent proposals.”

In spite of her words Claris was daring him with her body and suddenly, as much to his own surprise as hers, he reached out and took her into his arms. Her lips were still curved in a smile but no sound of laughter came from them. Through her half-closed eyes he saw that she had no fright and that she was merely waiting to see what he would do. He bent his lips to hers and held her in a long kiss.

With his body pressed close against her, Claris felt what the excitement was doing to him and whispered, “Not here. It isn't safe.” But Clay-Boy hardly heard her. His hands began to explore the places they had longed to touch and the girl began to respond, guiding his hands and moving her body against his.

It was Claris who heard the sound. A high amused giggle sounded from the door. She began to struggle and Clay-Boy, mistaking her struggle for passion, struggled with her, whispered words to reassure her, until finally when she could rid herself of him no other way, Claris shouted, “Let go of me!

She twisted out of his arms and retreated. When Clay-Boy
started to follow her, Claris inclined her head toward the door. Clay-Boy looked and there stood his little sister Becky, looking at him indignantly.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Mama says she needs you. You come on home right away she says.”

“You run back to the house and tell her I'm on the way.”

“I'll wait and go with you, Clay-Boy.”

“You do what I tell you. I've got to put the windows down and lock up here and everything.”

“I won't,” declared Becky.

“If you don't I'm going to spank your fanny,” he shouted.

“If you lay hands on me, I'll tell Mama what I saw,” threatened Becky.

“What you saw, Little Miss Smartie Pants, was Clay-Boy trying to get something out of my eye. I got a piece of mill dust in it walking around from the post office and Clay-Boy was just taking it out for me, weren't you, Clay-Boy?”

“That's right.”

“He didn't have his hands nowhere near your eyes,” objected Becky.

“You say that again, kid,” said Claris, “and I'm going to clobber your jaw so hard you'll look backwards for the rest of your life.”

Becky turned and ran out of Friendship Corner. Once she was safely out of the door and up the path to the road she shouted, “I'm goen to tell Mama on you-all!”

“Oh God,” cried Clay-Boy, “I've got to shut her up before she tells the world. You lock up here.”

As he ran for the door Claris called, “What about the carnival tonight?”

“I'll be there if I can get away,” he promised.

“If you don't show up by eight o'clock, I'm coming over there after you,” she threatened. “I'll tell your Mama what you tried to do to me down here, too!”

“I'll be there,” he shouted in desperation and ran after his little sister who, safely halfway up the hill, was shouting her threat.

He saw Becky enter the house and doubled his speed,
but it was too late. When he walked in the kitchen he found Olivia seated on a stool beside the kitchen range. She was cutting some vegetables into the soup she was making for supper and listening to Becky's story.

“And then,” Becky was saying, “Claris said she was going to slap my face around to the other side if I said anything so I ran away from them.”

“What's this child tryen to tell me, Clay-Boy?” asked Olivia.

“I don't know, Mama,” said Clay-Boy. “What did she say?”

“She says that you and Claris were doen somethen bad.”

“Well, we weren't.”

“Becky, what have you got to say to that?”

“Mama, they were wrapped up together like two fishen worms,” shrieked Becky.

“We were not!” shouted Clay-Boy.

A stricken look crossed his mother's face, and she drew in her breath sharply. Clay-Boy thought the pain was caused by the idea of what she thought he had done and that he had lied to her.

“Mama,” he cried, “I didn't do a thing but kiss her. That's all we did. I swear before God.”

“It's all right, Clay-Boy. I believe you.” She had drawn herself upright on the stool but now she slumped into a more relaxed position. “I want you to run down to the mill and tell your daddy to come straight home from work.”

“Why, Mama? Is anything wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong, but I think you and the children might be goen to spend the night with your grandmother.”

He realized then what had caused the pain he had seen in his mother's face. The only time he or any of the other children spent the night away from home they would return the following morning to find their mother in bed and a new baby beside her.

“I'll go get Daddy,” he said and ran as fast as he could down the wall and out on the road toward the mill.

Olivia did not inform the smaller children that they would be spending the night with their grandparents until
supper was almost over. Hearing this news, Shirley burst into tears.

“What's the matter, honey?” asked her mother.

“You're goen to hatch a baby,” cried Shirley. “You always hatch a baby when we go to Grandma's and stay all night.”

“That's right, honey,” said Olivia, “but that's not a thing to cry about. A new baby is somethen to be happy about.”

“Where is the baby now, Mama?” asked Luke.

“Doctor Campbell's got it and he's going to bring it over here in that little black bag he carries around,” said Olivia. “Now Clay-Boy, I'm going to get the toothbrushes and pajamas together and you get everybody ready to go.”

Clay had already left to alert Dr. Campbell that the new baby was expected and when Olivia went out of the room, as the oldest, Clay-Boy took charge.

He went from one upturned face to the other, smearing it quickly with the same wash cloth, giving it a fast drying dab with a towel. He tried not to show his nervousness for fear of upsetting the younger children. He knew what happened when children were born, could not believe it, did not see how such a mechanically impossible thing could happen; the idea of it clung in his mind, filling him with worry and pity for his mother.

Becky had been whispering something in Shirley's ear which caused Shirley to burst into crying.

“What's the matter with you?” Clay-Boy demanded.

“Becky says the baby is in Mama's stomach and Doctor Campbell's goen to cut it out with a knife,” sobbed Shirley.

“Becky's crazy,” said Clay-Boy.

Becky stuck out her tongue at him and he slapped her face so that her cries blended with Shirley's sobs, which continued unabated.

“You stop that damn crying,” snarled Clay-Boy to Becky.

Becky stopped long enough to say, “I'm goen to tell Mama you said a bad word,” and began to whimper again. The baby in his high chair began to cry sympathetically. Pattie-Cake had crawled off the bench and onto the table, where she was merrily spearing a boiled potato with her index
finger. John leaned against the table, thumb in mouth, regarding the chaos with mild indifference and Mark kept taking one biscuit after another from the bread plate and crumbling them in a neat little pile in front of him, Clay-Boy started for the baby to try to stop his crying, but saw that Pattie-Cake was about to overturn a bowl of gravy. He rescued the gravy, took Pattie-Cake off the table and placed her on the floor—where she began to yell as loud as her small lungs would allow.