Uncle Sagamore and His Girls (12 page)

Pop and Uncle Sagamore was real discouraged about it when they knocked off work on the still late in the afternoon and came down to feed the pigs.

“Well sir,” Uncle Sagamore says, “it’s jest downright disheartenin’, Sam. What you reckon we’re doin’ wrong?”

“I sure don’t know,” Pop said. “You s’pose we ought to throw it out now?”

Uncle Sagamore studied about it. “Mebbe it won’t get no worse,” he says. “Let’s give it one more day.”

All the watchers looked at each other.

But it was worse in the morning; it had a sour smell, and bubbles was just popping up through it. They took a chance and fed a bucketful to the pigs, but you could see they was going to have to throw out seven full tubs of it unless a miracle happened. They started me shelling corn again, while they went up to the shed to work on the still. There was just a few more pipes that had to be hooked up. People began to pour into the place, parking all over the side of the hill. And the first thing they all did was come down to peek at the hog feed. Then they’d nod, and go up to the still.

Booger was sitting on a box where he could watch the tubs. I thought about it while I was shelling the corn, and decided I’d never seen people act crazier in my life. All over just a little bunch of hog feed that they could see we was going to have to throw out. In about twenty minutes here come the Sheriff. He was upset and out of sorts, and looked like he hadn’t slept for several days. He peered into the tubs, and sniffed them, and said a string of cuss words.

“All right,” he says to Booger, “don’t take your eyes off it. It’s fermented now, and they’ll try to do somethin’ with it today. They’re only killin’ time on that still; it’s all hooked up now.”

“Relax,” Booger says. “There ain’t no way on earth they can get it in the still, or run it off if they did. Hell, even besides us, there must be three hundred people watchin’ ’em—”

The Sheriff cussed some more, and leaned against a post to mop his face. “The only shadow of a chance I got left,” he says, real bitter, “is to catch him before the election. Everybody in the county is either laughin’ at me or cussin’ me, and either way they’re goin’ to vote for Minifee. I tried to make a speech at that rally last night and they booed so loud they drowned me out.”

Booger studied about it. “Say, you know what,” he says, “I bet that’s what he’s up to. Electin’ Minifee, I mean. Minifee’s as big a crook as he is, so mebbe they’ve worked out a deal—”

“Oh, I already considered that,” the Sheriff said. “But ain’t no way you can prove it. I still got to catch him makin’ whiskey, or prove to these people that he ain’t. Help me move these tubs.”

They lifted up the tubs one at a time and looked under and behind them. I wondered if he’d gone crazy. “No hidden pipes or tanks,” he says to Booger. “Only way he can get it out is dip it.
Don’t take yore eyes off it!
” He drove off.

I went on shelling corn. It sure was a fine state of affairs, I thought; the Sheriff wanted to put Uncle Sagamore in jail so he could be re-elected, and Curly wanted to be elected so he could put Uncle Sagamore in jail. What chance did he have, with both of ’em after him?

Just a few minutes past noon Pop and Uncle Sagamore knocked off at the still and came down to the barn. A whole crowd followed along behind. Booger pricked up his ears, and watched ’em like a big wasp. They lifted the gunny sacks off all the tubs and looked at the stuff, and then dipped out some and sniffed it.

Uncle Sagamore shook his head, real discouraged. “It ain’t no use, Sam; she’s as sour as the first batch.”

“What you reckon causes it?” Pop asked.

“Well sir, I sure don’t know,” Uncle Sagamore says. “There’s bound to be somethin’ we ain’t doin right. Might try just a teensy bit less corn meal in her next time, an’ see if that helps. Anyhow, we got to dump this.”

They picked up the tub they’d been feeding the hogs out of, that was still about half full, and carried it out beyond the barn where they’d dumped the first batch. It was still lying there like a bunch of half-dried mush. Booger watched every move they made, and all the people was staring like they couldn’t quite believe it. They turned the tub upside down, and the juice part ran into the ground. They pounded on it till all the mush was out, and started back to get another one.

But just then everybody turned and looked up toward the gate. A car had turned in and was coming down the hill pulling a big silvery house trailer. It sure was a pretty one, and I thought it had some signs painted on the side, but you couldn’t make them out from this angle. Then I saw it was a woman driving. Before she got down to where all the other cars was parked, she turned off and stopped. And then we could see the sign. It said:

PASATIEMPO SCHOOL OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Landscape, Portrait, Figure,

Life Classes, Darkroom Technique

Use Our Models Use our Darkroom

Everybody hurried up that way to see what it was all about. The driver got out, and I knew right away I’d seen her before. She was a big blonde woman with a lot of bracelets clanking on her arm. By golly, it was Mrs. Horne. She sort of travels around the country with her nieces, showing them the country, and she’d been here the time everybody was looking for Miss Harrington. But there hadn’t been any signs on the trailer then. It looked like she’d gone into business.

She waved a hand at the crowd, and grinned at Pop and Uncle Sagamore. “Hiya, boys. You ready for us to start work?”

“You’re just in time,” Pop says. “We’re about set up now to start manufacturin’.”

Then Booger came pushing through the crowd. “What’s all this?” he says. “What are you doin’ here?”

“Oh, relax, relax,” Mrs. Horne says. She handed him a card. “I’m Madame Pasatiempo. Me and my nieces are going to work for the Noonan Turpentine Company.”

Booger looked at the card kind of suspicious. “Wait a minute! I remember you. You’re Mrs. Horne—”

She patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t strain it, honey; you might blow a fuse. Of course I’m Mrs. Horne; Madame Pasatiempo’s just my professional name. But like I started to tell you, things got a little slow in the photography business, and about that time we run into the Noonan boys and they said they’d give us some part-time work in the turpentine dodge to sort of tide us over. So here we are, no?” She spread her hands out and shrugged her shoulders. “That’s just Latin charm. Don’t let it throw you.”

All the crowd stared, just fascinated. Booger couldn’t seem to think of anything to say. Mrs. Horne stepped back and opened the door of the trailer. “Come on out, girls, and meet the dignitaries. Looks like the Mayor’s about to cut the ribbon.”

Two girls came out. There was a lot of whistles through the crowd, and somebody says, “Woo-woo!” They sure was pretty. They both had long shoulder-length hair, one whitish and the other jet black, and red mouths and deep blue eyes. They had on kind of gauzy white dresses and gold sandals, and was barelegged. I remembered the light-colored one, but the other one seemed to be new.

Mrs. Horne waved an arm and her bracelets clanked. “Folks, I want you to meet my nieces. The platinum job’s Baby Collins, and the dark number is Conchita McLeod. Girls, this is where we’re going to gather the sap.”

Conchita McLeod took her cigarette out of her mouth and looked around at the crowd. “Which one?”

Mrs. Horne turned to Pop and Uncle Sagamore. “Well, you show ’em where to start, and I’ll park the trailer and set up camp.”

Pop led the way over to the shed where the still was, and gave each girl a whole bunch of little buckets. He pointed up the hill to the pines. “All the trees that’re gashed,” he says, “have got a bucket hanging on a nail. Just leave an empty one and bring in the full one.”

“Sounds like a frantic routine,” Baby Collins says.

Conchita McLeod looked at the men following them. “Reminds me of Yellowstone,” she says to Pop. “When do you feed ’em?”

They went off into the pines. Mrs. Horne was moving the trailer. Pop says to Uncle Sagamore, “Well, I reckon we can fire up in the mornin’. But now we better dump the rest of that hawg-feed.”

We started down to the barn, but just then there was the awfullest hullaballoo I ever heard in my life. There was a loud shriek up in the pines, and then another one, and the two girls come flying out in the open as hard as they could tear.

For a second I couldn’t make out what was wrong. They seemed to be slapping at their hair and their dresses while they ran. Then people began yelling, “Wasps!” “Bees!” “Ants!” “Yeller jackets!” Some of the men ran toward them, waving their hats. The girls dodged them and tore on down the hill with Miss Collins going to the front and drawing away, but then she stopped to yank off her dress and throw it behind her and Miss McLeod took over the lead. She was still slapping at her dress. Then she yanked hers over her head and tossed it in the air behind her. They was naked except for some little wispy underpants and their sandals. They screamed again, and tore for the lake, zig-zagging through the men that was waving their hats and trying to head them off. I couldn’t see the bees or wasps, or whatever it was, but there sure was plenty of men after ’em. I lost sight of them when they shot through the parked cars, and took out for the lake myself as hard as I could run.

The girls was still in the lead and still shrieking when they went by Uncle Finley’s ark. “Nekkid hussies!” he yelled, and shook his hammer at ’em. He was running along the scaffold to keep ’em in sight, and come to the end of it and fell off. By now the whole place was like a madhouse. He got up shaking his fists and yelling something about fornicators and sinners just as the first wave of men kind of rolled over him and the girls shot out in the water. Then a car slid to a stop with the tires screaming, and I saw it was the Sheriff. He got out, with his mouth hanging open, and stared while the main body of men tore past him down the hill and you could hear the girls yelling, “Help! Help!” out in the lake. He turned around against the side of the car and put his head down on his arms, and it looked like he was pounding on the roof with his fists.

Booger was in the lead. He dived right into the lake, clothes, hat, gun, and all, and rescued Miss McLeod. Some other man saved Baby Collins. When they stood up with the girls in their arms, though, you could see the water wasn’t very deep, not quite up to their hips. They waded out, dripping water from their clothes, while men was milling around asking questions and checking over the girls to see if they’d been stung bad. Booger had lost his hat, and his hair was plastered down in his face. There was so much confusion you couldn’t hear yourself think.

And then Major Kincaid came plowing through the crowd with Doug’s camera, yelling, “Let me get a picture!” He pointed the camera at Booger and Miss McLeod, and the flash bulb went off.

Doug was yelling at the Major. “We can’t print that! She hasn’t got any clothes—!”

“So we’ll add a little bathing suit!” the Major shouted. “I want the people to see what the law officers of this county are doing while a man runs off moonshine whiskey in front of their noses—”

Then the Sheriff was right in the middle of the uproar, shaking his fist in Major Kincaid’s face. “You shut up, Kincaid! Them girls was drownding, and all he did was save—!” He stopped then and looked all around, kind of blank, and then threw his hat on the ground. “
Girls?
” he yelled. “Who the hell are these goddam girls an’ where the hell did
they
come from? But anyway—all Booger did was save—” He stopped again, and kind of stared. “
Booger?
” he shouted. “
Booger?
”

He whirled around and pointed his finger in Booger’s face. “
I told you to watch that goddam mash!
”

“Oh, my God!” Booger says. He dropped Miss McLeod in the edge of the water and lit out in a hard run. The other man dropped Baby Collins, and then the whole herd was charging up past the ark again. Baby Collins sat up. “Think nothing of it, honey,” she says. “This is just an average day. I’ve been out here before.”

Conchita McLeod spit out some water, and looked up where Uncle Finley was yelling at them and peering around the end of the ark. “And you came back?” she says.

I took out after the men, and began passing some of the winded ones before we got up to the house. Booger was on the front end again, and the Sheriff was laying second, just off the pace. He hadn’t been in the first run, so he was able to keep up. We came down the stretch pretty well bunched up, like a well-weighted handicap, and when we got to the barn by golly there was Pop and Uncle Sagamore just as calm as you please. They was dumping out the hog feed; seven of the tubs was lying there empty by the big pile of wet mush, and they was just carrying out the last one. Seems like they hadn’t paid any mind to the uproar at all.

They set the tub down just as we came charging up. “Sure hope them pore gals ain’t stung bad,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Them daggone red wosts is jest pure mean—”

“Sagamore Noonan!” the Sheriff snapped. “What’d you do—?”

Booger caught his arm and pointed at the empty tubs and the pile of wet mush, gasping for breath. “He’s—dumped ’em all. I saw ’em—dump—first one—!”

“Shut up!” the Sheriff yelled at him. He turned on Uncle Sagamore “
What’d you do with that mash?
”

Pop and Uncle Sagamore picked up the last tub and dumped it on the pile. The juice run off across the ground. Uncle Sagamore bit off a chew of tobacco. “Well sir,” he says, “I jest don’t know, Shurf. I can’t figger what it is we’re doin’ wrong. You don’t reckon it might be the hot weather that’s makin’ it sour? Now, you take milk—”

“
Shut up!
” The Sheriff’s face was turning purple. “I want to know what you done with that stuff!”

Uncle Sagamore looked puzzled. “Why, we dumped her out. Right there—” He pointed to the big pile of wet mush.

“I’m not blind; I can see the corn meal!” the Sheriff barked. He whirled around to Booger. “Go into town and round up ten men and get ’em out here as fast as you can. We’ll take this place apart!”

Booger looked sheepish. His shoes still sloshed when he moved, and water was dripping off him everywhere. “But we saw—”