Three
FINLEY JAMES WALKED past a rusty iron kettle and hopped over a large ax in a chunk of tree stump, then jumped up to the porch to rap on the door. “Miss Mollie? You in there? I brung you a visitor.” He put his ear to the door, then turned to nod at Lucy. “She’s a-comin’.”
The door creaked open and a small cloud of gray grizzled hair poked out.
“Hey, Miss Mollie,” Fin said. “How y’ doing today?”
“Tolable like.”
“Well, that’s good t’ hear.”
“Oh, I got me a touch of the collywobbles.” The door opened a little wider to reveal a wrinkled face, crackled as an old mixing bowl. “Who you got there?”
“This here’s Miss Cora’s second cousin. On her paw’s side. She’s a Wilson. Goes by Lucy. Miss Cora sent her to write yor letter so ya don’t have to travel to town this week.”
The door opened wide to reveal a bent figure as old as Methuselah. Near her feet, a chicken pecked. Then another.
“Chickens!” Lucy burst out. “There’s chickens in the cabin. Fin! Do something! Help her collect them!”
“Mollie likes ’em inside.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “Whyever for?”
“To keep ’em safe. They’s like pets to her.”
“But . . . safe from what?”
“Foxes. Bobcats. The occasional wolf or bar.”
“What kind of animal is a bar?”
“Ain’t ya ever met up with a grizzly bar?”
“Bear?” He meant bear?!
His eyes twinkled and she hoped he was teasing her again. He waved to her. “Come on down off that pony and be friendly.”
Lucy lifted a leg over the pony’s head and caught her dress on the saddle cantle, nearly toppling headfirst. She hung on to the saddle horn for dear life.
“No, no! Not that way.” Fin jumped off the porch and ran to untangle her dress and hold her steady as she slid clumsily down the side of the pony. “Thunderation! Ain’t ya ever got off a pony afore?”
Lucy swayed on her feet. Her backside was completely numb. Smoothing out her skirt, she said, “I told you. Not a horse. Not a pony. Not any kind of beast.”
“How’d you git places?”
“By carriage, of course.”
“Y’ mean, a jolt wagon?”
“What’s that?”
Fin looked at her as if she were from another world. “An ox cart.”
“Oh misery me! No! Never!”
Exasperated, Fin started toward the cabin. “Come on and meet Miss Mollie.”
Picking her way gingerly through the weedy yard, Lucy reached Miss Mollie and put her hand out to shake. The old woman didn’t take it, only peered at Lucy through milky pale blue eyes, rimmed red, sunken deep. “You don’t look much like Cora. I’ve knowed her since she was jest a girl.” She looked past Lucy. “Where’s yor pony off to?”
Lucy spun around to see Jenny’s hindquarters trot down the path toward the woods. “Oh no! No! Stop!” She’d had to nudge and kick that pony all the way up that mountain, and now Jenny seemed to be in a hurry to get home. She started to chase after the pony, but Fin got to her first and grabbed the reins.
“Ya didn’t tie her up!”
“Tie her up? To what?”
Fin shook his head in disbelief. “If ya don’t have something to tie a horse to, ya never leave it facing home. Always turn yor mount around. Everybody knows that much.”
“I didn’t.”
He seemed appalled at her ignorance. “I’m gonna water them horses. You go read and write for Miss Mollie afore she needs her afternoon nap.” He lowered his voice to add, “She’ll offer you food but don’t take it.”
“Why not? I’m quite hungry.”
Fin rolled his eyes. “Cuz then she might not have no supper for herself.”
Lucy went to the porch where Miss Mollie continued to eye her with suspicion. “Shall we get started?” She wanted to get back down that mountain and into a hot bath at Miss Maude’s boarding house. At least, she hoped there was a bathtub at Miss Maude’s.
“Jest how be you kin to Cora? You shore don’t look like her.”
“Miss Mollie,” Fin said firmly, leading the horse and pony to a rusty trough filled with dirty rainwater. “Cora said to tell you she’s kin. That’d be all that matters.”
“Cora said you needed help writing a letter,” Lucy said.
Mollie scratched her chin. “Mebbe I’ll jest wait on Cora.”
“No, ya cain’t,” Fin shouted, though he was far on the other side of the yard.
He must have ears like an owl, Lucy thought.
“You know as well as I do what Miss Cora tol’ you,” he yelled.
Gingerly, Lucy climbed the porch steps, stepping around rotted boards and who knew what else. “What exactly did Miss Cora tell you?”
“She sez that from now on, you’ll be doing the reading and writing chores.”
From now on? Lucy had no such intention.
Miss Mollie called down to Fin. “I don’t want no jasper knowin’ my business.”
Fin had left the pony and horse at the trough and picked up the axe that had been jammed in a tree stump. “Miss Mollie, Miss Cora sent along a letter from Jane. How ’bout if Miss Lucy reads it to ya? Then you can decide if ya want to let her know yor business.”
Fin had found just the right words to soften the old woman. “Come on in then,” she said, still eyeing Lucy.
As Lucy followed her into the one-room cabin, she was slapped in the face by a mélange of strong, heavy smells: cooking fat, tobacco smoke, and something sour and musty and tangy. Chicken dung? She nearly lost her breakfast from the rank stink. She took a handkerchief out of her skirt pocket and covered her nose as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She could see nothing at first, other than the glow of coals coming from a fireplace. When she realized the floor was made of dirt, she gasped.
Miss Mollie didn’t notice. She hobbled over to a rocking chair in front of an open stone hearth, so large it nearly took up the full wall. She took a clay pipe that was resting on the hearth and settled into the rocking chair, stuck the pipe between her lips, and sucked in air so that her cheeks disappeared. She exhaled, coughing, and pointed to a stool. “Sit down by the far. Better laht.”
Far? What did she mean? Oh . . . fire! Laht. Light.
“Lemme hear what m’ girl has to say.”
Stalling to cover her shock at the condition of the cabin, Lucy pretended to blow her nose behind her handkerchief. There was a small rope mattress bed tucked against the wall near the fireplace, and a large blackened kettle hung on a hook in the open hearth. Besides the rocking chair and the stool, there was no place else to sit or to eat. And chickens strutted about, making discontent squawks, leaving feathers and other remains behind. The only heat came from the coals in the fire, and they gave off more sooty smoke than warmth. It all seemed so . . . primitive. How could anyone live like this?
Swallowing a groan, Lucy tucked the handkerchief away, eased her aching bottom onto the little stool, and opened the large envelope to find the letter meant for Mollie McGlothin. Lucy cleared her throat and began.