Read Ebook: Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt! by Smith Jewell Ellen

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2218 lines and 56936 words, and 45 pages

"Just looking for berries, Ward."

"Berries, hell. You're lookin' for my still, that's what you're doin'. Huckleberries ain't ripe yet!"

"Still? What still?"

"My whiskey still!"

Miss Ophelia dropped the basket on her arm. "Lord help my time. You must be lying to me, Ward."

There they were, right down the trail in front of me-Miss Ophelia wringing her hands and twisting them up in her flimsy apron, Mister Ward shaking his fist at her.

I darted behind the nearest sapling.

"Naw, I ain't lyin'! I'm aimin' to turn out some first-rate whiskey and roll in big money doin' it!" Mister Ward grinned and let his clenched fist unfold so he could push his hair up from his eyes. His fat, sweaty face was as red as his hair.

"Don't you know somebody'll turn you in so quick it'll make your head swim? Folks in this settlement ain't gonna allow no whiskey-making!"

Mister Ward spit out a wad of tobacco and wiped his shirt sleeve across his mouth. My papa didn't ever let his shirt get as dirty as Mister Ward's.

"You wanta bet?"

"There ain't a drinking man in Drake Eye Springs, 'cept you! They'll ride you out on a rail, even before the Law gets wind of it."

"Hell, gal, that's where you're wrong! Ain't nobody findin' out about my still. It's gonna be hid good. Quit wringin' your damn hands! That's all you know to do ever' time I try to tell you somethin'. Com'ere. Lemme show you the spot I got picked for settin' it up at." He grabbed his wife's arm and they started up the branch. The bottom of her skimpy skirt caught on a briar vine, but Mister Ward wouldn't wait for her to untangle it, so it got torn.

I had already noticed when Miss Ophelia lifted her apron that her dress was stretched so tight against her stomach it was like a sack on a rooster. But Miss Ophelia didn't look much like a rooster. The freckles, thick on her face and arms, made her look more like a poor little brown speckled wood thrush wearing a bonnet and being dragged along by one wing.

She kept stumbling on with Mister Ward, and he kept shouting to her about some contraption he wanted to build. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. But, whatever it was, Miss Ophelia didn't like it.

"See this level ridge? My platform for the mash barrels is gonna be right 'long here under these willows. Ah, here's where I'm gonna set my drum. It'll be pure copper. That's what I'm gonna buy-a pure copper drum! Won't that be a beaut? Undergrowth's so heavy in here even you couldn't spot at first! Now, could you?"

"Oh, Ward, you can't do this! It ain't right to make moonshine!" Miss Ophelia was beginning to cry. "It'll ruin us! Think what could happen! All our young'uns need clothes so bad, Ward! If you've got money to-"

"Shut up, Ophelia! Stop that Goddamn cryin' and snifflin'."

Now that they were out of sight, I tiptoed back to the narrow, winding trail. I dropped the water gourd, and it got sand and grit inside. I didn't know whether to pick it up and run back up the hill to the house or whether to skedaddle on to the spring and dip up Miss Dink's cool water, like she had told me to do.

I grabbed the gourd and swiped it out as best I could with the tail of my underskirt. I could still hear Miss Ophelia and Mister Ward. Her sobbing and his yelling sounded like they had stopped close by, but there were so many dogwood bushes and briar vines and pine trees growing tangled together on both sides of the trail that I couldn't tell for sure where they were. I ran on down the hill.

When I got even with Miss Ophelia's berry basket I slowed down to look at it, but I didn't dare touch it. It was lying bottom side up, but I couldn't see any huckleberries spilling out.

The more Mister Ward shouted at Miss Ophelia, the faster I scooted on down the steep hillside. Once I stumped my toe on the root of a sweet gum tree and fell. But I held on to the gourd. As I was getting up, I saw the spring just ahead.

I decided I'd better wash the dipper in the branch water before I stuck it into the deep, clear spring. As I waded out to the middle of the branch, cool sand oozed up between my toes, and for a minute I forgot all about Mister Ward's loud, ugly talking.

But I heard him again.

"I don't know why in hell you can't get it through your thick skull, Ophelia! I got it all figured out. All I gotta do is rake up money to buy the copper cooker, and I'm sure gonna get it, one way or another. 'Course, this summer I'll have to buy chops and rye too. But come another year, I'm gonna plant a heap of corn. I ain't gonna raise a stalk of cotton on the whole place. That won't set so good with old Ned. But hell, if that nigger don't like it, he can lump it! I got new plans for him anyways."

"New plans?"

"Yeah. He's gonna be helpin' with the runs. And them burr-headed boys of his are gonna be cuttin' wood and keepin' up the fires. Ah, I tell you, it's gonna be a perfect setup! Like Hicks said, I got plenty of water and a nice spot here in this hollow, way own the main road. Even the smoke ain't gonna drift far! Can't figure why I haven't done rigged me up a still long ago. Like Hicks said, ain't no need of a man with my brains workin' hisself to death walkin' behind no plow!"

"Who's this Hicks you're talking about?"

"You don't know him, Ophelia. He's sorta my business partner. Lives down below the State Line Road. Now, he's a moneyed man! He's got him one of them automobiles! Me and him's goin' in together fifty-fifty. I'm gonna take the whiskey to him in big batches-gallons and five gallons. Naturally, I'll be obliged to get myself a automobile! Then Hicks-"

"A automobile?"

"That's what I said! A automobile! I'll buy me one soon's the money starts pilin' in. Then, by God, when I ride through Drake Eye Springs, folks won't say, 'Yonder goes OLD WARD.' They'll say, 'Yonder goes MISTER WARD LAWSON.'"

"And I'll say, 'Yonder goes the biggest red-headed fool the Lord ever let breathe!'"

"Makin' easy money ain't bein' a fool, Ophelia! Like I was fixin' to tell you, after we get the whiskey 'cross the Louisiana line, Hicks can sell it retail-you know, in fifths. And sometimes by the drink. We'll get a sight more for it that way. He's gonna get regular customers lined up and see to it that I'll have plenty of sugar-two or three hundred pounds at a time. He can arrange with a fellow so there won't be no suspicion round here. You know yourself if I was to go to Drake Eye Springs and start buyin' a heap of sugar at Mister Jodie's store, that'd be a dead giveaway. Say, he might be the very one to loan me some money! Providin' I don't let on to him what it's for."

"Ward, you ain't talking sense! You're just-"

"Dammit, woman, shut your mouth! This is the first sensible thing I ever-Good God A' mighty! Ophelia, look down yonder at the spring! Who in hell's that? Heerd ever' damn word I said! Why didn't you tell me somebody was around? Looks like some young'un!"

"I didn't know nobody was here. I sent the young'uns to fetch the cow, and I left the house just a minute ago to come look for berries."

"Ophelia, that's that damn little gal of Mister Jodie's and Miss Nannie's! I swear to God, if she tells her pa, I'll kill her! I'll kill her! So help me!"

It was me, all right! I snatched up the water gourd and started streaking back up the trail!

"Good God, Ward! You're drunk, or crazy! Don't say such a thing! Anyhow, she's so little she wouldn't know what's going on! See how little she is? Just look at her spindly legs!"

I didn't have time to look at my spindly legs. I just tried to go faster!

"Ain't no little gal gonna stop me! Dammit! I'm gonna set up my still come the devil to my doorstep! And if the Law comes bustin' it up, I'll know exactly who turned me in! Woman, you get on to the house and see who all else's up there. I swear to God! Don't nothin' ever go right for me! Get!"

"I'm going, Ward. I'm going. Miss Nannie must've come to set with poor Aunt Dink."

"Poor Aunt Dink! Poor Aunt Dink! That's all I hear! When's that old blind bitch ever gonna die?"

"Ward, she's my aunt! She raised me from a baby!"

"Yeah, yeah! From a bastard baby. You've told me ten times how your ma died a-birthin' you and didn't nobody want you, so Miss Dink and her old man taken you and raised you. Then, fool me, I come along and married you! My pa told me I'd rue the day. He said I ought to marry me a big rawboned gal-one that could plow a mule and do a day's work in the field. Pa was a blame fool about lots of things, but he sure know'd women. He said these little stringy ones like you ain't good for a confounded thing but birthin' young'uns, and he was sure right. Here I am thirty-nine years old, goin' on forty, and ain't got a damn thing but two old mules, some wore-out plows, and a houseful of young'uns-and you expectin' another one."

I was so far up the slope now I didn't try to hear any more Mister Ward said. Nearly half of Miss Dink's water had sloshed out of the gourd before I could get it back up to the house, but Miss Dink and Mama didn't seem to notice, or care either. Mama wouldn't even listen when I started to tell her Mister Ward was going to kill me. She just shushed me and whispered she was proud of me for being so smart and for me to sit down on the floor by her straight chair.

Mama and Miss Dink were talking about the World War and about Miss Dink's nephew, who was already fighting way across the waters in some place called France, and about my two big brothers, who went off to the army camp. Then they got started telling one another of long-time-ago things, with Miss Dink doing most of the telling.

"Well sir, time's a-flying fast. It fair scares me to think it's already 1918. The Mister, he's been in his grave ten years, Nannie. He passed in the summer of 'aught-eight. Come the first Sunday in June-and that'll be next Sunday-it'll be ten years, even."

"Mama, Mister Ward said-"

"Shh, Bandershanks, Miss Dink's talking, hon."

Miss Dink talked on and on. Mama just nodded her head or said, "Yes'm, that's right" or "Well, I declare to my soul!" or "I reckon so."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet