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By Root 1464 0

cabin would lead some scholars to attribute it to Jacob Ingledew, but since the Swain house was essentially Lizzie Swain’s house, we may assume that she had a large, if not exclusive, hand in the design of it, particularly the porch, which is like a woman’s sunbonnet shading her face, and which provided extra room in temperate weather for the crowded family. Undoubtedly Jacob Ingledew and Lizzie Swain may have discussed, or even argued, several points in the design and construction of the house, just as, later, after she had become his mother-in-law, he would, as men are always doing with their mothers-in-law, argue: they would argue religion, they would argue folk medicine and superstition, they would argue the use of alcoholic beverages, and above all they would argue the naming of things and places in Stay More. It was Lizzie who named Swains Creek and Bantam (Banty) Creek (after one of her little fowl who drowned there) and Leapin Rock (after one of her children who would leap from it) whereas Jacob named Ingledew Mountain and its benches (“West Banch, North Banch,” etc.) and various individual holes of water in the streams that Lizzie had named, Ole Bottomless in Banty Creek, Ole Beaver, Ole Crappie and Ole Stubtoe in Swains Creek. Lizzie also wanted to name the town itself—Cullowhee after her hometown—but Jacob pointed out to her that it had already been named Stay More and so it would stay.

Did Jacob accept that cornbread? The whole idea was Lizzie’s, to begin with. She knew that Sarah was past marryin’ age, and where else was she going to find a man? Jacob might be ten years older than Sarah, but he was ten years younger than Lizzie and besides Lizzie had already had all the children she wanted. Sarah was hard to sell on the idea, though. Like all the Swain children she idolized Jacob Ingledew and for that very reason the thought of marriage to him frightened her, almost as if it had been suggested that she go off and live with God as His wife. It would be an honor to be Mrs. God, but wouldn’t it also be a terrible responsibility? When none of these arguments dissuaded her mother from trying to persuade her to take some cornbread to Jacob, Sarah argued that a man Jacob’s age who had not married probably didn’t care for women in the first place and would just laugh at her if she gave him some cornbread and then she would just die of mortification.

Still, Lizzie Swain kept pestering Sarah about it, in such a persistent way that Sarah thought she would lose her mind unless she yielded. Yet even after she yielded, she was reluctant. Her mother baked the cornbread and then spaced the twelve other children (Murray was in bed with the frakes) along the route to Jacob’s cabin at strategic intervals in descending order of age. Then she put the cornbread into Sarah’s hands and shoved her out the door with such force that Sarah kept trotting as far as where Aurora was standing, and Aurora gave her a shove that sent her trotting on to Orville, who shoved her to Zenobia, and so on, down the line, down the road to Jacob’s cabin, where little Gilbert was waiting, last in line, last to push. He was only four, and pushing was a difficult feat for his small age, but his mother had patiently explained it to him, how it was necessary in order for him to have a “brother-in-law,” making brother-in-law sound like something wonderful, so when Sarah came trotting up, her black hair streaming behind her, he clenched his little tongue between his teeth and got his hands on her buttocks and shoved for all he was worth, propelling her right up against Jacob’s door, which she banged against, causing Jacob to open it, and her momentum was such that even though her body had stopped moving her hands kept going and thrust the cornbread into Jacob’s hands.

Then she just stood there with her hands behind her and stared down at her feet and began to get very red in the face. Jacob duplicated her posture and color exactly, except that he couldn’t put his hands behind his back because he had cornbread in them. He just stood there and looked down