The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [215]
“Huh?” Every will say. “You mean everlast one o’ them bowls has got chicken dumplims in ’um?” When I nod, he will say, “Wal, heck, Nail and that lady could never eat all of them in a month of Sundays, could they?” When I will shake my head, he will say, “Wal, heck, mize well take this’un on back home.”
“Suit yourself,” I will tell him.
“But Maw tole me to leave it, I’d better leave it, don’t ye reckon?”
“Whatever ye think.”
He will set the bowl down on the porch, but in front of the others so that it might get taken first when the time will come. He will study it. “Wal, heck,” he will say, “it aint even dinnertime yet, but I wouldn’t mind havin a bite or two of that myself, if ye’d lend me the borry of a fork.”
“I’ll git ye a plate,” I will tell him and go into the house for a clean plate and a fork and a big spoon for him to serve up a pile with.
“Who’s that out there?” my mother will ask.
“Every,” I’ll tell her. “Now we’ve got twenty-four bowls of chicken’n dumplins. But I think he’s fixin to help eat part of one.”
“Law sakes,” my mother will say. “I never thought them Dills had a chicken around the place. Must’ve been a ole rooster.”
I will take the eating equipment to Every, and I will watch him eat. He will eat as if it has indeed been a long time since he’s had anything as good as chicken and dumplings, and I will reflect that given a chance he might even grow up to look and sound a little bit like Nail Chism. But right now he’ll be just a fourteen-year-old towhead who’s pretty well earned his nickname Pickle. I will scarcely be able to convince myself that I, who came awfully close to making love to Nail himself just yesterday morning, already lost my virginity to this boy a couple of years before.
This boy will pause in his chewing and ask, “What’re ye thinkin about, Latha?”
I will manage a smile. “Us,” I will say, “I aint hardly seen you since.”
He will blush furiously. But he will pretend not to know what I’m talking about. “Since when?” he will ask.
“Since that night you crope into my bed.”
“I never!” he will protest. “It was more lak you crope inter mine.”
“The bed was in your house, and your folks owned it, but it was my bed at the time.”
“But it was the bed I slept in every night of my life,” he will point out.
“But you were sposed to sleep on a pallet in th’other room,” I will remind him. “Don’t you remember?”
“Yeah, but I reckon I was kind of groggy and conflummoxed,” he will observe. “Heck, maybe I was even sleepwalkin.”
“Every Dill,” I will accuse him, “don’t you even remember what you and me did?”
“Was you awake?” he will ask.
“Silly! We talked for an hour before we did it. Don’t you remember?”
“Yeah, it kinder comes back to me,” he will admit.
“I’m sorry to hear it ever left you in the first place.”
A silence will ensue. He will be just standing there in the dirt yard beside my front porch, shuffling his bare feet in the dirt, hanging his head bashfully, poking his hands into the pockets of his overalls, and taking them out again. At length he will ask, without looking at me, “Did you not mind what we done?”
“It hurt some at first,” I will admit. “And you were awful impatient. But it was a heap of fun.”
“It was?” He will lift his eyes and search mine.
“Sure was.”
“You got all limp and still, like I’d kilt ye.”
“I reckon I must’ve just swooned for a bit.”
“Because I was hurtin ye?”
“No, because I’d done went and gone over the mountain.”
His look will tell me that he does not understand and that it would be no use, yet, for me to try to explain it. He will give me that look for a while before changing it to another look with narrowed eyes and a question: “Would ye lak to do it again?”
I will look around me as if we are being observed, and of course we are, because you, dear reader, will be observing us. In a hushed voice I will say, “Not right here. Not right now.”
He will laugh. “I never meant that. I jist meant sometime.”
“Okay,