"Forgetting what?" he said.
"I mean a little too fast, dear," she said.
"Good road along here," he said. "Got to make time while the road's good." He slowed down a little. "Way I remember it," he said, "there's some stretches you can't hardly ever get a mule through, we're coming to, ain't they Ralph?"
"Oh mercy," his mother said.
"We are just raggin you," he said. "They're not all that bad. But all the same we better make time while we can." And he sped up a little.
After another two or three miles Uncle Ralph said, "Now around this bend you run through a branch and you turn up sharp to the right," and they ran through the branch and turned into a sandy woods road and his father went a little slower and a cool breeze flowed through them and his mother said how lovely this shade was after that terrible hot sun, wasn't it, and all the older people murmured that it sure was, and almost immediately they broke out of the woods and ran through two miles of burned country with stumps and sometimes whole tree trunks sticking up out of it sharp and cruel, and blackberry and honeysuckle all over the place, and a hill and its shadow ahead. And when they came within the shadow of the hill, Uncle Ralph said in a low voice, "Now you get to the hill, start along the base of it to your left till you see your second right and then you take that," but when they got there, there was only the road to the left and none to the right and his father took it and nobody said anything, and after a minute Uncle Ralph said, "Reckon they wasn't much to choose from there, was they?" and laughed unhappily.
"That's right," his father said, and smiled.
"Reckon my memory ain't so sharp as I bragged," Ralph said.
"You're doin fine," his father said, and his mother said so too.
"I could a swore they was a road both ways there," Ralph said, "but it was nigh on twenty years since I was out here." Why for goodness sake, his mother said, then she certainly thought he had a wonderful memory.
"How long since you were here, Jay?" He did not say anything. "Jay?"
"I'm a-studyin it," he said.
"There's your turn," Ralph said suddenly, and they had to back the auto to turn into it.
They began a long, slow, winding climb, and Rufus half heard and scarcely understood their disjointed talking. His father had not been there in nearly thirteen years; the last time was just before he came to Knoxville. He was always her favorite, Ralph said. Yes, his grandfather said, he reckoned that was a fact, she always seemed to take a shine to Jay. His father said quietly that he always did take a shine to her. It turned out he was the last of those in the auto who had seen her. They asked how she was, as if it had been within a month or two. He said she was failing lots of ways, specially getting around, her rheumatism was pretty bad, but in the mind she was bright as a dollar, course that wasn't saying how they might find her by now, poor old soul; no use saying. Nope, Uncle Ralph said, that was a fact; time sure did fly, didn't it; seemed like before you knew it, this year was last year. She had never yet seen Jay's children, or Ralph's, or Jessie's or Sadie's, it was sure going to be a treat for her. A treat and a surprise. Yes it sure would be that, his father said, always supposing she could still recognize them. Mightn't she even have died? his mother wanted to know. Oh no, all the Follets said, they'd have heard for sure if she'd died. Matter of fact they had heard she had failed a good bit. Sometimes her memory slipped up and she got confused, poor old soul. His mother said well she should think so, poor old lady. She asked, carefully, if she was taken good care of. Oh, yes, they said. That she was. Sadie's practically giving her life to her. That was Grandpa Follet's oldest sister and young Sadie was named for her. Lived right with her tending to her wants, day and night. Well, isn't that just wonderful, his mother said. Wasn't anybody else could do it, they agreed with each other. All married and gone, and she wouldn't come live with any of them, they all offered, over and over, but she wouldn't leave her home. I raised my family here, she said, I lived here all my life from fourteen years on and I aim to die here, that must be a good thirty-five, most, a good near forty year ago, Grampaw died. Goodness sake, his mother said, and she was an old old woman then! His father said soberly, "She's a hundred and three years old. Hundred and three or hundred and four. She never could remember for sure which. But she knows she wasn't born later than eighteen-twelve. And she always reckoned it might of been eighteen-eleven."
"Great heavens, Jay! Do you mean that?" He just nodded, and kept his eyes on the road. "Just imagine that, Rufus, she said. "Just think of that!"
"She's an old, old lady," his father said gravely; and Ralph gravely and proudly concurred.
"The things she must have seen!" Mary said, quietly. "Indians. Wild animals." Jay laughed. "I mean man-eaters, Jay. Bears, and wildcats-terrible things."
"There were cats back in these mountains, Mary-we called em painters, that's the same as a panther-they were around here still when I was a boy. And there is still bear, they claim."
"Gracious Jay, did you ever see one? A panther?"
"Saw one'd been shot."
"Goodness," Mary said.
"A mean-lookin varmint."
"I know," she said. "I mean, I bet he was. I just can't get over-why she's almost as old as the country, Jay."
"Oh, no," he laughed. "Ain't nobody that old. Why I read somewhere, that just these mountains here are the oldest…"
"Dear, I meant the nation," she said. "The United States, I mean. Why let me see, why it was hardly as old as I am when she was born." They all calculated for a moment. "Not even as old," she said triumphantly.