“No trees?” Tom asked.
“They call some of ’em trees, but they’re more like bushes. And they ain’t got the rivers and the creeks like we got down here. Ain’t got the critters we got. And it’s harder to make you somethin’ to eat. Can’t grow nothin’.”
“Daddy says times are hard here,” I said.
“They’re hard all over. But here ain’t nothin’ like North Texas, and those poor people in Oklahoma and Kansas.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, Harry, they ain’t got the soil we got here to begin with. You can drop a seed in the ground here and it’ll grow… Look there, I got a bite… Damn! Took the worm off my hook. Danged fish are smarter than you think.”
Grandma pulled up the line and Tom put another worm on it.
“It was rough up there in North Texas. One day they had somethin’ growin’. Corn, cotton, peas, and such, then it got dry. Didn’t no rain come and the ground got crusty as a scab. A few clouds floated around to tease us now and then, but they wouldn’t give up water. Finally they quit jokin’ us and just went away altogether. Everything got baked. Corn yellowed on the stalks, ears shriveled up like caterpillars on a hot piece of tin. Taters rotted in the ground, or when they were dug they were like pine knots. Not fit to eat, even if you boiled them from here till next Sunday, put salt and pepper all over ’em, and beat ’em with a hammer. Cotton wouldn’t grow and the peas burned up.
“Dirt got so dry it turned like face powder. Wind come along, all blue norther and wild, picked up the dirt, made a cloud of it, and blew it around. Then there was grit in everything. ’Tween your teeth, in the crack of your butt, twixt your toes, in anything you had to eat and drink. That ole wind worked dirt out from under rocks and sucked all the goodness out of the soil, leavin’ just sand that would run through your fingers like water. Then there were the grasshoppers.”
“We got grasshoppers,” Tom said.
“ ’Course you do. But they ain’t starvin’ to death here, and they ain’t eatin’ everything green or brown that’s got some life in it. They came from all over, them hoppers. They ate what was left growin’. Ate the leaves off the bushes, ate them things they call trees up there. And they was always gettin’ in your hair. It was a mess. Then them dark clouds of dust that hung around got caught up good on the constant wind, and the sky turned black as preacher sin, ’cept for where the sun bled through like a bloody, seepin’ head. All that dirt blowed away, all the decent topsoil toted off to God knows where. Then all them folks started headin’ out to California for pickin’ jobs. Went out there in old cars and trucks as worn out as the crops and the people in ’em.”
“Pickin’?” I asked.
“Fruit and berries, Harry. Whatever they got grows out there needs pickin’. There’s Okies goin’ by the hundreds out that way. Texans too. I figure they’re just chasin’ that dirt blowed away, like chasin’ a dream. Anyway, they all went west, and I figured I’d go the other way.”
“What about Aunt Earlene?”
Grandma cast her fresh worm out into the water.
“She and her husband was dead-set for California. They done been told it’s the Promise Land, and they believe it. I figured I didn’t want to get that far from Texas. I want to die in Texas. East Texas anyway. Least I’ll be in damp ground and not some dusty hole. I like to think a worm can live in this dirt, and if it and all its friends eat me, then I at least get carried all over East Texas.”
“That’s awful, Grandma.”
She laughed. “Well, I don’t think so. I’d rather be the turds the worms leave than slow rot in dry ground. Here the earth’s held down by trees and roots and kept damp by creeks, rivers, and a high-up waterline. ’Cause of that, I wanted to be here. And I hadn’t had no real time with you and Tom. Earlene’s boys are in their teens, and they’ve got plans of their own, and I hope long as I live never to pick another ball of cotton nor another berry neither, ’less I’m just pickin’ for myself to eat.”
“I’m almost twelve.”
“What?”
“You said Aunt Earlene’s kids are in their teens. I’m almost in mine.”
“He is old,” Tom said.
“I suppose he is,” Grandma said. “But your Mama and Daddy have kept you close to the house, Harry. They ain’t made you work like Earlene’s young’ns had to work and are gonna have to work out there in that California. I think they won’t find it near as promisin’ as they think. I tried to tell ’em, but it’s their business, you know.”
“I’ll work.”
“Know you will. But you don’t need to work like them… Why ain’t you gettin’ any schoolin’?”
“School ain’t got a teacher.”
“Say it ain’t. Well, I’ve done some teachin’ from time to time. Not that my English is all that good, but it can get better when I want it to. I wasn’t so dead-set on doin’ little to nothin’ right now, I’d be your teacher. I can do that anyway. Back at the house. We can do readin’, writin’, and ’rithmatic without any ole teacher. I can teach you and Thomasina a few things.”
“We ain’t gonna start right away, are we?” Tom asked.
“Naw.”
“Lookee there, Grandma,” I said. “A big ole cottonmouth moccasin.”
A black head was poking out of the brown water, slipping close to the bank. A moccasin always made my skin crawl.
Grandma picked up the shotgun and let loose with one barrel. The moccasin’s head disappeared.
“Never could stand those nasty sonsabitches,” Grandma said.
The leaves had fallen on and all around us, almost thick as a blanket.
Tom, full of biscuits, rabbit, and gravy, warmed by the soft earth and made cozy by the blowing leaves, curled up and tried to listen for a while, but was soon fast asleep.
Grandma said, “Ain’t she precious.”
“When she’s asleep.”
“Harry, your Daddy sure didn’t want to talk about Mose much. Is there somethin’ wrong about Mose?”
“No ma’am.”
“You’re lyin’ to me, Harry. I can tell. But I bet it’s ’cause you’re doin’ it for your Daddy. That’s an understandable lie.”
I didn’t contradict her. I took a keen interest in my fishing pole.
“Your Daddy wants you to keep a secret, I figure there’s a good reason. Jacob’s a good man, if a little hot-tempered.”
“Daddy? I ain’t never seen any real temper. He’s fussed at me and Tom from time to time. And he poured water on my head once for sassin’ Mama, and we’ve got some spankin’s for stuff we done, but I ain’t never seen him really lose his temper.”
“He’s got it. I guess truth is he ain’t hot-tempered, he’s just bad-tempered. He don’t lose his temper easy, so hot ain’t right. But it’s a bad one when it goes off.”
I doubted this too, but didn’t say anything.
“Hope you don’t never see it, ’cause it’s an ugly thing. And hope you don’t have it yourself. A temper really ain’t worth nothin’. Jacob’s prideful too. In a good way mostly. But somethin’s always tamperin’ with your pride, and if you got too much of it, it ain’t pride no more. It’s prideful. Take a fall from that, it’s hard to get up. I’ve seen it. But there ain’t no better-meanin’ man than your Daddy.”
“Grandma. Do you know Red Woodrow?”
“You met him?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“He used to be one of your Mama’s suitors. She had a lot of ’em. It might be hard to figure now, lookin’ at me, but so did I in my day. But your Mama had them all on a string. Your Daddy and Red. But she met Red first, and they were pretty serious.”
“Really serious?”
“Uh huh. But Red he had ways. Just a little off center. Folks said he done mean things to animals, but I don’t know that’s true. People like to talk, especially they don’t like someone. One thing’s for sure, his home wasn’t none too good. Not just poor folks. Hell, we were all poor and are poorer now for the most part. But his Daddy whupped him, and his Mama she liked to go with the men.”
“Mama said he was raised mostly by Miss Maggie?”
“What raisin’ he got that woman done it, but he didn’t get much. She wasn’t in any position to do it, and her being colored, that didn’t give her a lot of say. Red mostly raised himself up, and it wasn’t a good raisin’ lots of the time.”