Quilly Hall. Benjamin W. Farley
stopped by the swing. “Kiss me!” she mumbled, with slurred speech. I leaned forward to hug her. A stagnant odor rose from her breath. I kissed her neck and stared at her bare feet.
“Run along now,” she said, as she pushed off to swing more.
I ran outside, to one of the outbuildings, climbed the wooden steps to its loft, and peered out its front window toward the porch. Aunt Rachel had fallen out of the swing and was struggling to get up. Just then, my mother came to the porch. “Rachel!” she blurted. “Are you hurt?” She must have seen the bottle and surmised Aunt Rachel’s state. “Oh, Rachel,” she moaned. “He wasn’t worth it. You’ve got to get over this.” She bent down and helped her to her feet. Aunt Rachel staggered inside, with my mother’s arm about her waist. I could hear Aunt Rachel laughing, but it was one of those cheerless, inebriated laughs.
That weekend, Uncle Everett came to take me to his place. Aunt Rachel watched him from her bedroom, upstairs, but never came down. I could see her pull back the curtains, before she withdrew from the window.
Uncle Everett drove a rusty-red pickup truck that always had handfuls of hay or straw and farm equipment in its bed. He chuckled as I climbed in beside him and my mother closed the door. She had to swing it hard to make it shut. He motioned for her to come to his window. “How much longer does she plan to stay?” he nodded toward the house.
“She’ll be all right. She’s sobered up now, but you never can tell,” my mother replied.
She put her hand up to his door. He had rolled his window down. He placed his hand over hers. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked.
“Yes. Marion’s a good man.”
“I wish I could believe you,” he stared at her. “Marriages are supposed to be forever, you know. That’s a long time.” He turned the ignition switch on and continued to study her face.
“Go on, now!” she said, lowering her eyes. “Tommy! Behave,” she uttered as an afterthought.
“We’ll have a great time,” Uncle Everett pressed her hand once more. He turned toward me and smiled. “How ’bout it, boy? What do you say?”
“Yes sir!”
“You do what he says, now,” my mother commanded me. “He’ll bring you home Sunday.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She backed away from the truck, as Uncle Everett turned it about in the dirt drive, and we headed for his farm.
We drove into Abingdon near the Sinking Springs Presbyterian Church; then crossed over Main and turned left on Whites Mill Road.
“Will we get to see the mill?” I asked.
“That’s where we’re heading. Then we’ll come back to the farm.”
It took about twenty minutes to drive to the mill. I had visited it once before. I had been with my mother and grandmother, and they had driven all the way across town and past the Laurel Springs Bottom, just to have a bushel of corn ground to a fine powder. It was white corn, which my grandmother preferred to yellow corn for her spoonbread and cornpone cakes.
Soon after passing the Laurel Springs, the creek began descending swiftly through a deep grassy gorge, bounded by steep hills and thorn bushes. A few cattle grazed in one of the higher meadows. I could see them nudging and tugging at the short grass between the rocky outcroppings. A long wooden trough came into view. It angled gently away from the creek but parallel with it. Streams of water poured through the seams of the wooden canal, as it fed the rushing current toward the mill. A huge paddle wheel turned ever so cumbersomely, as the water spilled from section to section. The mill, itself, rose three-stories tall. Its wooden planks had long ago transmuted into sodden, weathered boards. A copula graced the wood-shingled roof. Pigeons flew away as we stopped the truck and got out.
We entered the dusty building, redolent of milled wheat, ground corn, and stripped cobs. Stacks of powdery, swollen flour bags formed passageways through the mill. Below we could hear the wheel humming and watch particles of swirling dust sift up through the cracks in the wide floorboards. Since no one had met us upstairs, Uncle Everett led the way down a narrow flight of wooden steps to the grindstone below.
Tiny powdery clouds of sparkling chaff churned in the air. An old man with a red bandana about his mouth and nose turned toward us. “Well, well! Everett! Be with you in just a minute. Who’s the boy?” He slipped the bandana off his face and brought the big grindstone to a halt.
“Hamilton’s and Shaula’s. Name’s Tommy. Tommy, say hello to Mr. Archy.”
I held out my hand to shake his. He eyed me thoughtfully, hesitated a moment, and shook my hand, “He’s shore got the Edmonds brow and build. And eyes, too. Handsome boy. Your nephew, huh?” White dust covered his face and hands. Even my right hand turned white with powder.
“That’s right!” Uncle Everett replied. He rubbed his hand across my head. “Got any good cornmeal? Need to fix me and the boy some cornbread tonight. He likes it with strawberry preserves. Isn’t that right?”
I nodded as much.
The miller filled a small cloth bag with cornmeal from a large bin. “Ten cents,” he said. He filled a second one. “This one’s free for the boy.” He turned his head sideways and spat a string of tobacco juice through a crack in the floor. I could hear the rushing creek below. “He shore looks like you,” he glanced back at Uncle Everett.
“It’s the Edmonds genes,” Uncle Everett replied. “He gets them from his great-grandfather, just as I do.” There was a curt edge in his voice. He seemed moody, withdrawn. “Let’s just say his mother’s a beautiful woman, and Hamilton won her in a way I couldn’t.”
“Sorry if I upset you. You Edmonds are a strange lot!”
Uncle Everett paid Mr. Archy, and we left.
The drive to Uncle Everett’s farmhouse required returning toward town, crossing a rocky creek at a shallow ford, and proceeding a half-mile or so on a dirt lane. The latter followed a smaller creek that fed into one at a ford. Pastured hills rose to our left. Across the creek, three-to-four hundred acres of prime bottomland stretched halfway back to the Laurel Springs. The land lay dark, damp and fallow, save for a wheatfield of young green sheathes. Corn shocks and trampled fodder littered a field beside the creek.
“That’ll all be plowed up soon,” said Uncle Everett. “We’re going to fish that creek in the morning,” he pointed. “And tomorrow afternoon, we’re going horseback riding up on the ridge, just to see what’s back there. Think that’ll keep us busy?”
“Yes, sir! Will we see any wolves?”
“Not on this trip. But you never know,” he smiled.
“Will you carry a gun? Can I shoot it?”
“Your mother would kill me if I did.”
“I won’t tell. Not even Pearl.”
“You and Pearl are great buddies, aren’t you?”
“When she’s not busy. Uncle Everett, why won’t Grandmother let me call her ‘Granny?’ I always have to call her ‘Grandmother.’ Why?”
“Tell you what I’ll do. We’ll talk about that tonight. Right now we’re almost home, and you and me, Mr. Bigshot, have chores to do.”
Uncle Everett’s house came into view. It was a two-story red brick structure, with a wooden front porch, its rails painted white and floor gray. Wide brick steps led up to it. Gray shingles hung out over the porch’s deep eaves. All the windows had screens. Two chimneys, one at each end, flanked the house, though a coal furnace provided its principal heat. Uncle Everett had been married but now lived alone.
After supper, Uncle Everett lit a fire in the living room’s fireplace. Spring nights continued to be cold, long into May around Abingdon. Uncle Everett’s house was sparsely furnished