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Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt!

J >> Jewell Ellen Smith >> Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt!



GREAT JEHOSHAPHAT AND GULLY DIRT!

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Copyright (c) 1975. All rights reserved.





"Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt" is presently out of print.
It is reproduced here in its entirety. Copies of the first
edition of the original work are available by e-mail from
nkemp@busprod.com, or WSmithMD@aol.com.


All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version
of the Bible.




Chapter 1

An usher I'd not seen before carefully wheeled my chair down
the center aisle and over to the right so that I would be facing
the pulpit. Most Sunday mornings I sat on the opposite side of
the church. But this usher didn't know that. Oh well, no matter.

The usher was saying something to me, but before I could
adjust my hearing aid, I had to push my shawl back and slip a
glove. By then, he had quit talking.

He let my chair roll to a stop so close to the chancel rail.
I could have reached out and kicked it with my foot-that is, I
had been in the mood to kick a chancel railing and if I could
have moved either foot.

I was almost in a kicking mood!

No, no! I shouldn't think of such a thing as kicking that
brass rail. I should be wishing I could kneel down before it.
Somehow, though, my mind wasn't on praying.

The usher stepped back, then hesitated.

"Will this be all right, Mrs. Goode? Can you hear Dr.
Shirey's sermon from here? Or would you rather be a little over
toward the choir and the organ?"

"This is fine. Thank you kindly." I was surprised the man
knew my name.

He smiled and handed me the morning bulletin.

The minute the usher's back was turned, I clicked off my
hearing aid so that I wouldn't have to listen to the pastor's
sermon, the organ, or anything else. I just wanted-well, I didn't
know exactly what I wanted.

The only reason in this round world I kept coming to Central
Avenue Church was that it was right across the street from
Crestview Rest Home, and I had to get out and away from that
place once in a while. Crestview wasn't so bad, as nursing homes
go. In fact, it was all right. Still, any rest home is a sad
comedown from one's own house-and such a change.

As the congregation filed in, I looked about me. The
sanctuary, quiet and beautiful with its stained-glass windows,
its high, arched ceiling, and its deep carpets, was the only
serene spot I had found since I came to the city. Out on the
streets all was rush, confusion, turmoil-enough to drive one to
distraction.

Here, too, I managed to block out for a little while the
feeling of helplessness I'd had since I became so frail. The
doctors kept saying that my general condition was good and my
arthritis might improve some. But as yet I couldn't see much
change.

To make myself lift my head and quit looking at my stiff,
swollen knees, I turned toward the nearest window. I liked those
green velvet curtains and the matching cushions on the pews. Both
were the exact color of an Arkansas pine in early spring, when it
takes on new life and puts forth myriads of tender buds, each a
creamy, candle-like shoot, lovely enough to adorn a sacred altar.

I gazed at the candles on the altar and at the open Bible,
crisscrossed with its narrow scarlet ribbons. The sight of that
Bible was always a pleasure. It brought back memories my old
church down at Drake Eye Springs-small, standing so calm in its
grove of aged white oaks.

That little church had everything a big church has-except a
steeple. But the colored folks up at Sweet Beulah Hill had a
steeple. They had built a tall belfry and spire for church, and
Sweet Beulah's bell could be heard for miles.

But it wasn't green curtains or candles or the memory of old
country churches with their Bibles and bells that drew me to this
large sanctuary. And it wasn't the quiet beauty of the room that
made me want to come. It was my duty to be in some church.

Besides, the young minister had invited me to attend. I
didn't care for Dr. Shirey's sermons. Not yet. But I did like
him, and no doubt his sermons would improve. After all, a
preacher is like wine. To warm the heart, each must age.

Young Dr. Shirey visited the nursing home every Tuesday
afternoon, talking and passing the time of day with each of us.
He always let me talk of my late husband Wallace, of our children
and grandchildren. Lovely youngsters, little Vic, Nan, Jodie. Dr.
Shirey seemed to understand why I refused to go live with any of
my children after my health failed so.

Sometimes the young preacher and I discussed religion. One
day I took up practically an hour of his time with the tales
about my preacher grandpa, Grandpa Dave. Dr. Shirey was intrigued
with the old man's ministry. And for some reason or other, he was
delighted to hear about Grandpa's double buggy and his matched
white mares, Martha and Mary. He said it made him wish he could
have been a country preacher back in horse-and-buggy times.

I was much concerned for Dr. Shirey. Standing there now
behind the pulpit, he looked bone tired. And no wonder, for
besides his parish work he was forever running here and there-to
the juvenile detention home, the clinic for alcoholics, the
mental health center, the Black ghetto. Often, he told me, he got
discouraged over it all.

Never did I mention to him how I felt: bewildered, lost, like
an autumn leaf caught up in an angry storm and carried far away
from its forest, a leaf that longed to stay where it was, there
to turn golden yellow, then brown, and finally, late on a winter
evening, to flutter to the ground and to its sleep beneath the
trees.

Nor would I ever breathe to my young pastor that some days I
was utterly cast down, so broken in heart that I wished I were a
little girl again and could run and hide under my grandma's bed.
I couldn't confide such a thing to Dr. Shirey. It would show I
had lost courage -as so many older persons do when change comes
with the years. Half the patients at Crestview are like that.
They don't want to keep up. They want to look back. My roommate
has that attitude, and I try to tell her not to give up, to face
the present, to look to the future. It's all right to remember
bygone days with a grain or two of nostalgia, but there's no need
living in the past.

I was doing just that-remembering bygone days-while I waited
for the choir to finish its anthem. When I was a little girl in
Arkansas, in the section of low Ouachita hills that lies between
the Mississippi River and the Red, our manner was slow and
simple, down to earth as gully dirt. The horse-and-buggy days
were already fading away, but we didn't sense it. The swift pace
that was to come, virtually overnight, was still undreamed of.
There were not many automobiles, no superhighways, no jets, and
no spacecraft. In south Arkansas, the fastest thing on wings was
a thieving chicken hawk, and anything in the sky bigger than a
buzzard was referred to as a "flying machine."

There seemed to be fewer problems then. Nobody had yet
thought to build nursing homes and institutions for this, that,
and every other kind of person with a complaint. The elderly,
maimed, halt and blind were sheltered beside the hearth of their
blood kin.

The Negroes I knew-Shoogie, Doanie, Sun Boy, Ned, Little
Stray, and all the rest-lived out in the country close by us. I
couldn't have managed without Shoogie, for she was my main
playmate, even though my sister Mierd and my brother Wiley were
still living at home. Why, if it hadn't been for Shoogie, I never
would have learned to build a good frog house in the sand. I'd
love to see Shoogie again. After she married Doanie's oldest boy,
they went off to the West Coast. I'd like to be with her,
climbing pine saplings, wading in the branch, and jumping deep
gullies!

We were all eating our white bread then and didn't know it.

There were no alcoholics. A heavy drinking man was a sot, a
sinner. Women didn't drink-or if they did, they didn't tell it.
And as for mental health, it was an unheard-of term. Any persons
slightly off were said to be "curious," or at worst, "touched in
the head." They were tolerated by family and friends, while those
considered dangerous were sent off to be locked up in the state
asylum.

Ah, old man Hawk! He must have had a mental problem! I hadn't
thought of that old coot in years. I wonder what a psychiatrist
would have said about him. And Miss Dink. She didn't have a
mental problem; she was just blind and had to be looked after.
Fortunately her niece, Miss Ophelia, gave her a home. And Ward
Lawson, Miss Ophelia's husband! Now he was sure a sot drunkard-an
alcoholic if there ever was one.

One summer afternoon Mama had let me ride with her in our
buggy to visit Miss Dink, who, at that time, was living with the
Lawsons on the run-down Crawford place some few miles beyond
Rocky Head Creek.

I had a gourd dipper in my hand and was skipping along the
edge of the woods on my way down the path to Miss Dink's spring.
My hair, braided tight, was tied with ribbons that flipped and
rippled as I bounced along the trail. I could smell honeysuckle
blooms and climbing jasmine, and I was wishing I had the time to
chase the yellow butterflies that were swooping and fluttering
zigzag from bush to bush. But Miss Dink had wanted me to hurry to
the spring and bring her a gourdful of fresh water. She had said,
"It ain't far from the house here to the spring, sugar. Just stay
in the trail till you hit the branch and turn down left a little
ways."

Then she had skimmed her bony fingers over my face and braids
to find out how I looked. "Ah, Nannie," she said to Mama while
she still had her hands on my cheeks, "I can tell you and Jodie
won't have no trouble a-tall marrying your baby off. She's pretty
as a pink. What color's her eyes and hair?" Miss Dink patted my
head.

"Her eyes are sort of greenish blue, like a gander's. And her
hair's about as yellow as a crooked-neck squash when it's good
and ripe. But that don't matter. If Bandershanks does as well as
she looks, she'll fare fine."

"Just so she ain't got buck teeth. Many's the old maid I've
seen with teeth like a beaver."

"Well, we can't be sure about her teeth yet. She's still got
her baby set." Mama looked down at me.

I kept thinking about Miss Dink's eyes. Mama had told me she was
losing her sight. Poor thing. The minute she said I was
pretty as a flower, I knew she was plum blind, for I wasn't
pretty. It hadn't been two days since Wiley had told me I looked
exactly like a billy goat.

Mama was saying, "Bandershanks, you take Miss Ophelia's gourd
out of the water bucket on the porch and run get some fresh
spring water. Follow the trail now, like Miss Dink said."

I was following the trail, but I was beginning to think I
wasn't ever going to find that spring. Then I heard Mister Ward
Lawson yelling at his wife.

"Good God A' mighty, Ophelia! Damn you! What in God's name
are you doin' down here, roamin' round at the branch this time of
the evenin'?"

"Just looking for berries, Ward."

"Berries, hell. You're lookin' for my still, that's what
you're doin'. Huckleberries ain't ripe yet!"

"Still? What still?"

"My whiskey still!"

Miss Ophelia dropped the basket on her arm. "Lord help my
time. You must be lying to me, Ward."

There they were, right down the trail in front of me-Miss
Ophelia wringing her hands and twisting them up in her flimsy
apron, Mister Ward shaking his fist at her.

I darted behind the nearest sapling.

"Naw, I ain't lyin'! I'm aimin' to turn out some first-rate
whiskey and roll in big money doin' it!" Mister Ward grinned and
let his clenched fist unfold so he could push his hair up from
his eyes. His fat, sweaty face was as red as his hair.

"Don't you know somebody'll turn you in so quick it'll make
your head swim? Folks in this settlement ain't gonna allow no
whiskey-making!"

Mister Ward spit out a wad of tobacco and wiped his shirt
sleeve across his mouth. My papa didn't ever let his shirt get as
dirty as Mister Ward's.

"You wanta bet?"

"There ain't a drinking man in Drake Eye Springs, 'cept you!
They'll ride you out on a rail, even before the Law gets wind of
it."

"Hell, gal, that's where you're wrong! Ain't nobody findin'
out about my still. It's gonna be hid good. Quit wringin' your
damn hands! That's all you know to do ever' time I try to tell
you somethin'. Com'ere. Lemme show you the spot I got picked for
settin' it up at." He grabbed his wife's arm and they started up
the branch. The bottom of her skimpy skirt caught on a briar
vine, but Mister Ward wouldn't wait for her to untangle it, so it
got torn.

I had already noticed when Miss Ophelia lifted her apron that
her dress was stretched so tight against her stomach it was like
a sack on a rooster. But Miss Ophelia didn't look much like a
rooster. The freckles, thick on her face and arms, made her look
more like a poor little brown speckled wood thrush wearing a
bonnet and being dragged along by one wing.

She kept stumbling on with Mister Ward, and he kept shouting
to her about some contraption he wanted to build. I couldn't
figure out what he was talking about. But, whatever it was, Miss
Ophelia didn't like it.

"See this level ridge? My platform for the mash barrels is
gonna be right 'long here under these willows. Ah, here's where
I'm gonna set my drum. It'll be pure copper. That's what I'm
gonna buy-a pure copper drum! Won't that be a beaut?
Undergrowth's so heavy in here even you couldn't spot at first!
Now, could you?"

"Oh, Ward, you can't do this! It ain't right to make
moonshine!" Miss Ophelia was beginning to cry. "It'll ruin us!
Think what could happen! All our young'uns need clothes so bad,
Ward! If you've got money to-"

"Shut up, Ophelia! Stop that Goddamn cryin' and snifflin'."

Now that they were out of sight, I tiptoed back to the
narrow, winding trail. I dropped the water gourd, and it got sand
and grit inside. I didn't know whether to pick it up and run back
up the hill to the house or whether to skedaddle on to the spring
and dip up Miss Dink's cool water, like she had told me to do.

I grabbed the gourd and swiped it out as best I could with
the tail of my underskirt. I could still hear Miss Ophelia and
Mister Ward. Her sobbing and his yelling sounded like they had
stopped close by, but there were so many dogwood bushes and briar
vines and pine trees growing tangled together on both sides of
the trail that I couldn't tell for sure where they were. I ran on
down the hill.

When I got even with Miss Ophelia's berry basket I slowed
down to look at it, but I didn't dare touch it. It was lying
bottom side up, but I couldn't see any huckleberries spilling
out.

The more Mister Ward shouted at Miss Ophelia, the faster I
scooted on down the steep hillside. Once I stumped my toe on the
root of a sweet gum tree and fell. But I held on to the gourd. As
I was getting up, I saw the spring just ahead.

I decided I'd better wash the dipper in the branch water
before I stuck it into the deep, clear spring. As I waded out to
the middle of the branch, cool sand oozed up between my toes, and
for a minute I forgot all about Mister Ward's loud, ugly talking.

But I heard him again.

"I don't know why in hell you can't get it through your thick
skull, Ophelia! I got it all figured out. All I gotta do is rake
up money to buy the copper cooker, and I'm sure gonna get it, one
way or another. 'Course, this summer I'll have to buy chops and
rye too. But come another year, I'm gonna plant a heap of corn. I
ain't gonna raise a stalk of cotton on the whole place. That
won't set so good with old Ned. But hell, if that nigger don't
like it, he can lump it! I got new plans for him anyways."

"New plans?"

"Yeah. He's gonna be helpin' with the runs. And them
burr-headed boys of his are gonna be cuttin' wood and keepin' up
the fires. Ah, I tell you, it's gonna be a perfect setup! Like
Hicks said, I got plenty of water and a nice spot here in this
hollow, way own the main road. Even the smoke ain't gonna drift
far! Can't figure why I haven't done rigged me up a still long
ago. Like Hicks said, ain't no need of a man with my brains
workin' hisself to death walkin' behind no plow!"

"Who's this Hicks you're talking about?"

"You don't know him, Ophelia. He's sorta my business partner.
Lives down below the State Line Road. Now, he's a moneyed man!
He's got him one of them automobiles! Me and him's goin' in
together fifty-fifty. I'm gonna take the whiskey to him in big
batches-gallons and five gallons. Naturally, I'll be obliged to
get myself a automobile! Then Hicks-"

"A automobile?"

"That's what I said! A automobile! I'll buy me one soon's the
money starts pilin' in. Then, by God, when I ride through Drake
Eye Springs, folks won't say, 'Yonder goes OLD WARD.' They'll
say, 'Yonder goes MISTER WARD LAWSON.'"

"And I'll say, 'Yonder goes the biggest red-headed fool the
Lord ever let breathe!'"

"Makin' easy money ain't bein' a fool, Ophelia! Like I was
fixin' to tell you, after we get the whiskey 'cross the Louisiana
line, Hicks can sell it retail-you know, in fifths. And sometimes
by the drink. We'll get a sight more for it that way. He's gonna
get regular customers lined up and see to it that I'll have
plenty of sugar-two or three hundred pounds at a time. He can
arrange with a fellow so there won't be no suspicion round here.
You know yourself if I was to go to Drake Eye Springs and start
buyin' a heap of sugar at Mister Jodie's store, that'd be a dead
giveaway. Say, he might be the very one to loan me some money!
Providin' I don't let on to him what it's for."

"Ward, you ain't talking sense! You're just-"

"Dammit, woman, shut your mouth! This is the first sensible
thing I ever-Good God A' mighty! Ophelia, look down yonder at the
spring! Who in hell's that? Heerd ever' damn word I said! Why
didn't you tell me somebody was around? Looks like some
young'un!"

"I didn't know nobody was here. I sent the young'uns to fetch
the cow, and I left the house just a minute ago to come look for
berries."

"Ophelia, that's that damn little gal of Mister Jodie's and
Miss Nannie's! I swear to God, if she tells her pa, I'll kill
her! I'll kill her! So help me!"

It was me, all right! I snatched up the water gourd and
started streaking back up the trail!

"Good God, Ward! You're drunk, or crazy! Don't say such a
thing! Anyhow, she's so little she wouldn't know what's going on!
See how little she is? Just look at her spindly legs!"

I didn't have time to look at my spindly legs. I just tried
to go faster!

"Ain't no little gal gonna stop me! Dammit! I'm gonna set up
my still come the devil to my doorstep! And if the Law comes
bustin' it up, I'll know exactly who turned me in! Woman, you get
on to the house and see who all else's up there. I swear to God!
Don't nothin' ever go right for me! Get!"

"I'm going, Ward. I'm going. Miss Nannie must've come to set
with poor Aunt Dink."

"Poor Aunt Dink! Poor Aunt Dink! That's all I hear! When's
that old blind bitch ever gonna die?"

"Ward, she's my aunt! She raised me from a baby!"

"Yeah, yeah! From a bastard baby. You've told me ten times
how your ma died a-birthin' you and didn't nobody want you, so
Miss Dink and her old man taken you and raised you. Then, fool
me, I come along and married you! My pa told me I'd rue the day.
He said I ought to marry me a big rawboned gal-one that could
plow a mule and do a day's work in the field. Pa was a blame fool
about lots of things, but he sure know'd women. He said these
little stringy ones like you ain't good for a confounded thing
but birthin' young'uns, and he was sure right. Here I am
thirty-nine years old, goin' on forty, and ain't got a damn thing
but two old mules, some wore-out plows, and a houseful of
young'uns-and you expectin' another one."

I was so far up the slope now I didn't try to hear any more
Mister Ward said. Nearly half of Miss Dink's water had sloshed
out of the gourd before I could get it back up to the house, but
Miss Dink and Mama didn't seem to notice, or care either. Mama
wouldn't even listen when I started to tell her Mister Ward was
going to kill me. She just shushed me and whispered she was proud
of me for being so smart and for me to sit down on the floor by
her straight chair.

Mama and Miss Dink were talking about the World War and about
Miss Dink's nephew, who was already fighting way across the
waters in some place called France, and about my two big
brothers, who went off to the army camp. Then they got started
telling one another of long-time-ago things, with Miss Dink doing
most of the telling.

"Well sir, time's a-flying fast. It fair scares me to think
it's already 1918. The Mister, he's been in his grave ten years,
Nannie. He passed in the summer of 'aught-eight. Come the first
Sunday in June-and that'll be next Sunday-it'll be ten years,
even."

"Mama, Mister Ward said-"

"Shh, Bandershanks, Miss Dink's talking, hon."

Miss Dink talked on and on. Mama just nodded her head or
said, "Yes'm, that's right" or "Well, I declare to my soul!" or
"I reckon so."

"Mama, when is Mister Ward gonna-"

"Bandershanks, get up here in my lap and be quiet! How can me
and Miss Dink talk if you don't be quiet?"

Miss Dink started telling about hound dogs stealing goose
eggs and about how it's easier to pick a goose than a gander when
you're making feather beds. She told all about her drove of geese
that nipped off the grass in the cotton fields, and that made her
think about the summer the lice crawled off the geese and got all
in her hair.

Then Mama remembered that once when she was a little girl,
way back in Alabama, she and all the other pupils at Clay Hill
School got lice on their heads. The teacher sent word home that
every last young'un had to have his head shaved.

Miss Dink laughed. "Makes me recollect the time Ophelia
caught the seven-year itch over at Calico Neck School. I never
was so put out over nothing in all my born days. And 'course,
Ophelia just know'd she was disgraced for life! But, like I told
her, getting the itch ain't nothing, but it's sure a disgrace to
keep it! Well, sir, Nannie, I didn't have no notion of what to
do. And I couldn't let on to a soul that Ophelia had caught it,
not even to Doctor Elton. Finally, I smeared hog lard on her, and
that cleared it right up."

Mama let me slide out of her lap so she could stand up and
take my hand. "I hate to leave, Miss Dink, but I promised Jodie's
pa I'd take his new GAZETTE by the Goode place so's to read a
piece to Mister Malcolm-something about Woodrow Wilson and his
League of Nations ideas. Mr. Thad couldn't go himself, this time.
You know he walks over there ever so often to read the war news
to Mister Malcolm."

"Mister Malcolm will be proud to hear you read. He's like me:
setting there blind as a bat, with no way of knowing what's going
on, 'less somebody comes and tells him."

"Mr. Thad says the weekly's got a right sensible column about
this new law they're getting up to let women vote. I left the
paper out yonder in my buggy, but I'll go get it."

"That rigamarole is all beyond me, Nannie. I'll never live to
vote. Anyhow, that ain't women's business! Set back down, Nannie,
just for a minute."

Mama let go of my hand and sat down again in the worn-out
chair, the only one in Miss Dink's room.

"Nannie," Miss Dink whispered, raising herself up on her
elbows, "I oughtn't to breathe this, but I know you ain't gonna
talk it. Nannie, that devil Ward is running after the Bailey
girl!"

Mama caught her breath! She grabbed my hand.

"You know which one I'm talking 'bout, Nannie-Wes and Lida
Belle's daughter."

"Not Addie Mae!"

"Yeah! The darkies here on the place-Ned and Eulah-I got it
straight from them. Folks say the girl is slow-witted. She must
be, to be fooling 'round with Ward."

"Bandershanks, baby, you hurry on out front and be climbing
into our buggy."

I was so glad to get to leave I didn't even ask Mama why she
wanted me to be in a rush.

Old Dale was standing there in the shade of the tree where
Mama had hitched him, his ears dropped down, his eyes half
closed, all his weight on three feet. Once in a while he would
give his tail a swish to scare away the two horseflies that kept
settling on his hind legs.

He didn't even notice when I climbed up into the buggy seat
and started playing with the reins. I put one forefinger between
the flat, slick leather lines and joggled them up and down with
both hands. Then, stretching my legs so I could prop one foot up
on the dashboard, like Papa always did, I practiced saying
"Glick! Glick!" out of the corner of my mouth, just exactly like
Papa.

I eased the whip out of its holder and waved it round and
round high in the air. That whip was as old as the buggy but it
looked brand new, for Papa and Mama wouldn't ever use it. They
said Dale was too decrepit to be whipped. The whip's green tassel
on the wrist loop was still fluffy and soft as silk.

I was squeezing the tassel to make finger waves in it when I
saw Mama coming. I put up the whip quick!

It didn't take Mama long to get Dale untied, waked up, and
headed around toward the Drake Eye Springs road.

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