The Ancestors
Giving time for Grandpa’s words to finish, I stay beside the old graves. The large stones here are Edwin’s and Cora’s. I first heard their story when I was a mere handful of a young’un.
Winter evenings of my growing-up years were passed in front of the fire, listening to stories. Mama read The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Goose Girl, and Rapunzel.
But my favorite story came from Grandpa. He lifted me to his lap and told me about The Ancestors and the No-accounts. I recall reflections of firelight in his eyes while his beard dipped and rose with his words.
“The ancestors, Edwin and Cora, trekked over the mountains nigh on a hunnert and fifty years ago,” he said. “They paid men ta lead ‘em ta the wilderness beyond the mountains, ta make a new home. But them men was no-accounts a-stealin’ their money.
“Cora was carryin’ a babe inside ‘er, and that slowed ‘em down some. Them no-accounts was in such a’ all-fired hurry ta git away with the money, they snuck out in the dead’a night and left Edwin and Cora alone atop a ridge. Know where that ridge is?”
“Where, Grandpa?” Not quite five years old, I didn’t yet realize this story was different from the others.
“This here house is a-settin’ on it. When cold weather come on early, they holed up in a cave. Tight as peel on taters, that cave set beside a stream a-teemin’ with fish. And in the cave, a spring flowed. Ya know where that cave is?”
“The spring house!” I bounced up and down, excited to have reasoned the answer, excited to realize that Edwin and Cora drank from the same spring that keeps our food cool.
“Cora done birthed her baby in that cave, and they named the stream a-flowin’ past it fer their new daughter.”
“Rebecca!” I shrieked. “The baby was Rebecca!”
I smile at that childhood memory, as I go back up the hill, where Grandpa presses dirt around the edges of Great-Uncle Fred’s memorial stone. His face looks more weathered than the stone, and his gray beard hangs heavy on a face that doesn’t resist its weight. His eyes are like muddy puddles in a furrowed field, furrows of worry plowed through his laugh lines.
What took his smile away? Serious-talking with his wife? Thoughts of his brother? Haints from the war? Mama and Daddy often speak of haints that plague his mind, but I never see them.
“Grandpa,” I say softly.
He looks up and his smile splits the gray beard. The light comes back to his eyes, and his face sheds twenty years. Might be I do chase away his haints, like Aunt Freddie says.
I ask what he’s doing, though I already know.
“Tryin’ ta keep the kin on the hill,” he says with a laugh.
I point to Fred’s memorial stone. “You don’t need to keep Great-Uncle Fred on the hill if he isn’t here.”
“But I want his stone rooted firm.” The stone sits in a row with Grandpa’s three sisters, who died of typhoid.
We walk among gravestones and he tells me about each one. “This is George Kent, Rebecca’s son, and George’s wife, Alice.”
We walk the entire cemetery, as Grandpa names each and everybody buried there. Rebecca’s son, George. George’s son, John. John’s son, John Walter. John Walter was Grandpa’s daddy. Grandpa says their names with the reverence of a prayer, and he brushes dirt off each stone.
“Looking after dead folks is a heap of work,” I say.
“Them dead folks is where we come from. Respectin’ ‘em is our duty. When you git married, ya need a man strong enough ta do the work and carin’ enough ta want to.”
“I’ll remember that if I ever get married.” I don’t want to talk about dead folks or getting married. I want Grandpa to talk about our trip, seeing automobiles, and riding a train. I want pictures in my head to erase One-Thumb’s warning.
