South Moon Under by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Author:Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings [Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-963-523-014-3
Publisher: Booklassic
Published: 1933-03-15T00:00:00+00:00
Chapter 18
Cleve and Piety were at supper when Lant returned from his raft-trip. He grinned at them from the doorway and tossed his grandfather's old leather wallet on the kitchen table in front of his mother. She opened it and took her eyes from him a moment to make a rough count of the bills.
Cleve said, "Lemme see."
Piety said, "Hit do pay mighty good."
Lant dropped down beside her and poked his grimy fingers in her plate. He dipped a piece of sweet potato in the bacon gravy and gulped it down.
"Dog take it," he said, "I'm hongry. These is the first white man's rations I've seed."
"Now you tell me," she said, "how'd you cook and manage?"
"You git me filled up, you'll be more like to hear what I got to tell."
He ate from her plate while she heaped another for him.
"I got no pie nor puddin'," she said. "I wa'n't expectin' you."
Cleve said sulkily between mouthfuls, "If I'd knowed we was waitin' on Lant to git pie and puddin' on the table, I'd of goed to Kezzy for it."
Piety said anxiously, "I ain't meant to be scarce with sich as that, Cleve." She turned to Lant. "We been workin' mighty hard. We got two hundred pounds o' meat smokin', and half the sweet pertaters dug before the moon begun to wane."
Cleve said belligerently, "I got 'coon hides salted, most enough to bring as much money as you got."
Lant reached for a pork spare-rib.
"We 'bout to make us a livin', dogged if we ain't."
The fire in the kitchen range was deeply comforting. He sat on the bench beside it while Piety washed the dishes.
"Put me on a kettle o' water time you're done, Ma. It'll take water hot enough to scald a hog to get the stink off me."
"Well, you smell all right to me," she said. "I ain't felt too easy, and you on that river."
"I reckon you figger it'll pay to go ahead with the rest o' them logs," Cleve said.
"You mighty right."
"That raftin's a man's work," Piety said doubtfully. "Now you tell me about the cookin'."
"The first night and the last un, we done tied up the raft to the bank and cooked on shore. 'Tother times we cooked oncet a day on the raft."
"Didn't the water git to the fire?"
"The logs sticks up consid'able."
"Didn't the fire burn the logs?"
"No. We piled water lettuce and wet river trash on top and made the fire on top o' that."
"Well, I do know."
Cleve asked, "How'd you git home agin?"
"Rowin' and towin'. We got a tow part-way up the St. John's and up the Ocklawaha from Riverside to Orange Springs. We rowed home from the Ferry."
It was agreed that he would make two more trips with Ramrod while Cleve trapped. He would be through in time to trap, too, before spring. It was hard to think of the trapping and the farm work and the garden. He felt unsteady on his feet, as though the earth were liquid. His mind moved forward to February and March and April, but the core of his body still drifted on the river.
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