The Women on the Porch by Caroline Gordon

Author:Caroline Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.S. Sanders books
Published: 1993-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

XII

AT HALF PAST SEVEN Maria entered the cabin. Old Joe was lying flat on his back. He raised himself with a groan and, doubling up one of his pillows, propped himself against it.

“You needn’t be settin’ up so high for what you got,” Maria said.

He sighed contentedly. “I reckon I got something,” he said. “Ain’t never been a night they didn’t send me something.”

“War’n’t much supper tonight,” Maria told him. “Least nothing you’d eat. But I got you some snaps here. And Miss Kit sont you some cheese.”

She went to the iron kettle which sat on the hearth and ladled some snap beans and a strip of salt pork on to the plate she had brought from the house. Joe rested the plate on his hunched-up knees. He took a bite of the cheese before he ate any of the pork or beans. “Jesse goin’ to relish this,” he said. “She got the box off, didn’t she?”

“Was some of that cheese,” Maria said, “and cakes; what they call Fig Newtons. And some chocolate cakes, too, with icing. And a box of candy. She didn’t send no sardines.”

She pulled a rocker up to the hearth and sat down. The fire that she kept burning there at all seasons of the year smouldered dimly through ashes. She drew the ashes away with a poker and, taking up a turkey wing fanned the embers until they glowed, then laid some chips on top of them and, leaning back in her chair, stared into the rising flames.

Joe had finished his supper. “Here, woman!” he called sharply. She rose and took the plate and knife and fork from him, washed and dried them and resumed her seat.

He remained propped on his pillows, surveying the room, lit now by the dancing flames. He ran his tongue over his lips, then wiped them on the back of his hand. “I reckon she’ll send some sardines next time,” he said.

“May not be no next time,” Maria said.

Joe was silent. “You slop them hogs?” he asked suddenly.

“Miss Kit’s tending to them hogs,” Maria said, “her and Rodney.”

Joe laughed. “Miss Kit’s just like Miss Agnes. Likes to be around stock. Miss Agnes used to go with me to feed the stock when she was so little she couldn’t hardly get through the grass. And after she’s grown she used to pick her out a calf every year and shell corn for it herself . . . Got out in the lot once when I was butchering. Had my maul raised to fell a steer and here comes Miss Agnes. ‘I’ll kill you, Uncle Joe!’ she says and she bit me on the hand till I had to drop my maul. I told Mister Jack, I says, ‘I can butcher anything on this place you want butchered, but how anybody going to butcher with Miss Agnes swarming up ’em like a weasel?’ Mister Jack, he told me to put away my maul, said we wouldn’t butcher nothing else that day. And he sont that steer off the place.

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