(This is the continuation of last week’s story titled “In Search Of”)
John Clark Mosely and his one-and-a-half-year-old brother Bobby Henry set out with their cousin Jay Harvey Tatum to find their father Fletch Mosely. If truth be told, Hen hoped they didn’t find him. Hen figured Fletch would beat the sap out of them for laying out of school. “Maybe,” Hen hoped, “he won’t even know it’s a school day.” Daddy never had been much for school when he was little—he only went to (not through) the second grade, and he hadn’t been around home enough lately to know much about what was going on. Hen would never have let either his little brother or older cousin know that he was scared of his daddy, but he for “dang-shore” was!
Clark, on the other hand, truly feared nothing. Hen figured this was because he was young and carefree, but when Hen got to know his brother better in later years he would discover that Clay honestly was afraid of nothing and no one. At present Clay’s six-year-old mind just ambled along from event to event, but later in life he would develop a keen awareness of just exactly how to plan for the world to give him the most it could offer in every area.
Cousin Jay had, all his life, given every evidence of shiftlessness, and that was firmly ingrained in his nine-year-old spirit. Jay feared nothing, but not in the same way young Clark did. Jay knew that Fletch Mosely wouldn’t be mad at him for laying out of school and coming to find him. Even if Fletch did get mad and throw a fit to Jay’s folks, they couldn’t do anything with him, and everybody, especially Jay, knew it. Jay was just content to get out of another wasted day spent in school. This was a glorious opportunity for him to get out of school for the rest of his life one day sooner.
So off the three young adventurers went. The destination was the bootlegger Eaton Morelock’s place, located on Porcupine Quill Valley Road about five miles from the place they left the gravel of Tatum Holler Road. According to plan, they followed the creek bank upstream past Jay’s house (Uncle Wade’s place to the Moselys), cutting into the thicker underbrush when they came closer to the house. They wandered closer to the creek bank as they approached Pa Fain and Mother Maggie Mosely’s place. As they rounded a curve in the creekbed they froze—there at the edge of the creek sat Pa Fain in a straight back chair, washing his feet in the cool creek water. Pa Fain might only have been a skinny man little more than five feet tall, but he loomed large in presence to his two grandchildren. Jay Harvey was not intimidated by him, however—Jay was already as tall as Fain right now. Pa Fain was whittling a stick of cedar wood, the smooth pink shavings falling softly into the water at his feet. A gentle breeze was blowing downstream, and the boys could smell the fresh cedar in the clean morning air. Pa seemed to be enjoying himself, and it seemed that he would not be moving any time soon.
“What do we do now?” Clark whispered to his older brother and cousin.
“We’ll just go back upstream a little ways and cut across the creek and pass by ’im in the woods on t’other side,” Jay whispered back.
This plan was executed by our three travelers. All was going well until one of Hen’s bare feet slipped on a smooth rock covered with slime. He fell into the water with a muttered oath.
Pa Fain hollered, “Who’s that? Speak up, and I mean right now.”
Jay said, “It’s just me, Uncle Fain. I slipped in this dadblamed water and fell on my hine-end.”
Jay walked over to where Fain was sitting. Fain did not fail to notice that the only part about Jay Harvey that was wet were his feet. “What’re you doin’ there, anyhow? Ain’t you s’posed to be heading for school today?”
“That’s where I’m goin’.”
“Well, the dad-blamed path to school don’t run through the creek bed. And you’re a might dry for somethin’ that just fell on its bottom in a running creek of water. Biggest liar in Tatum Holler. You’d best git up here and git on down that road afore I take my strop to you. You might be Wade’s boy, but I don’t reckon he’d mind if I ’bliged him a bit by beating the hide off your worthless britches bottoms. My own grand young’uns went down this road more’n half a hour ago.”
“Ah, Uncle Fain, I hate to go to school now. I’ll be late and them other kids’ll make fun of me.”
“Like as not you’re ’feared that new schoolteacher will beat the hide off’n you. I’ve heard she’s a big, tall woman with a board she don’t keer to use.”
“I ain’t ’fraid of no woman schoolteacher.”
“Well, just the same, I bet she’s not as easy on young’uns as ol’ Jack Day. That’s what’s the matter with the mess of youn’s right now—he was too easy, even if he was a man. God knows you need all the learnin’ you can git. I don’t want to hear no more about it. Git out’n my sight.”
Jay started up the road in the direction toward Porcupine Quill Valley. “What the devil’s wrong with you?” Fain shouted. “Are you so crazy that you think after three years in that there school that they’ve moved it from Brown’s Fork to Porky-pine Valley? No wonder they don’t git nothin’ out of ye. Ye cain’t even find the confounded school on yer own. Ain’t eny of yer brothers goin’ today?”
“Yeah, but they got gone ’fore I did.”
“Gone—yeah. They was gone ’fore ye even got out’n th’ bed. They’re the only reason ye ever found that school in the first dadblamed place. You couldn’t find yer way out’n one end of a brown paper sack from Hob Henderson’s store. You’re the laziest thang I ever seen. I feel sorry fer Wade ever time I see ye.”
With this encouraging exchange Jay Harvey turned and went down the road toward Brown’s Fork and the school. He thought to himself, “I don’t give a dang what Fain says—I ain’t goin’ to no dern school today, nor mebbe eny other day if I can he’p it.” In about five minutes Hen and Clark caught up with Jay.
“Well, that was close,” Hen said.
“Close fer you, but this ol’ chick got caught,” Jay retorted.
“Pa would’a beat ever piece of hide off’n us if he’d caught us, ’specially with me bein’ all wet,” Hen said.
“Aw, it wouldn’a hurt. He’s wore me out a lot,” Clay bragged.
“Yeah, but I didn’t see you ready to come out’n them weeds to help out yer ol’ cousin,” Jay said.
“Heck, you didn’ need our help. Pa ain’t goin’ do nuthin’ to you, just holler a little bit,” Clark said.
“Well, what’re we goin’ do now? Go on to school?” Hen asked.
“You two fools can do what ye want, but I ain’t draggin’ in no school this late. It wouldn’t be ’spectable,” Jay postulated.
“You never keered ‘bout being a spec-tickle a day in yore life,” Clark said.
“Now’s a real good time to start,” Jay said righteously.
“Ah, heck, we’re in fer it enyway,” Hen said. All of the others’ll tell on us for shore.”
“What’ll we do all day?” Clark asked.
“Tell ye what,” Jay said. “We’ll hide out’n Uncle Ex Newman’s hayloft ’til ’bout time for school to let out. We can eat dinner up there and take us a little snooze. Then we’ll meet the ones of ’em that went to school on the way home and threaten to whoop tar out’n ‘em if they tell on us fer not bein’ in school today,” Jay said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Hen said. “Let’s go, Clark.”
DEAR READER: And off the adventurers go once again. Fletch Mosely will have to wait for another time. Does anything happen while the three are hiding in the barn? Do they ever get to meet the new teacher? Join in next week to find out. Until then, I leave you with this quote from my world of email, something that definitely does not seem to apply to Jay Henry:
"He had delusions of adequacy." -Walter Kerr