the trees on one side, and a woodpile the size of a beaver’s dam lurked on the other. The old lady herself waited on a bench on the little porch, the same way she always did on book-delivering day. She stood and walked to the railing, carrying a book in her gnarled hands the way Bettina’d seen some mamas hold their babies during Sunday service. The same way Emmett used to hold books. He always was one for studying. So handsome, and so smart, too.
Bettina was proud of Emmett for his fine-working brain, but it kinda irked her that some old lady who’d married herself to a Tuckett could read the hundreds—no, more like thousands—of words in these fat books. Didn’t seem right that she could and Bettina couldn’t.
“Mornin’, Bettina.”
Nanny Fay talked real kindly to everybody. Bettina wanted to say “Mornin’ ” back, but she didn’t. Pap’d told Bettina a long time ago not to get friendly with the old woman. Pap said they couldn’t trust no Tucketts because they’d mingled their blood with Cherokees. Nanny Fay didn’t start out a Tuckett. She’d married one. And the one she married was way down the line. Couldn’t hardly be any Cherokee blood left in him. But it didn’t matter to Pap. Same as most folks in Boone’s Holler, he didn’t like the Tucketts, and he thought Nanny Fay was a witch. He’d told Bettina, “She’s a witch, all right. Only thing that makes sense, her bein’ older’n dirt an’ always mixin’ herbs an’ such.”
Truth be told, the woman probably wasn’t a witch. Would a witch come to services at a Baptist church? Would a witch sit on her front porch in the daylight hours? Bettina didn’t know a lot about witches, but Nanny Fay sure didn’t look nor act like a witch. But Bettina could be wrong. Pap said Bettina didn’t have the sense God gave a turkey, and turkeys were so dumb they’d stand in the rain and drown. So she kept her thinking to herself. If she spoke up, folks might stay shy of her the way they shied away from Nanny Fay and she’d be lonelier’n lonely then.
She drew the mule within arm’s length of the railing and held out the fishing-boys book.
The old woman’s face lit up like candles on a Christmas tree. “Oh, a Mark Twain story.”
Bettina recalled Miz West calling Mark Twain a famous author. She imagined repeating the comment. She’d say it real casual, like it was common to her. But wouldn’t she sound important, talking about authors, making people think she knew things others didn’t? She’d say it sometime. Maybe to Emmett. But not to Nanny Fay.
Nanny Fay traded the Mark Twain book for one with a plain blue cloth cover and some gold letters stamped on its spine. Bettina dropped the blue book in the empty side of the pouch and gave the reins a little tug.
“Bye, Bettina. Have a good day now, y’hear?”
Bettina poked Mule with her bare heels and made him trot out of the clearing. She couldn’t stick around here and chat. Pap’d have her hide, maybe even make her quit taking books around to folks if he found out. If she didn’t have this job, how would she get money to buy pretty things to wear or be able to stay away from her cabin for hours at a time? No, she couldn’t risk it. But it seemed sad to leave the old woman standing on her porch with nothing more’n a book keeping her company.
Emmett
EMMETT WALKED DUSTY TO SCHOOL Tuesday morning. His brother had pouted all through supper the night before because Emmett went into Lynch instead of going with him to the one-room schoolhouse yesterday morning. “There’s only four days left ’til we’re all done for the year. You wanna miss ’em all?” he’d said with his lower lip poked out. All the explaining in the world hadn’t made a bit of difference to the eight-year-old. Dusty considered himself more important than any old job, and that was that. So even though Emmett wanted to visit every place of business in the low-lying communities near Black Mountain, he carved out time to walk his little brother to the schoolhouse where Emmett had spent so many hours in his younger years. He even carried Dusty’s lunch pail.
Dusty jabbered nonstop, pausing now and then to pick up a stone and throw it into the trees or pluck a fresh green leaf and twirl it. Time slid backward