Angels Make Their Hope Here Read online

  The man’s homestead had a welcoming, charred-wood aroma. While Dossie consumed her berries, he watched her. He seemed pleased that she ate. When she had finished, he rose up and left her sitting again. She watched him attending to his animals and wondered that there was no wife bustling about and no young’uns running out to greet him. He built up his own fire in the hearth. He drew up his own water.

  He told her his name. Duncan Smoot pronounced his name clearly and proudly but did not ask hers. He retrieved her from the grape arbor and led her by hand into the house. The smell of cooked coffee dominated the aromas. The man himself smelled of sweet ale—an aroma she’d caught as the two climbed and sweated that was very different from the smell of whiskey and retching and yellow water of other men. She had the notion then that he was not so old as his hair might say. His hair was gray mixed with dusty brown and was soft-woolly—was of a kind that was disposed to snag at dust and seeds and bits of fluff. His eyes were a color that was like a dark mustard seed. Drawn by hand into the kitchen, she was led to a table, and a seat was indicated. He placed a small cup of coffee before her. She sipped timidly, concerned not to displease him by refusing to drink what he had offered. After a while he took her to a room with a large wooden bed laid over with a fluffy feather mattress. He seemed to present the room to her. He said nothing, but held his face in a gentle, firm expression. He showed her the night pan. When he left the room, Dossie stretched out on the rag rug and waited for the arrival of the woman whose room this must be.

  Mr. Smoot’s wife must be a wonderful woman, Dossie assumed in a comfortable curl on the well-worn floor. After a short while her urgency would not let her sleep. She left the room and saw that Mr. Smoot still sat at his kitchen table. He looked at her and pointed out in the yard to the privy. Now the smell of whiskey in the room dominated that of coffee.

  No woman came that night.

  Dossie knew ’twas a young’un’s job to sweep a yard. As soon as it was light she found the bound-up stick broom and set to. She did not want Mr. Smoot to think she was a lazy gal.

  Where is his woman? Dossie thought as she worked and looked around. She had peeped in the bed when she rose from the floor. There were many possessions about the house all set in good order, though many things were notable for their absence from this room. The bedroom of this woman was free of dust and belongings. She is got no hair that needs tending? She needs no rag to tie it? She need no shawl? Mr. Duncan’s wife must’ve took his children and gone visiting with her people, Dossie thought to herself.

  The solid house had good plank floors that cried softly from being stepped upon many times and worn in gentle ruts. It had wooden shutters and some glass panes in the windows like the house of Mr. Abingdon, though it was not nearly so big. It sat in the center of a clearing on a point of land higher than the surround. The house was ringed with a sitting porch on three of its sides and was ringed at the outer edges of the swept and pebbled yard with a low stone wall. Near to the house was a growing patch protected with a short wooden fence, and at back was the chicken coop, a small, well-built barn, and an outhouse.

  After a day had passed in this idyll—abundant food and water to drink—Dossie wondered and questioned herself to know why she had come so quietly when Duncan Smoot took her by the hand. Was his hand the hand of God? Was this deliverer the answer—the consequence of her fervent prayers? Was this the know-everything God that Evangelist Zilpha had hollered about? Dossie was not troubled by her thoughts. She was only puzzled. When she slept on the first night she’d cried for Evangelist Zilpha not because she wanted help from the woman, but that she saw the horrible collar on her neck when she closed her eyes and saw the Evangelist’s poor tongue hung nearly to her chin. In her dream she asked the Evangelist who was this man. The Evangelist could not answer because of the tightening of the horrible thing. Spittle and blood and small, hard white chips flew out of the Evangelist’s mouth as she tried to speak. Only her eyes had spoken. “Gwan, gwan with him!” The collar came to be upon Dossie’s own neck and she screamed.

  Duncan Smoot was kind when her cries startled him. She leaped up like a small animal flushed out of its nest and ran smack into him standing in the passage. The sound of the wind shushing through the trees ringing his house lulled her back to sleep.

  “Aw, Hattie, don’t come here a-barkin’,” Duncan Smoot said to a woman who stood on his porch when Dossie entered his kitchen from the chicken yard on the second day. The woman advanced on him with her knuckles pushed against her waist.

  “Aye, Rooster, what kind of thing are you doin’ in yer house!” She stood toe to toe with him. Her voice rose in volume.

  “You’re a good lookout,” Duncan said and patted the woman’s cheek. Her face was flushed with indignation, and he grinned to cool her. “You got it wrong. Come on in and meet the girl.”

  Dossie saw the woman’s stormy face and heard her angry voice with alarm. At last the woman of this house had come! Dossie froze still, bowed her head, and braced herself. The woman was on a boil!

  Harriet Smoot Wilhelm’s cap fell back from her head in her excitement. Her hair, curled and napped like sheep’s wool, fell well below her shoulders. She was Duncan Smoot done softer, smaller, more delicately turned. And she was as straight-back-up in this house as he was. She walked in boldly when he stood aside the doorway, and she came up to Dossie and ran her eyes all over her.

  “This here is my sister, little gal. Hattie—Hat—is her name,” Duncan said. He followed his sister into the house carrying the basket he’d relieved her of when she walked up. “Don’t be scared of her. She don’t always come in making a big blow,” he finished and pecked his sister on her cheek. “Hattie, this is the little bird you heard about. This is Dossie.”

  Ah, the magic in his manner! Dossie’s heart, which she thought of as so tiny in her chest, began to expand and swell. She feared that her senses would leave her. His voice was so lovely, and he spoke with so much fancy! Why she didn’t even know that he knew her call.

  “How do. Are you treated bad?”

  Dossie, whose eyes became wide when Hat approached her, answered, “Oh, no, ma’am. How do, ma’am.” Dossie tucked her chin with deference.

  Harriet—called Hat, Hattie, or Pippy by her brother—screwed up her brow and folded her arms across her chest, then dropped her arms before speaking again. “Let’s us have a cup of coffee,” she said, finally smiling, and went to the stove. “You drink coffee before, girl?”

  Dossie answered, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Lesser stuff than this, I bet you. The lowlanders don’t know ’bout coffee. We got the good Carib beans—mountain beans. Coffee is best the closer it grows to God. Duncan gets them beans down at the canal boats. He thiefs ’em,” she declared breezily. “Like he thiefed you.”

  “Hattie,” Duncan cautioned.

  “She ought to know who she’s taken up with,” Hat teased. “ ’Tis only fair. And ’tis the best coffee. Our water is sweet, too. Put cream in your brew, though. You’re a little girl. You’re too young to have your coffee black.”

  Dossie watched Miz Hat put her shawl on a hook familiarly—without glancing—and go to the stove to pour a cup of coffee. Dossie knew then that this kitchen was her kitchen. Hat walked into the cook room and lay out the things she’d brought in her basket. She set a pan of biscuits near the fire to restore their warmth and put jars of jam on the shelf. She examined a basket of eggs that Dossie had gathered.

  “These are good eggs, Brother,” Hat called out, walking a circuit between the two rooms. “Shall I build you a cake? Let’s us have a cake, little girl,” she said in a manner of merriment. “Brother, you’re not caring for your chickens good. Your henhouse needs tending. Maybe you got some help now?”

  “Is nothin’ wrong with my henhouse, Pippy, except that your son is lazy and won’t do what I tell him. And the other one is spoiled and lazy, too. That’s what is wrong with my henhouse,” Duncan said. Hat heard the tone and, for the sake of
her son and her nephew, said no more.

  Dossie realized then, when Hat tied on her apron, that it was the sole piece of woman’s clothes that she had seen in the house.

  Watching Hat spin up a cake was like watching a sudden flush of butterflies or a swarm of lightning bugs in the dark. She was so pretty, Dossie thought. Miz Hat picked up one thing and another with such grace and skill! She flew through the steps and got the cake up to hang on the cookstove before one’s head could turn.

  Hat left the house while her cake was cooking and returned some time later with a bundle.

  “The People of Russell’s Knob are lawless,” she said in a wryly humorous manner as she put a large piece of fluffy cake covered in a thick berry sauce before her brother. “We’re a spurned people in a spurned town. This is where you’re at, little girl. You not jus’ in Duncan Smoot’s back pocket. We’re a town of people. We’re not much wanted in the surrounding towns and we keep away from them.”

  “Aw, Hattie, hush. Give the little girl a piece of your cake,” Duncan said. Hattie’s cake was the most delectable thing he’d ever tasted. In fact, Hattie could well be considered the finest cook for miles around. Duncan laughed to himself that he might never marry as long as he could eat at Hattie’s table. He wanted to fuss at her, but instead he asked for more cake.

  “The girl can come with me—for good lookout,” Hat said as she stood up to take leave. She twisted up her loose hair and pushed it under her cap, which had fallen lopsided when she took off her apron. Tidying up her loosened hair was her favorite and well-known habit. She gathered it and twisted it, then undid it in the next gesture. The final was that she pushed it under her cap.

  “Mind your business, Hattie,” Duncan countered. His tone had a warning, though it was still sweet.

  “Do what is… proper, Duncan,” Hat insisted. She wanted to stamp her foot at him to drive her point but hesitated. Duncan might toss her onto the kitchen floor with a slap if she did that. He might. She calmed herself. Let it remain just a tiff. Hat backed away from Duncan and crossed to the door. At the last moment before leaving, she marched back toward Dossie and reached for her wrist.

  “Come with me, girl.”

  “No, ma’am,” Dossie asserted and drew back. She then added in a small, clear voice, “I will stay here with Mr. Duncan, ma’am. I can be a good chicken girl. There is things to do.”

  Hat cut her eyes at her brother, then turned to Dossie with a pleasanter face. “You need some things then,” she said and handed over the bundle she’d gone to fetch.

  Later while Dossie scraped ashes from the fireplace, and Mr. Duncan Smoot salted down some fish, he said, “Yonder bed is for you to lie in.” Dossie dropped her eyes to the floor before his feet. Duncan was perplexed. He’d expected a naïve smile. He hoped he hadn’t frightened or shamed her. Ah, Dossie had not been raised here, where children laugh and frolic! It wasn’t in her nature to be carefree or to be saucy or to ask for what she wanted.

  “Thanks, sir,” Dossie mumbled.

  She’d made a choice for herself. It made her scared. But recollecting how Mr. Duncan had spoken of her earlier made her thrill.

  Miz Hat’s bundled gift was an apron wrapped around a calico dress and a white chemise that had been pounded and wrung to softness. There was also a pair of slipper shoes, two head scarves, and some soft, ragged strips.

  Though Dossie was uncertain of herself in the things that Miz Hat brought, she made a good fit in the new clothes. The dress was big on her but had ties. The apron fit exactly to her size in all points. The waist seemed just her own, and the strings tied came to a pretty, jaunty bow. There was a decorated edge along the bodice of the apron, though it had lost its bright color. She had never worn a thing so prettily decorated. Ah, has Miz Hat got a daughter who has given up her things?

  “Ha! Pippy’s apron,” Mr. Duncan said. He chuckled when he saw Dossie in the new clothes. He smiled full at her for the first time. The radiance of it bedazzled her.

  Dossie took up the job of chicken gal, fetching gal, cook, and cleaner. She did not ask questions of Mr. Duncan because he anticipated her needs and directed her to this, that, or the other. He told her when to do certain things and made it plain when his expectations had not quite been met. She continued to be quiet and self-effacing in his presence.

  On many an early morning in the highlands, misty rings that look like distant cook fires appear in the mountains. With the advance of the sun, mist burns off, and the colors blend with full sunrise. Jan Smoot, a younger version of his uncle, strode up just after sunrise on such a morning and ever after caused Dossie to think that he was called Son for that reason. But he was occasionally called Son by his uncle to mark the baby title he was given at his birth. Dossie looked out from her peeking perch when she heard their voices. The two had an exchange in the clearing. The young one, head-bowed-humble and paying Duncan Smoot a requisite obeisance, listened, then departed. When he returned hours later, he unhooked a large dead bird from his saddle’s pommel and came in the house.

  He, too, was comfortable in the house. On entering the kitchen, he crossed directly to the table and slapped the bird down. Dossie jumped with a start. The large gaudy-colored thing seemed more a tithe or a toll than a meal.

  “Uncle, there are five other ducks,” Jan said. He stood erect and kept his eyes on the floor in a slightly insincere manner of deference.

  “Leave another here, take two to Noelle and two to Hattie,” Duncan said sternly.

  “He won’t harm you, little girl. He’s for the dinner pot,” Jan added and smiled full out at Dossie.

  “This is my sister’s boy, Jan.” The sound he gave the name was a short, crisp sound that was half of “John”—a thud, a thump.

  “How do, sir,” Dossie answered timidly.

  “He ain’t no—”

  “I ain’t no ‘sir.’ How do,” Jan said pleasantly. “What is your name? Are we to call you girl and nothin’ else?”

  “Shut up, boy,” Duncan barked. “Her name is Dossie.” Duncan felt a tick of embarrassment for his lack of proper manners. Jan had come to be very much like his mother. Cissy would notice if someone’s bread was not buttered or if some timid voice could not be heard in the hurly-burly.

  “Yes, sir,” Dossie said. “I always been called Dossie. I can take your duck’s feathers off. I ain’t scared of a duck. He is got a pretty head.” Dossie took up the bird, trilled happily, and began pulling tail feathers. It might have been the presence of Jan that brought out her liveliness, but by the time her pot of water was heated to bubbling, Dossie was humming, meticulously creating piles for the different types of feathers she’d pulled from the bird, and so completely involved in her pursuit that she did not pay much attention to Duncan or Jan. She sang snatches of the wood duck’s calls softly as if in dialogue with it but handled the evisceration expertly, dispassionately—cracking the wings and breastbone with the heel of her bare hand.

  “Sir, is there meal to make a hoecake?” Dossie asked Duncan, who looked at her with surprise, noting flecks of the duck’s flesh on her apron. When had she come with a question, a request? The duck had emboldened her. It was peculiar.

  Duncan kicked the sole of his nephew’s foot and commanded, “Fetch up the meal, boy.”

  Jan sprang up to do Duncan’s bidding, and his chair scraped on the floor planks. He’d torn his coat with his uncle and was anxious to regain Duncan’s affection. Jan had been put out of Duncan’s house for the mischief he’d caused, and he felt adrift. If he had it to do again, he probably wouldn’t feed soap to a stray dog and, when its vomit came forth in white foam, would not have chased it through the village yelling that it was a mad dog. Maybe then Old Miz Ninevah would not have fainted in the panic and needed teas and cakes to revive her.

  “I hope your mama ain’t mad at me,” Dossie spoke up to Jan when he returned to the cook room.

  He snorted gently as if answering a horse rather than her. “She don’t get mad,” Jan said, pau
sed, then continued, “My mama is dead. You met An’ Hat. My mama was the old man’s other sister. She was called Cissy. My papa killed her when I was still little. The old man run him off and kept me. An’ Hat’s got a boy, too, called Pet. He’s got a papa, but me and him both still b’long to Duncan. It’s the ol’ People’s way. Uncle got a right to claim us, to teach us, to punish us. Our mamas are part of the Smoots so it matters less who our papa is.” Jan finished speaking and cut open the sack of meal.

  “Who is Pippy? Is she Miz Hat’s little girl?”

  “Naw, she’s An’ Hat herself. Is what the old man calls An’ Hat for her sweet name.”

  “Oh,” Dossie said.

  “I los’ my sweet name, I guess. Give me a mug of ale, girl.” Jan spoke as if he were suddenly greatly annoyed with her.

  Dossie brought him an ale and said, “Sir.”

  “I told you I ain’t no ‘sir.’ I’m Jan. And, Miss Dossie, you can give us our duck anytime,” Jan said and smiled. There was something in that radiant smile that was an antidote to his uncle’s anger. The three of them had a pleasant duck feast.

  “Make a pallet on the floor, boy,” Duncan said when the three had eaten.

  “I’m not no dog, Uncle. I got a bed,” Jan replied, saucily aware that whiskey had made the older man drowsy. Duncan’s stomach was full of the duck, and he was content. He had softened and would confer absolution. Duncan’s invitation to stay was proof that Jan was forgiven, and no more need be said about the prank or the punishment.