The Saints of Swallow Hill(106)

Chapter 37


Delwood and Jeremiah


Bladen County, 1942



Dark haired like their mother, they had their father’s startling blue eyes. Eight-year-old Delwood, born in May of ’34, was quiet and thoughtful, while almost six-year-old Jeremiah (as he liked to remind everyone), born in August of ’36, chattered endlessly and couldn’t sit still. On this early summer day, they followed their older cousins, Joey and Darren, as they ran through the woods to where their parents waited. With the Reese boys ran their coonhound, Rabbit, named so because of his long, floppy ears and twitchy nose. Delwood and Jeremiah were excited. Today, their father was going to show them how to make the funny catfaces on the special pine trees he called the longleaf. The Reese boys each carried a small tool made by their father. He told them it was a bark hack.

Since they were old enough to walk, they’d spent a good deal of time in the woods with their parents, and like their older cousins, the Reese boys already knew the names of all the different pines, the hardwoods, plus many other plants and flowers. They knew about scrape, pine gum, pitch, tar, and that smelly stuff called turpentine, which their mother used for most anything that ailed them. They knew about crops of trees, the small sections the work hands called drifts, but most of all, they knew the work their family did was hard, but meaningful. The special trees, the longleaf, their father said, used to be all over, but now, most were gone.

The boys spotted their mother and their little sister, Beebee, walking around smacking her hands and singing. Their mother was by their father, and both were talking with Aunt Sudie May, Uncle Amos, and their adopted relative, Uncle Peewee, along with several work hands near a drift of trees. Cousin Norma held their baby brother, Joshua.

As they ran up, their father squatted down eye level to talk to them.

He said, “It’s gonna take time before your work looks like this,” and he pointed to the odd markings on a tree that made the catface. The face was almost as tall as Jeremiah from top to bottom. He said, “You got to be patient.”

Their mother came close, listening, while their father spoke. To the boys, she was the prettiest lady they’d ever seen and they loved her with all their might. They spent hours looking for and bringing her flowers and colorful rocks from the river. What she gave them in return they craved. Like when it was nighttime, she’d slip quiet into their room, kiss them on the cheek, and sit in a rocking chair by an open window, the curtains shifting and swirling on a warm, summer wind. She’d hum softly until they fell asleep.

Young Delwood pointed at a tree trunk and said, “Mother, show us how you done it.”

She had a bark hack hanging from the waistband of her trousers, and she took it in hand.

Uncle Peewee, who the boys understood really wasn’t their uncle and who came to the farmhouse at least twice a year, said, “She was as good as any of them men I used to hire.”

They watched close as their mother took the tool and walked over to one of the longleaf pines yet to be worked. She ran her hand down the tree trunk, the one missing part of a finger an endless fascination to the boys. She’d not yet told them how it happened. She studied the surface of the tree for a second, then lifted the tool and struck against the bark. She struck again and made a swipe to the right. She cleaned the streak to the pale-yellow wood with a few shorter swipes. She did the same to the opposite side, until she had another mark that slanted the opposite way. The marks were like a V.

Father said, “Ain’t lost your touch atall. By my calculations, you’d make your daily counts. You’re hired.”

It was this little joke they had between them. She wrinkled her nose at him and pointed at what she’d done as Delwood and Jeremiah looked on.

She said, “See? Now what happens next with this fresh new streak we cut above this gutter, Delwood?”

Delwood glanced at her, then using his forefinger, he carefully pointed at each item as he recited what he’d been taught.

“This tin gutter here guides the gum so it runs into the cup. When the cup is full, it gets dipped out and put into a bucket. The bucket gets dumped into a big barrel, and all the barrels get took to Rockfish. They go down the river to Wilmington to be dis-dis-distaled.”

Mother beamed. “Distilled. Very good. And what’s it called, what I just done?”

Both boys yelled, “Chipping!”

“What’s it called when we put up the gutters?”

They hollered, “Tacking tin!”

“When we get the gum from the cups?”

They shouted, “Dipping!”

Their father and mother said, “Very, very good.”

Young Delwood smiled, his chest puffed out. Sometimes their parents would talk about another time, back when they first met at this place they’d worked along with Aunt Nellie, who had also been adopted as family, like Uncle Peewee. That place was called Swallow Hill. The boys didn’t know what to make of these stories. Swallow Hill sounded scary, especially when their parents talked about the box thing they’d been put into by a bad man. They didn’t like him, the one named Crow. They’d overheard one night when they were supposed to be asleep how he’d almost killed their mother, and how he’d poured tar on her and Aunt Nellie. They were relieved they wouldn’t never have to meet him, or the other bad man who’d been married to Aunt Nellie. They were like the bogeyman to them.