Too Soon a Woman, continued

He took Mary and me outside the cabin to talk. Rain dripped on us from branches overhead. 

“I think I know where we are,” he said. “I calculate to get to old John’s and back in about four days. There’ll be grub in the town, and they’ll let me have some whether old John’s still there or not.” 

He looked at me. “You do like she tells you,” he warned. It was the first time he had admitted Mary was on earth since we picked her up two weeks before. 

“You’re my pardner,” he said to me, “but it might be she’s got more brains. You mind what she says.”

He burst out with bitterness, “There ain’t anything good left in the world, or people to care if you live or die. But I’ll get grub in the town and come back with it.” 

He took a deep breath and added, “If you get too all-fired hungry, butcher the horse. It’ll be better than starvin’.” 

He kissed the little girls goodbye and plodded off through the woods with one blanket and the rifle. 

The cabin was moldy and had no floor. We kept a fire going under a hole in the roof, so it was full of blinding smoke, but we had to keep the fire so as to dry out the wood. 

The third night we lost the horse. A bear scared him. We heard the racket, and Mary and I ran out, but we couldn’t see anything in the pitch dark. 

In gray daylight I went looking for him, and I must have walked fifteen miles. It seemed like I had to have that horse at the cabin when Pa came or he’d whip me. I got plumb lost two or three times and thought maybe I was going to die there alone and nobody would ever know it, but I found the way back to the clearing. 

That was the fourth day, and Pa didn’t come. That was the day we ate up the last of the grub. 

The fifth day, Mary went looking for the horse. My sisters whimpered, huddled in a quilt by the fire, because they were scared and hungry. 

I never did get dried out, always having to bring in more damp wood and going out to yell to see if Mary would hear me and not get lost. But I couldn’t cry like the little girls did, because I was a big boy, eleven years old. 

It was near dark when there was an answer to my yelling, and Mary came into the clearing. 

Mary didn’t have the horse—we never saw hide nor hair of that old horse again—but she was carrying something big and white that looked like a pumpkin with no color to it. 

She didn’t say anything, just looked around and saw Pa wasn’t there yet, at the end of the fifth day. 
“What’s that thing?” my sister Elizabeth demanded. 

“Mushroom,” Mary answered. “I bet it hefts ten pounds.”

“What are you going to do with it now?” I sneered. “Play football here?” 

“Eat it—maybe,” she said, putting it in a corner. Her wet hair hung over her shoulders. She huddled by the fire. 

My sister Sarah began to whimper again. “I’m hungry!” she kept saying. 

“Mushrooms ain’t good eating,” I said. “They can kill you.” 

“Maybe,” Mary answered. “Maybe they can. I don’t set up to know all about everything, like some people.” 

“What’s that mark on your shoulder?” I asked her. “You tore your dress on the brush.” 

“What do you think it is?” she said, her head bowed in the smoke. 

“Looks like scars,” I guessed. 

“’Tis scars. They whipped me. Now mind your own business. I want to think.” 

Elizabeth whimpered, “Why don’t Pa come back?” 

“He’s coming,” Mary promised. “Can’t come in the dark. Your pa’ll take care of you soon’s he can.” 

She got up and rummaged around in the grub box. 

“Nothing there but empty dishes,” I growled. “If there was anything, we’d know it.” 

Mary stood up. She was holding the can with the porcupine grease. 

“I’m going to have something to eat,” she said coolly. “You kids can’t have any yet. And I don’t want any squalling, mind.” 

It was a cruel thing, what she did then. She sliced that big, solid mushroom and heated grease in a pan. 

The smell of it brought the little girls out of their quilt, but she told them to go back in so fierce a voice that they obeyed. 

They cried to break your heart. 

I didn’t cry. I watched, hating her. 

I endured the smell of the mushroom frying as long as I could. Then I said, “Give me some.” 

“Tomorrow,” Mary answered. “Tomorrow, maybe. But not tonight.” She turned to me with a sharp command: “Don’t bother me! Just leave me be.” 

She knelt there by the fire and finished frying the slice of mushroom. 

If I’d had Pa’s rifle, I’d have been willing to kill her right then and there. 

She didn’t eat right away. She looked at the brown, fried slice for a while and said, “By tomorrow morning, I guess you can tell whether you want any.” 

The little girls stared at her as she ate. Sarah was chewing an old leather glove. 

(page 2)

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