The Hinterlands by Robert Morgan

herself.
    But off in the wilderness like that I had nobody but my husband, and no sign that a midwife was anywhere near. It’s a good thing babies is born to young people. The old couldn’t stand the fear, much less the strain.
    By frost we dug our taters and put them in a hill beside the shed with dirt thick enough to keep them from freezing. I dried a lot of beans on strings we hung from the ceiling. And right at the end of summer I dried some foxgrapes and wolf grapes your Grandpa picked on the river across the ridge.
    One of the best things in the fall was Realus found a bee tree. Maybe he seen bees awatering at the creek and followed them up the ridge. But he found this big chestnut that was partly holler and we waited till dark and chopped it down. He lighted some wet leaves to smoke the bees. We got three buckets of honey. I knowed honey would come in good for the baby. You can quiet a baby by putting honey on your finger and letting the baby suck it. Best of all your Grandpa sawed off a holler blackgum log and made a bee gum. He put enough of the honey in the hive to keep the bees through the winter. And we’ve kept bees ever since.
    I didn’t have no calendar but I knowed it was coming up toward Christmas time. The leaves was all gone, even on the birches and willows along the creek. And back in the settlements they was probably killing hogs and making sausage. I wished I had me a calendar, but it was one of the things we done without. It had come a hard freeze, and Realus had started hunting for meat. He killed a couple of deer and smoked the meat, and hung it in the loft out of reach of varmints. We lived on turkey in those days. All he had to do was take his gun up on the ridge where he could hear them gobbling, and he’d come back with a bird for me to bake over the fireplace. We had a lot of squirrels in the fall too, but it was turkey and deer meat we lived on in the winter.
    â€œWhen you going to look for a granny woman?” I said one day when it was nigh to Christmas.
    â€œI’m going out looking for the nearest settlement,” he said. “I think they’s one about twenty miles north of here.”
    â€œMaybe I should go with you,” I said. “And if they’s a store we could get a calendar and something for the baby.”
    â€œIt’s too rough a road,” he said. “I’ll go in a hurry and be back in two days.”
    He was right. I was in no shape to ride over the mountains. Next morning he took the gold nuggets we had saved and some deer hides and a sack of corn and rode off on the horse, holding his gun across the saddle.
    â€œKeep the door bolted after dark,” he called back. He had carried in a pile of wood to last me till the next day.
    It was a cold, clear day, and I didn’t worry none till almost dark when I felt this sharp pain in my belly. It just lasted a second, and was gone. I’d been shelling dried beans and was beginning to boil them. I bent down to stir the pot and felt this wetness on my dress. First I thought it was the steam, or that I’d spilled some water from the kittle.
    But then I felt it was too much water coming down on my skirt and that it didn’t smell like spring water. Didn’t smell bad, just didn’t smell like the boiling water either. I got a cloth and put it on the bench where I was setting. Only when I’d set down again did I think I’d lost my water. And that wrench I’d felt earlier had been a birthing pain.
    It was near dark, as I’ve said. I’d have to run to the spring. I left the beans boiling and throwed on my shawl.
    It was aching cold, as it gets on a clear night. And they was a big star—I called it the Christmas star—just over the mountain. The last light was reflected from the creek, but it was dark on the path to the spring. I closed my eyes to make them adjust, but I had to feel my way along. I had been watching the fireplace too long. I