The Mountain Man Started Buying Baby Clothes — But Everyone Knew He Lived Alone
Chapter 5
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"I think so. It was a very good letter."Over her daughter's head, Hannah saw the big man's face. It was nothing remarkable—a rough face in a beard. But something in it had given way, like a stone in a stream. She decided then and there not to like him very much; it seemed prudent.The first days were hard. Thad did not know how to eat in front of people: he sat staring at his plate, shoveling in food as if someone might take it, and Lucy watched him with her chin in her hands."Do you have any friends?""A mule.""Is that all?""He is a very good mule.""Does he talk?""Frequently."Hannah, meanwhile, was working: by 6:00 each morning, she had the stove going and the shirts he had worn for a month soaking in a tub. She had said she would earn her keep; he said she need not; she said she would; he said she was expecting a child and ought to rest; she said she knew exactly what she was expecting and had done it before."It is a bucket of water," said Hannah, carrying it from the creek, six months along, with her jaw set."It is a heavy bucket.""I have carried a heavier one.""Not recently."He took it from her. She took it back. He took it again with gentle, immovable hands and said, "I will bring the water."She stared at him, quite pink.The next morning, she carried a smaller pail. He pretended not to see. The morning after, he left a second, smaller pail by the creek, exactly the right weight, and said nothing: it was the first treaty ever signed in that house.One evening, she asked the question that had been sitting on her: "And when the child comes? You are a day from any doctor.""Granny Pruitt. She lives nine miles down at the foot of the trail. She has caught most of the babies in the valley and lost, she says, one chicken." He studied the stove. "She comes up on the 25th of January and stays until it is done. I asked her in October.""You asked a midwife in October to come in January?""I plan ahead.""You do not plan anything. You buy things and hope.""I planned this," said Thad with some dignity.In November, a man appeared at the door with a sack of potatoes: he was Amos Dowd, a lean, cheerful farmer from two miles down the ridge, and his wife Ruth was behind him with a pie. They were the only neighbors Thad had, if two miles counted.Amos shook Hannah's hand and looked at Thad as at a sight. "20 years I have waved at that man," he said. "He has nodded once. I thought it was a tick.""It was a nod," said Thad."It was a very good one," said Ruth, and took Hannah into the kitchen to find out everything.By the end of November, the cabin had changed: there were curtains on the new window of faded gingham Hannah had cut from a petticoat; there was a rag rug by the stove, and Lucy's drawings pinned to the log wall. There was noise now, and he was surprised by how little it troubled him.