Twig of the Family Tree

I

SQUIRE ’Lisha Wheelwright came into the Big Sandy Valley up from Rockingham County in Old Virginia along about 1820, when he was a flop-eared boy, and he was king of that valley from the time he built his first cabin at the forks of Crum Creek until he died on the same spot at the grand old age of ninety-six.

In that three quarters of a century he had one wife and fourteen sons, he participated in an uncounted number of fist fights, he led the Wheelwright family to unchallenged victory through three major feuds and innumerable minor ones, he followed Morgan’s cavalry through the Civil War, never took the Oath of Allegiance to the Union, and lived and died an Unreconstructed Rebel and an Uncompromising Democrat.

He was a hard man, and proud of the Wheelwright name. He was proud of his fourteen hard-fighting, hardcussing boys, too. But there were two soft spots under his hard hide: he loved little children, and he never got over being mad at his wife for not producing a daughter.

You would n’t think so to look at it now, what with the railroads and the coal mines and the one-horse towns cluttering up the landscape, but in the old days this valley was beautiful all the way from the mouth of the Big Sandy, at the Ohio River, up past the junction of Tug and Levisa forks, and on into Mingo County, on both the West Virginia and Kentucky sides. The first settlers came up from Virginia after the French and Indian War. They were good stock, even if they were powerful irregular in some of their habits. They were independent, and sometimes they were mighty quarrelsome. The strongest and the smartest survived. The others died off tolerable young. The thriftiest and the most enterprising ones got considerable tracts of land together, for this part, of the country, and their sons and daughters lived well. Squire ’Lisha Wheelwright had a plantation of about fifteen hundred acres of good river bottom and hillside. He raised enough truck for his own needs and more, and he had cattle and sheep. He lived like a baron, which he really was, without the title.

He was n’t any more a magistrate than I am, but everybody called him ‘Squire ’Lisha’ to keep him separated from the dozen or more other ’Lisha Wheelwrights in the valley. He lived in a pretty fine house later in life, with porches upstairs and down, and was accounted rich for those times and that place. Before the Civil War he had half a dozen slaves, and the slaves and the boys raised sheep and horses and crops, while the womenfolks spun and wove and kept things comfortable around the house. The only money that ever came into that part of the country was for sorghum, hoop poles, logs, beeswax, and that kind of truck, which was shipped to Cincinnati on flatboats. There was a good deal of ginseng dug, too. The ginseng diggers constituted mostly the rough element of the community. Nobody had any money, much. They did n’t need any.

Squire ’Lisha could get madder, and get mad faster, than anybody I ever heard of, and most of his descendants are that way, too. Hot-tempered. He would get mad at his wife sometimes, and threaten to chew her ears off, and if one of the boys would take up for his maw, he would threaten to whip the boy; but if anybody outside the family got into the argument, it was ‘ Katy-Bar-the-Door ’ for that misguided man. The whole Wheelwright connection would swarm down on him with Squire ’Lisha at its head.

He named all of his boys Bible names, and the same custom persists in the Wheelwright family to this day. The Wheelwrights were a regular clan, by instinct. They were all ready to fight at the drop of the hat for the family name. You know how it is in any remote country. The people stick together by families against other families; and the families on this creek stick together against the families on that creek; and the families on this side of the river stick together against the families on that side of the river. Just before, and during, and long after the Civil War, it was Republicans sticking together against Democrats, or Secessionists sticking together against Anti-Secessionists, and seeking to assassinate each other on election days. That is what raised up most of the feuds in this country — election-day fights.

Yes, Wayne County is clannish even now. In those days it was more clannish than all get out.

II

They tell a lot of stories about Squire ’Lisha, and how he would stick up for the Wheelwrights against the world and the Devil. They tell that one time he was passing by Uncle Sammy Marchant’s house, and he saw a little feist dog clawing around in the road, so he gave the feist dog a little kick — offhand, so to speak. So Uncle Sammy, he came rushing out of his cabin with his rifle in his hand and he sung out, ‘Leave that-there dog be!’

‘Is he yore dog?’ said ’Lisha.

‘He is, and you leave him be,’ Uncle Sammy yelled, and his beard was just a-quivering.

‘If it’ll make you mad,’ responded ’Lisha, ‘I’ll kick him again.’

So they got to controverting and quarreling about the feist dog, and it came out in the argument that the little dog was sired by one of Runny Joe Scarberry’s dogs out of one of Uncle Sammy’s hound bitches, and Runny Joe, he was a third cousin, once removed, of Squire ’Lisha’s. Well, when Squire ’Lisha, they tell on him, came to find out that Uncle Sammy’s dog was a blood relation to a Wheelwright dog, as you might say, the old Squire, he dropped his temperature right off and apologized.

‘I did n’t aim to hurt yore dog none,’ he said.

So then Uncle Sammy, he invited him into the cabin, and they both got drunk on Uncle Sammy’s corn whiskey.

Anyhow, that’s what they tell.

III

In the main, with all his quarrelsome qualities, Squire ’Lisha was goodhearted, and progressive. Right now you would call him a useful citizen. He took good care of his people, right up to the end of his life, and he provided for all of his children in his will, without advantage to nobody. He got all of his sisters married off well, and he scared their husbands into treating them right.

But that one thing about not ever having a daughter bothered him all along. After the first five boys were born he kept hoping the next baby would be a daughter. And he would cuss and bullyrag around when they kept on coming sons. The old Squire was rough, and at first he was pleased and proud over having so many boys. But he got tired of so much unmitigated roughness around the place. He yearned for a little girl baby — somebody who would n’t be cussing and chewing tobacco and drinking corn liquor and fighting all the time.

He finally got a daughter, but his manner of getting her was powerful irregular, although in keeping with Squire ’Lisha’s character exactly.

He was going by the Johnson place one day, way over in Indian district, on a horse deal. Phan Johnson lived in a dirty little log hut on a scraggly patch of hill land, two ridges over from the Wheelwright place. Just like everybody else, Phan had a whole yardful of children and dogs. At night he had to stack the children up in the kitchen and in the attic and out in the smokehouse and everywhere.

Phan was out in front of his cabin when ’Lisha rode along, and he hollered ‘Howdy’ to ’Lisha, and ’Lisha paused by the place to pass the time of day. They swapped a few words, and ’Lisha told Phan the news of the valley, just as pleasant as you could wish for. ’Lisha was just about to tell his horse to ‘giddup’ when one of Phan’s least little girls came running out from under the cabin where she had been playing in the dirt, but nevertheless mighty pretty, as ’Lisha could see in a glance.

It hit ’Lisha all of a sudden that it was n’t right for him, a Wheelwright, not to have a little girl baby playing around, when such a low-down scamp as Phan Johnson could have such a pretty one as this little tike. It hit him all of a sudden, too, that the little one ought to have a better raising than she was getting, along with Phan’s hound dogs, and his heart swelled up fit to bust with a quick sweep of affection for the little girl.

He said, as casual as his emotions would let him: ‘That shore is a pretty young ’un of yourn.’ His heart was warm, but his eyes were looking cold.

‘Yessir,’ said Phan, all tickled, and not noticing how cold ’Lisha’s eyes looked, ‘she is a pretty piece, and that’s a fact.’

Phan was dirty and low-down, and poorer than Job’s turkey, and a ginseng digger, and as ignorant as a hog, but he liked his children, just the same as anybody else. He was all the time moaning about not being able to do better by them.

‘I’ve raised a parcel of children,’ ’Lisha went on, ‘but that young ’un,’ he said, ‘is prettier than all get out.’

‘She’s right pretty,’ replied Phan. ‘Her name’s Trudy.’

‘I’m gettin’ a little on in years, myself,’ ’Lisha said then, ‘and I ain’t got no children but boys. Maybe you would let me have little Trudy to raise.’

‘Not as I know of!’ Phan hollered.

Just like ’Lisha always did, he blew up worse than a keg of powder, and quicker. ‘This here ain’t no fitten place to raise a pretty child like that ’un,’ he barked. ‘And you ain’t no fitten man to raise none, neither!’

‘Who says I ain’t?’ Phan yelled. ‘And maybe I can run you offen my place! ’

Trouble was a-popping then, and there was n’t any way to head it off.

’Lisha’s eyes got colder. ‘This-here place,’he said, is just the same as a hogpen,’he said. It ain’t no litten place for any young ’un. You look like a hog yoreself, and so does that lean woman o’ yourn,’he said. ‘I guess I’m just about going to take that babby home with me,’ he said, ‘ whether or no,’ he said, ‘and keep her.’

‘Git offen my land!’ Phan yelled, and his beard was a-waving in the wind. ‘Git offen my place, before I knock yore head off with this-here pole!’

Phan was a brave man, all right. ’Lisha Wheelwright had a reputation.

Well, the way those two got to jawing back and forth at each other was a sight. They cussed and hollered, and Phan ran into his cabin to get his rifle out. Old ’Lisha, they tell, he drew a bead on Phan as he was running into the cabin, but his conscience, or something, got the best of him and he let his rifle down. They tell that ’Lisha in his prime could shoot a sparrow through the eye with a rifle, from the hip.

Pretty soon here came Phan running out of the cabin with his rifle in his hand, and he ordered ’Lisha off the place again. ’Lisha was proud, and he never let anybody run him off of anything, so he stood his ground as cool as the next one.

The upshot was that they got to jawing and cussing again, and finally Phan, he called ’Lisha a hard name which reflected some on the Wheelwright family honor, so ’Lisha took a swipe at Phan with the butt of his rifle and knocked him as cold as four o’clock.

About that time little Trudy, who was the innocent cause of the fracas, she went scampering back into the cabin and ’Lisha must have figured he was going to get into a racket with the whole Johnson connection then and there, including the womenfolks, so he let his judgment get the upper hand of his temper, and he rode on home.

IV

When he got there, Aunt Molly — that’s ’Lisha’s wife and the mother of his fourteen sons — she saw right away he was moody, so she let him be. So ’Lisha, he got down the jug, and he started in drinking and drinking.

Pretty soon he muttered: ‘Molly, them Johnsons is a low-down lot.’

So Aunt Molly, who had lived with him something like thirty-five years, she agreed with him that time and all the rest of the time, even if she did n’t know what he was talking about. The more ’Lisha drank the sourer he got and the more he talked. So finally he up and told Aunt Molly the whole story about little Trudy, with all the trimmings.

After a while he rose up with fire in his eye, and he said: ‘I’m a-going to get that babby,’ he said. ‘That babby is being raised like a shoat,’ he said, ‘in a hogpen,’ he said, ‘and I ’m a-going to get her and bring her in here and give her a good raising if I have to kill every Johnson in this-here county,’ he said.

And when he said that, Aunt Molly knew that trouble had started up again. She pleaded with him, and she tried to get the jug out of his hand, but ’Lisha, he started in to jawing at her about not producing a daughter for him, so she knew it was n’t any use arguing any more.

The Johnson place was a good twelve miles over the hills, and here it was afternoon already. Aunt Molly had visions of ’Lisha riding up to Phan Johnson’s cabin in the twilight and getting a load of buckshot under his ribs before he could raise a hand. She knew that would start up another ten-year feud, and she was sick of feuds and fighting. She figured Phan Johnson would have come to, and would have barricaded his cabin against ’Lisha’s return, and would have his rifle sticking out of a crack in the window waiting for him. Because in that place and in those times people served notice of trouble only once. Aunt Molly had had a lot of experience in what you might call frontier living.

She told ’Lisha all that, but he kept on getting stubborner and stubborner, and finally he set down his jug, took up his rifle and ammunition, and let go on horseback for Phan Johnson’s cabin.

V

Aunt Molly, she sat down to try to figure out what to do.

She thought she would get some of the boys to ride after ’Lisha, and maybe knock him in the head and drag him back home before he got himself killed. But sending ’Lisha’s boys to keep ’Lisha from getting into a fight was just like pouring kerosene oil on a fire to put it out, and Aunt Molly knew that better than anybody else.

She mighty near started out after ’Lisha herself, but she knew that would n’t do a particle of good, and then she looked over the least children that was left around the house still to be raised up, and she shook her head sadly and decided to leave everything to the Lord, as she generally did when she was in a tight pinch.

She sat by the window and rocked back and forth in her old hickory chair and read her Bible awhile, and pretty soon it got time to get supper together, so she did that, and every once in a while she would wipe her eyes on a corner of her dress.

There were n’t but about four of the children living at the home place then, so they had supper all together, and there was a place set for ’Lisha, but he did n’t come. Along came sundown, and then dark, and bedtime, and Aunt Molly, she sat by the window, aiming to read in her Bible awhile, but most of the time looking out into the dark.

It was a long time she was sitting there alone, and finally she could n’t stand it any longer, so she just busted into crying out loud, and she was n’t ashamed of it. She turned her old, wrinkled, wet face up to Heaven, and she said: ‘O God A’mighty,’ she said, ‘let thy lovin’ hand guide my man in thy paths,’ she said, ‘and don’t harrer up this old soul at the last day,’ she said, ‘ because me and ’Lisha both ain’t long for this world anyway,’ she said, ’and we aim to end our days in peace,’ she said, ‘and in thy sight,’ she said, ‘Amen.’

So that made her feel some better, and she sat in the window, rocking back and forth and back and forth, and the dark gathered thicker, and ’Lisha was n’t anywhere to be seen.

Pretty soon she began sobbing and talking to herself, like a singsong, low and moaning like.

‘Many’s the man,’ she moaned to herself, ‘many’s the man been shot down in these mountains,’ she said. ‘Many’s the man’s been killed. Oh, ’Lisha,’ she said, ‘Lisha, ’Lisha, we been living together many’s the year, and now,’ she said, ‘you’re dead and gone from me,’ she said. ‘You’re laying on the hard ground,’ she said, ‘and Phan Johnson’s a murderer,’ she said. ‘ God a mercy on them, and me, a widder.’

She heard something snap out in the yard, and she jumped up like she was shot, and ran to the door, but it was n’t anything. So she came back and began to rock back and forth and back and forth, moaning to herself.

There was n’t any such thing as a clock on the place in those days, but it must have been getting on toward nine in the night when she heard something, sure enough, in the yard, and it sounded like it might be a man walking.

She grabbed herself a poker out of the fireplace and went swarming out into the yard. And I be dogged if it was n’t ’Lisha come home, leading the pretty little Johnson girl by the hand! He already had his horse put up and fed, so quietly Aunt Molly had n’t heard him till he was practically at the house.

‘This here’s a fine time to be gittin’ home for supper!’ Aunt Molly sung out, scrouging back her tears and trying her best to talk snappish.

‘ I don’t want none,’ ’Lisha answered. ‘I had mine.’

He came stomping into the house and hung his hat on a nail behind the door.

‘This here’s Trudy Johnson,’ he said to Aunt Molly, just as casual as the next one. ‘Only,’ he said, ‘she’s Trudy Wheelwright now,’ he said, ‘and I aim to raise her like a Wheelwright,’ he said. ‘Trudy,’ he said, ‘this here’s yore new maw, like I told you about,’ he said.

Little Trudy, she grinned and stood on one foot, and ’Lisha was grinning by that time, too, like a Chessy cat.

That aggravated Aunt Molly to death, and she could n’t hold in any longer. ‘’Lisha,’ she demanded, ‘what happened?’ Her voice shook some. ‘Did you do murder, ’Lisha Wheelwright?’ Old ’Lisha had a famous laugh, like a roaring jackass. He cut loose with it.

VI

Well, they turned their attention to getting the baby Trudy to bed, and Aunt Molly, she tucked her in, clucking like an old hen.

‘This here’s the softest, cleanest bed this baby ever had to lay in,’ she cooed, like a pigeon.

’Lisha looked on, like Trudy was his first-born.

‘Was you worried?’ he asked Aunt Molly.

‘’Lisha,’ responded Aunt Molly, looking up at him from her tucking and clucking and cooing, ‘I’ll not keep it from you. I was that worried I could n’t hardly sleep,’ she said. ‘What happened?’ she said.

‘Well, sir,’ answered ’Lisha, ‘Phan Johnson give me that child,’ he said. ‘He p’intedly did give me her.’

‘No!’

‘He did. He insisted upon it.’

‘ Land alive!‘

‘I told him, I said, “No, Phan, I won’t take yore babby from you,”I said. But he would n’t have it that-away. He give me her.’

‘’Lisha!’

‘He insisted upon it. He did so.’

‘Don’t you keep me in this-here suspense no longer, ’Lisha Wheelwright! What happened?’

‘ And he made me stay for supper,’ ’Lisha went on, aggravating Aunt Molly and not seeming to pay any attention to her. ‘With the whole Johnson family,’ he said, ‘and I aim to do something by them,’ he said.

‘Don’t you dast trifle with me no more,’ Aunt Molly sung out, brisk and snappy. ‘You know well Phan Johnson would n’t give up one of his own offsprings without no cause. And you went up there drinking and looking for a fight, ’Lisha Wheelwright!’

‘I was n’t drunk, and I was n’t looking for no fight,’ ’Lisha argued. ‘The way it was,’ he said (and Aunt Molly was staring at him, out of breath, and ejaculating ‘Well, I never did!‘ and ‘For the land sakes!’ every two seconds), ‘the way it was,’ he said, ‘I rode right up to Phan Johnson’s place, and I said, “Phan Johnson,” I said, “I come for that babby,” I said. So Phan, he run toward the cabin, and I said, “Stop in yore tracks, Phan Johnson,” I said, so he knew better than not stop, so he did stop, because I had a bead drawed on him.

‘There was n’t nobody around, so I asked him where the babby Trudy was at, and he would n’t say. So I made him git down on his knees, and then he started to begging.

‘The upshot was that he would n’t tell me what he done with the babby, and I could n’t git it out of him by shooting him down, so we got to arguing about it, and all of a sudden he mentioned that he is proud of his family, or something like that, same as I am, and I got to laughing so I thought I’d die. The idea of a low-down Johnson being proud of his family, and him talking to a Wheelwright!

‘So he got mad at me laughing at him, and he said, “I’m as good as you are, and so are my people,” he said. So I had to laugh, it was that funny, him telling me a Johnson was as good as a Wheelwright. So pretty soon he said, “I got a call to be proud,” he said. “I got Injun blood in my veins, too,” he said.

‘So I asked him who was his maw, and he said she was a Hurst.

’You could have knocked me down!

‘I asked him was his maw from the Calfpasture Creek country in the Shenandoah Valley, and he said she was. So I asked him was his maw Pocahontas Hurst, and he said she was.’

‘Ain’t that the beatin’est!’ Aunt Molly cut in.

‘Ain’t it, though!’ said ’Lisha. ‘It turned out that Phan Johnson’s descended from a Wheelwright on his maw’s side. Dog if he ain’t! And I never knew it before that minute! His grandmaw was a Injun gal from around New Market. My grandpaw’s brother, Laban, had a illegitimate daughter by the Injun gal before she was married to Jonas Hurst, so they called her Pocahontas Hurst, and I guess Old Jonas, he thought she was his’n. So then Pocahontas Hurst, she married Bev Johnson, who was Phan Johnson’s own paw. That’s the way it was!’

‘Land alive!’ was all Aunt Molly could say.

‘So that makes Phan Johnson a illegitimate blood Wheelwright.’

‘’Lisha, you must have been struck all of a heap!’

‘I was so,’ replied ’Lisha. ‘So I could n’t do nothing else but put out my hand, and I set my rifle down and helt her out, and I says, “Phan Johnson,” I says, “I thought you was no ’count,” I says, “but you ain’t,” I says, “ because you ’re a Wheelwright,” I says, “even if illegitimate,” I says, “and here’s my hand,” I says.’

‘Mercy!’ Aunt Molly ejaculated.

‘So I said I could n’t take their babby away from them onless they wanted her to go, and I would n’t take her. So Phan, he invited me in to stay for supper, which I did, and they all begged me to bring little Trudy home with me and give her a Wheelwright raising, seeing as they were so pore and had a lot more children than what they could raise up themselves properly.

‘So I brung her.’

‘Land alive!’ said Aunt Molly.

So that’s how Trudy got to be a Wheelwright. When she got to be fourteen, she married young Lot Marchant, and when she died here a few years back she had seventeen children, forty-four grandchildren, and ninetyone great-grandchildren, and most all of them attended the funeral.