A tale of the hidden counties

He didn’t even notice the neat rows of new candles hanging from the racks as he crossed the porch and stepped into the kitchen.

Morning’s smell of bacon had given way to the aroma of new-baked bread. His habit of calling his wife “Fair Marion” had begun on just such a day, when he was feeling like a wealthy king in some ancient tale of knights and fair maidens, and he teased her, called her his “Fair Marion” and the nickname stuck.
“Where’s my Fair Marion, Pearlie?” he looked past the old cook toward the long and shadowed hall.

“Mistuh Thomas, what you doin’ home so early? Miss Marion, she just put them younguns down for naps. She played both candler and baker this morning, and had to rock Dale ’til he quieted down, and now she just settin’ and fannin’ a moment.”

She turned and gave the stove a vicious poke, and reached for the always ready coffee pot.

“Don’t know how you drink this plain, Mistuh Thomas. One sugar lump kin make it so good,” and she went on clucking as he welcomed the warmth of the mug.

He sat down heavily and drank before he noticed his father already in his sagging rocker, well into the tall bottle that he’d started yesterday.

“What’s wrong, son? Ain’t like you to be this side of Morgan’s wheat field this time o’ day. No work today?”

“Me and Clayton Mitchell, Pa, we had a tift. You know which one he is, the bald one that works at the mill, or at least his hair is getting’ thin. Ever since word came from Washington ’bout Henry Irwin cheatin’ on taxes, Mitchell’s been lookin’ to see who else to blame. I done nothin’ wrong, Pa, but sometimes it don’t feel like it’s worth it to be honest when they expect you to steal and lie.”

“I been knowin’ Mitchell a lotta years, son. He’s always warrin’ with somebody, always rantin’ and rabin.’ Considering he started out just assistant to the miller, I donno how he got to be shop steward. Dam’ union, anyhow! Makes me so mad! Makes me the maddes’ sonabitch whenever I think about it,” and the old man reached for the comfort the bottle promised.

They sat for a moment and Pearlie’s caroling crescendoed into the silence between them: “Cotton needs pickin’ – so bad!”

“You gonna quit, Tom?”

“Quit? How can I? I haven’t the heart to tell Fair Marion I’ve failed here, too. When we crossed the Chattahoochee, we thought we were in the Promised Land, where I could work and amount to something, and she could be makin’ fine clothes for all the fine ladies in these fine towns.

“Good as any tailor, she is, Pa. We neither of us ever hoped to be rich. Monday through Saturday, we knew we’d have to work, but at least on the Sabbath, we’d have the liberty to enjoy what’s duly ours.”

His voice broke, as a though unaccustomed to phrasing the deep-felt dreams of his life.

The old man’s voice could pierce the fogs on the Marshes of Glynn, they used to say of him when he fished for pike in Brunswick County, but he spoke in a whisper now.

“Don’t give up, son! Mind how Jefferson Dougherty used to tell his men they dug glass from the banks of the brooks, when all they could see was sand. And many a cob o’ corn his troop of hands won from the clay, ’cause he made ’em think it was gold they were planting. And it was! It’s all in how you look at things. Times are hard now, son, but one day, Thomas Crawford, you’ll clench yore fist at Clayton Mitchell and you’ll be the fat cat.”

He liked the sound of it so much, he drawled it out again: “The fay-at cay-at,” and rinsed it down and rocked with eyes closed, smiling.

“Mistuh Tom, we don’t gotta move, do we?” Pearlie had heard it all. “Don’t wanna go, Mistuh Tom, too old to keep on movin’.”

Her voice started to rise. “Rather be daid and let ’em be buryin’ me in the family tombs in Jackson County than – oh mercy, there goes that cow again! Allus lookin’ for somethin’ better. Can’t make a cow eat a thing where she be if she thinks they’s a greener patch yonder,” and she took off with amazing speed in pursuit of Columbia.

The old woman had to dodge briars and twigs that held no fear for the cow, but at last managed to turn her back into the yard. By the time she huffed into the kitchen, she had already moved on to another complaint.

“Deke Evans been helpin’ hisself again. I was fattening that white hen special for Miss Marion, but now she’s gone. Deke ate ’er, without a doubt. No ’count folks won’t git off their butts and do a day’s work,” and this time pans rattled when the stove door was slammed.

The stove. A full ton of coal this year and it will be gone before warm weather, Tom thought. Would the coal quit first or would the wobbly old Franklin get the most out of each shovelful and see them through another winter?

And the babies! How he doted on them, “spolding them something fearful,” Pearlie would chide. Like the extravagance of the little glass “cock-a-doodle” he brought baby Lee all the way from Montgomery. “I han’ cock-a-doodle to you, and you han’ him back to me.” The child made a solemn game of sharing with her brother.

The sound of a light step startled him out of his musing. Marion came into the room, stooping to retrieve a baby’s bib from the floor. Her eyes brightened at sight of him, then questioned wordlessly his being home at midday. Before she even asked, she lit upon the answer.

“You came to take us where the apples grow!” she cried. “I’m so glad it didn’t rain! Pearlie, wake the babies. The Yates and McIntosh should both be ripe, now the evenings are cool. What a merry day we’ll have for appling, and in such merry weather! Aren’t you glad it didn’t rain?”

“Didn’ wain!” The children’s voices were like echoes.

“They too little to walk all that way, Miss Marion,” Pearlie complained. “Baby Lee jus’ not a good walker yet.”

“Get the barrow for your sister, Dale.” Nothing was going to tarnish Marion’s unexpected holiday. “You and Pearlie can wheel her in the barrow.”

“Fair Marion,” Tom called to her, and when she blushed, he thought of last summer’s first peach and caught her hand. She wondered for only a moment at the look of determination in his eyes, then ran out into the crisp afternoon.
 
Writer’s note: Hidden in my little tale are the names of 95 of Georgia’s 159 counties. How many can you find? (I’ll admit, some of these puns are a stretch.) The answers are below.
 
Solution to county name game: Bacon, Marion, Cook, Hall, Thomas, Early, Candler, Baker, Rockdale, Fannin, Polk, Coffee, Lumpkin, Talbot, Morgan, Whitfield, Clayton, Mitchell, Tift, Baldwin, Harris, Washington, Henry, Irwin, Worth, Warren, Rabun, Miller, Stewart, Union, Madison;
Carroll, Pickens, Quitman, Hart, Telfair, Chattahoochee, Ware, Macon, Towns, Taylor, Richmond, Liberty, Dooly, Pierce, Glynn, Pike, Upson, Jefferson, Dougherty, Douglas, Banks, Brooks, Cobb, Troop, Clay. Crawford, Clinch, Fayette;
Heard, Dade, Berrien, Toombs, Jackson, Coweta, Greene, Columbia, Dodge, Twiggs, Turner, Evans, Ben Hill, White, Decatur, Butts, Fulton, Colquitt, Franklin, Spalding, Glascock, Lee, Montgomery, Hancock, Bibb, McIntosh, Murray, Appling, Meriwether, Wayne, Echols, Walker, Barrow, Wheeler, Peach, Crisp.