To Make My Bread by Grace Lumpkin

tell me. I know Basil’s there every Sunday for supper. Jim Hawkins hopes to get a steady boy like Basil for Minnie.”
    â€œSome say Kirk and Minnie have been seen up Little Snowbird,” Granpap went on. He was leaning over and Emma could not see the triumph in his eyes. He was getting her off the trail as surely as if he was an animal and had walked into a creek to get the hounds off his scent.
    â€œIf they have,” Emma said shortly. “I don’t know hit. But I do know Sam McEachern brags she’s his girl.
    â€œAnd that’s another reason,” Emma went on, catching the scent again, “him and Kirk oughtn’t to be together. They’ll be sure to fight. I wish you’d leave Kirk, Pap. I wish you’d stay yourself and not fool with all this.” She pointed to the two bags of corn that leaned against the bench.
    â€œWe’ve got a right,” Granpap said, “to make money in the best way we can. You need the money-you and the young ones. How much would the bags of corn bring me if I sold them to Swain? Made into whisky I get more. We need the money, and we’ve got a right to make hit.”
    â€œI’m not a-talking about rights,” Emma insisted. “We’ve got a right. But the Law’s got the power.”
    â€œWe’ve got the hills.”
    â€œYes. But hit’s not like it was. Seems every year the outside creeps nearer. Look at that peddler, Small Hardy. The first time he come was some winters ago and now he comes every spring and always talking about the outside. And if the outside creeps nearer, the Law does, too.”
    Granpap opened one of the sacks and began pouring corn into the kettle. After all, the best way to close a scolding woman’s mouth was with silence. Emma stood sullenly beside him.
    â€œI’d rather starve,” she said. “We can eat corn pone and potatoes.”
    â€œShet up, Emma,” Granpap said and Emma hushed. She hadn’t heard that hard tone from him since she was a girl of sixteen and almost married. Lately he had been quieter and more lenient. The tone hushed her voice in her throat. She turned away and went over to stir the fire under the black pot.
    Granpap took the gourd dipper, ladled out some of the warm water from the pot and poured it over the corn. A cloth was lying on the bench and he wrung it out in the pot and covered the vessel. Emma should be satisfied he didn’t often drink at home. But if you ever let a woman have half a cob she wants all.
    â€œWatch the corn, Emma,” he said and walked away toward the cabin. He had spoken to her as if she was a child.
    It was late afternoon and there was mist in the air. A long way off, clear across the south, the big range rose up and down. Mountains piled up, wallowing over each other. They were heavy blue in the mist with black shadows that showed where a hollow came or there was a distance between them. Looking over there, Emma felt heavy and sad and regretful of her childhood spent at the foot of South Range. Pap had been fierce then; he was, still, when he got roused. But there, once he had threatened to knife her when she was fourteen and slipped out with a boy. She had slipped out of church.
    It was a church like the one at Swain’s Crossing, but larger because that was a larger settlement with the cabins closer together. She would never forget the time she and Ora joined the church. They were sixteen and attending a revival. They had come with Jim and Frank McClure who were sitting with the men across the aisle. The preacher was praying and she and Ora were leaning over side by side. Ora began it by scratching under her arm. Sometimes razor-back hogs slept in the church and left fleas. Ora started scratching. Then Emma felt a bite on her leg and began digging on her own account. Ora turned her head to look at Emma and Emma looked out of the corner of her eye at Ora. And right then Ora giggled out loud. That