Eight cane-bottomed chairs sat facing the huge fireplaces. I always made sure to go by there if the McTalleys were sitting by the hearth. In winter, it would be a sure bet; in summer, Saturday was the only time you could count on. Everybody called them the twins, though they were in their seventies. Because they had never married, I figured.
They were rich by our standards in land and cattle. They owned what bottomland there was along the creek and they had cattle and hogs that ranged in the mountains. Whenever a twenty-dollar bill came through the store, they would argue over who got to give change for it.
"Once a dollar gets salted down in a breast pocket of their overalls, you'll never see it again," I had heard people say many a time.
Elbert was tall and lanky and smoked a pipe. Delbert was short and squatty--a tobacco twist and snuff man. They were always together and always arguing. Folks say in their younger days that they had fistfights that went from morning to night. Then they would start back in the next morning, right where they left off.
"When one of them gets a cold, the other sneezes," my uncle Earl allowed. "They got all the money in the world and their clothes look like they robbed a scarecrow."
I looked over toward the fireplaces. The twins were sitting there alone, each facing a fireplace. I could see both of them, but with the big hearths between them, they couldn't see each other.
Ceece pinched me on the arm as we came near. "They're at it again."
We sat down on nail kegs so we could listen. I could smell the dried cow manure that covered their unlaced brogans. Each of them had only one overall gallows fastened--for some reason they always unfastened one when the argument got heated up. Delbert was so heavy he couldn't fasten the side flap. It looked like the things would fall off if he stood up.
Ceece swung both arms over his head, like he was using a pitchfork. We both snickered. I looked at the faded blue shirts the twins wore, at the sweat circles under their armpits.
"Them clothes is so ragged they use a pitchfork to put'em on with," Ceece said.
Delbert loaded his lip with snuff, then broke off a piece of tobacco twist and filled his jaw. Elbert pitched the remainder of a pickled pig's foot into the ashes. Some folks claimed that's all he ate. He walked over to the counter and brought back the whole jar of pig's feet. I figured this had to be a humdinger of an argument.
"I heard you a'talkin to Widder Smith day a'fore yesterday," Elbert said, "when she brung over them tater cakes for you. She had on so much toilet water I could smell her long before I seed her. Had so much of that jet oil on her hair it run down her neck and turned her collar black."
Delbert packed a little more snuff in his lip before he answered.