It rained very little that spring, and turned off dry the first of July. Blades on the corn stalks rolled up no bigger than a kid's finger.
"By fall the woods will look like the depths of hell," Dad said, while we stood out in front of the house and watched the blazing sun set over Joanna Bald. "Shaw," Reek said, "You right about that. They like a tinder box now."
Reek came to our house early every day. Him and Dad had dug a ditch from way up the creek to water Mama's garden.
Mama didn't like to water her garden that way. She claimed: "Flooding the ground like that leaches all the manure and fertilized so far down in the ground the plants cain't reach it."
"Well you can sure bet, we won't raise a tater bigger than a guinea egg if we don't," Dad said.
"You won't have to worry much longer," I said. "Where we could dip up a five-gallon lard bucket full of water from the creek before, you cain't get a thimble full."
"What puts the most worry on me," Dad said, "if'en it don't rain these woods will burn down by late fall."
Reek lived by himself and took at least one meal a day at our house. Mama set a place for him just like the rest of us. This had gone on as long as I could recall. In season, he kept us in fish and game to pay his keep, and he liked her cooking, I reckon.
No rain came in July or August. The leaves on the dogwood and poplar were the first to turn brown and fall. Then the beach and locust leaves wilted and fell. By the last week in August the oaks had commenced to shed. The fields were so dusty Dad kept us out of them. "No need to hoe them crops; they done and burnt up."
Reek brought up an old quarrel that has gone on here in these mountains for many a year. "Shaw, Folks ought to burn the woods in the spring and early summer, like the old-timers did."
"You're right," Dad said. "The leaves didn't rot this spring and summer like common. In places, they're waist deep. The old-timers took that into account and made ready for times like these. They took control of when the woods burnt and didn't leave it to chance."
"Shaw, there weren't no underbrush back then. I recollect when a body could ride a horse through the woods, anywhere he took a notion."
The pasture grass and weeds stopped growing everywhere except down near the stream bed and I had to graze the stock along the creek bank. Most days, I went to the river, cut tall ragweeds, and carried them home. It saved time and worry from standing around watching the stock hunt for a bite here and yonder.
Three days later Dad and Reek took Ceece with us up to the cornfield. Like Reek, Ceece spent a lot of time at our house. Ceece was something over a year younger than me, and he took a lot of looking after.
Dad unrolled some blades on a corn stalk. "We might as well cut these tops and pull the fodder. There won't be any corn, to speak of, in these patches."
When we had all the shocks standing on the dusty hillside, Dad pointed to a long cove on Blood Mountain that was brown as shoe leather. "That stand of poplars looks like it commonly does in late winter."
"Shaw, there won't be enough mast this year to feed one old bushy-tail."
"What don't starve," Dad said, "will get burned out if it don't rain."
"Shaw, I don't recollect hit ever bein this dry a'fore. Why, a body won't need no pole to catch fish; they'll be a'walkin."
"Reek," Dad said, "we might as well go sign up to help fight the timber fires. Them rangers gonna need ever hand they can get."
Ceece kicked at a dirt clod. "What'd it pay?"
"Shaw, the pay is twenty-five cents an hour on giv-er-ment land and ten on private."
"They pay fifty cents a day for standby," Dad said. "You have to stay near the meeting point from ten in the morning til after dark."
Ceece put his hand on his hips. "Well, I won't go for no part of no fire fighting."
"Shaw, they'll concrete you and take you, if'en you're of age."
"He means conscript," Dad said.
"What does 'conscript' mean?" I said.
"It's the law here in these mountains," Dad said. "If they ask you to fight fire and you won't, they'll throw you in jail."
"Shaw, for a fact--them town loafers are done dodging the poolroom, a'feared they'd be called on to help."
"Can I go?" I said.
"You're how old?" Dad said.
"Yeah," I said. He had asked the same thing the day before. I wanted to add: if the tobacco crop fails too, we'd need every cent we can lay our hands on. I held it back to mumble to myself later.
"Well, by golly," Ceece said, "I ain't a'goin to stay here and listen to them sisters of yourn all blamed summer by myself. I'll be the water boy."
"Come Monday morning," Dad said, "We'll go over to Miller's Mill and sign up."