Trading Jeff and his Dog Part 20

Jeff looked through a large window that faced the back and saw a neat garden, a little grove of fruit trees, a fat mule, a brown cow, and a cat sitting on a stone. It was exactly the big, fluffy, white cat that should have belonged in such a place. Not until he took a second glance did he realize that the cat was not alive at all, but woven into a tapestry. He went nearer.

Stretched on a walnut frame, the tapestry was so exquisitely woven that the cat's every hair not only showed but was in the right place. The cat was about to lick a front paw, and even after he knew it was a tapestry, so real was the illusion of life that Jeff extended a hand to see if the cat might not be soft and warm. He turned to Granny.

"Who did this?"

She was all gentleness. "I did. That's my Kitty Cat, dead these four months."

There was longing in her voice, and more than a hint of sadness, and Jeff knew that the cat had meant a great deal to her. He understood.

Some people loved horses, some preferred dogs, and some set their affections on cats. But for Granny it could not be just any cat.

Jeff asked, "Do you do much of this sort of thing?"

"Land, yes! A body ought to keep busy!"

Jeff said gently, "I think you've kept busy a long while around here."

"Sixty-four years the seventh of May," she said pertly. "Came as a sixteen-year-old bride. Enos, G.o.d rest his soul, has been gone these past three years. You two come on into the kitchen."

She led them into the kitchen, seated them, opened a trap door in the floor, took cool milk from an earth-bound chamber, and lifted a tray of gingerbread from a cabinet. Eighty years old, her movements were almost as brisk and sure as a girl's. Jeff and Dan ate heartily; any food they prepared for themselves could not possibly compare with this. Granny seated herself companionably near.

"Ike say when he was gettin' out?" she asked.

"Well, no. He was there with Bucky--" Jeff snapped his fingers. "I forgot his last name."

"Bucky Edwards," she furnished. "Land! He and Ike been stealin' chickens for a span of time."

Jeff sensed something completely fine. She was old in years only. Until the day she died her mind would be young and strong. Ike's escapades probably did hurt her, but Ike was as much her son as the doctor, the lawyer and the others who had decided in favor of respectable careers.

She would not deny him.

Jeff said, "Ike and Bucky didn't seem to have any definite plans."

"They have some," she a.s.sured him. "They'll come here, and when they do, there'll be a heap of trouble--" She stopped suddenly, as though she had said something unwise.

"When do you expect them?" Jeff asked.

"Don't rightly know. Maybe soon. Maybe not so soon."

For a moment Jeff was silent and Dan was still stuffing gingerbread into his mouth. Granny had spoken of trouble when Ike came, but apparently it was not trouble for herself, and if she wanted him to know more about it she would have told him. He wished he could offer her help, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew how to help herself. He was trying to think of a way to steer the conversation away from Ike when Granny relieved him of the necessity for so doing.

"What you peddlin'?" she asked brightly.

Jeff fidgeted. The contents of his pack, for the most part, were designed for those who had little. Jeff tried to please people who yearned after a bit of gay ribbon, a new knife, anything they might need or desire but could not get for themselves. But he couldn't imagine what Granny lacked and countered her question with one of his own.

"Where do you get your thread and yarn?"

She looked surprised. "Spin it myself, to be sure. I have sheep. I grow flax, too."

Jeff followed up because he was interested. "Do you also make your own dyes?"

"Land, yes! 'Twould be a sin to let the yarbs go to waste when they grow right at the door step!"

"Do you use anything besides herbs?"

"Bark, seeds, nut husks and sh.e.l.ls, it's all here. Take a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of another thing, seethe it, and there's a dye."

"I know you do your own weaving."

"Land, yes!"

Jeff grinned ruefully. For the first time since its founding, Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., had reached a blind end. "Something for Everyone,"

was one of its numerous slogans. But he did not have anything for Granny Wilson and he was honest about it.

"Granny, I don't believe I can offer you a thing."

"Oh, come now! You must have somethin'!"

"But I haven't."

"Now, Jeff, you jest open that pack and give me a look for myself."

"I'll do that much."

Jeff laid his pack on the table and opened every compartment. Granny reached for a skein of gray yarn. She tested it with her fingers, murmured, "Poorly, poorly," and handed it back. Granny ignored the bright ribbons, had no time whatever for the knickknacks, lingered over a packet of needles, and her eyes were accusing when she gave them back.

"Young man, you are a poor shakes of a peddler."

"I tried to tell you I hadn't anything you'd want."

"You should have somethin' to please a poor old woman."

"I know. If I had anything good enough for you--Oh, darn!"

A skein of yarn tumbled out of the pack and caught on a buckle. Jeff reached through the slit for one of the many-bladed knives, opened the scissors, and carefully snipped the tangled wool off. Granny clapped joyful hands.

"I knew it! I knew it! Give me that."

Jeff handed her the knife. Granny's eyes shone.

"Just the thing!" she cried ecstatically. "Just what I need! My eyes ain't what they used to be. I missed two shots at runnin' bucks last fall and I'm forever mislayin' my necessaries. 'Twould be handy to have so many in one piece. Cash or swap?"

Jeff said recklessly, "Let's call it a gift, Granny."

"But," she was honestly troubled, "you can't give me aught that cost you dear."

"Yes I can."

"Not by my leave," she said firmly. "It's only right that a body gets his worth."