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"And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand); and were choked in the sea." Mark 5:13
Lakeland, New Hampshire, April, 1959
Jimmy Fortune had a way with stories. In fact, he had a way with men,with children, with women (but that¹s another story), and with animals, mostly pigs. Like the time old man Pulsifer bought Elmer and Rosemary. As Jim told a bunch of us ice fishers huddled in a shack on Perch Pond, that was an excitin' day for the seven Fortune kids and him and his wife, Elly, and likewise a sad one.
These pigs was the First two they¹d raised, and had come to be real special around their farm. Most country folk wouldn't put such store in two pigs, but these Fortunes was city bred. Just been up here a summer and a winter. Might have been the first hippies to come north. Left their regular home in Baltimore City to find a new life up here in our White Mountains.
Well, these pigs just had to be sold, and that's all there was to it. Jim was hankerin' after seeds to sow that spring, so he switched the thinkin' of his kids to the cute litter of six Elmer and Rosey were leavin' behind. Pulsy's cash offer had moved Jim to action, and all he had to do now was to catch them, put them on Pulsy's truck, and hitch up the tailgate. Now Pulsy lived right next door, on their left-hand side; but he was givin¹ the pigs a cellah-to-cellah truck ride. And, once he got them home, all he need do was to put down that tailgate, and ease the pigsdown into the cellar under his own barn.
Well, sir, Pulsifer drove around the Fortune¹s house to the back of the barn,and backed up to the hole in the barn cellah, the home of Elmer and Rosey. It was a real mess, as most New Hampshire barn cellahs are on a warm April day: had the goop of a winter¹s worth of pig slop, and the mud and slush from the mountains of snow that had been meltin' and thawin, and goin' -- where else?
We all know the laws of gravity.. So old Pulsy sat waitin' in his truck, stonefaced as the Old Man over yonder in our White Mountains. Wouldn't dare let on to Jimmy that he thought he was gettin' the best deal. Well, then. Jimmy sloshed into that theyah pig pen, and started goin' after that bacon. And, every time he thought he had one of them, out it slid from under him, and down went Jimmy. He told us it seemed like forever that he was gropin', slippin', slidin', catchin', losin', gropin', catchin' those two -- mostly on his belly. Then he¹d be flipped over on his back, now his whole self full o' slime, right up to that shock of red hair.
What a picture he'd have made: a six feet two, raw-boned, freckle-faced carrot-topped Lil Abner (was just as goodlookin' as him -- cleft in the chin and all) struglin' round in that conglomeration of muck! Well, sir, he finally got the slimy critters onto the truck, and him and Pulsy was transactin' behind the truck.
Pulsy had jumped right out, quick-like-a-bunny, just as Jimmy fastened the tailgate: he hankered to seal the deal with this patsy of a city boy in a hurry. Now, old Pulsy was a skinny little thin', come up to about Jimmy's belt buckle. But Jimmy could see plumb over the top of that tailgate, and he looked! And it's a good thin', too, 'cause he seen Rosemary agaspin' for breath like some over-actin' movie star. And it looked to Jimmy like she was really overdoin' it, cause, all of a sudden she was dead still.
Big Jim pole-vaulted, with his hands, right over that tailgate, droppin' that dirty money right in his tracks. In a flash he turned Rosey right over on her back and mounted her. He knowed life-savin' real good, it seems, and so he slurped up and down on 'er stomach, workin' away with his great big paws, in and out, and in and out. He said his own breath like to 've stopped, most like he was aimin' to squeeze it into Rosey with his fingers. Such crazy thoughts as was runnin' through his noggin! Should he try that new fangled mouth-to-mouth life savin' stuff on her? Did he really like Rosey that much? He chuckled to himself over that thought.
All the while his brain was ponderin' about that dough on the ground. It was still there, and Old Pulsy was busy with the rootin' section -- Elly and the kids. They'd a been squealin' about losin' their pets. -- and now doin' a combination of sorrowful-like howlin' and happy-like cheerin' for Jim and Rosemary.
Then there was Mrs. Gude, their neighbor on the right-hand side. She was mouthin' some weird Bible stuff, about maybe the scriptures was bein' fulfilled, and that Jim might just be rid of all his evil from then on -- that Rosey could be takin' the evil out of Jim -- those sparks from his evil eyes. Such excitement.! Wish I¹d 'ave been theyah. Well, sir, meantime, Jimmy kept thinkin' about the money . . . , was it his? The transactin' had been done, but the pigs was still on his property.
But, likewise they was on Pulsy's property: his truck. That dead Rosey, sure as shootin' was now a Pulsifer. But would old Pulsy see it that way? Then, all of a sudden, the sweet music of squealin¹ spouted out of Rosey, and the money pictured in Jim's head brought back the gleam to his cornflower blue sparklers.
Those eyes of his was sparklin' most of the time those days. Seemed to have wise and innocent looks all at once, sayin', "I know all the good and bad in the world, but I take none of it seriously. My wiseness has a twinkle in it." Matter of fact, his whole face seemed to kind of glisten-like: sort of like the woods after a spring rain. And he wasn't as ungainly as Lil Abner and other big fellas seem to be: he moved along smooth through everythin', ambled, kind of, never rushed, but he got there fast anyhow. Seemed like he could pass, like greased lightnin', through a grove of trees, never stirrin' a twig. And, even when he was rigged out for workin' -- ragged jeans and red and black flannel shirt -- Jimmy Fortune looked scrubbed clean, with ut one exception: his fingernails was always filthy, loaded with his precious New Hampshire soil.
Now, this Jimmy Fortune had somethin' most of us would give anythin' to have: seemed like he was charmed or somethin' -- always vibratin'. Folks liked bein' with him, listenin' to his stories -- all of them true! Like I said, he just had a way with people, Jim Fortune did. Would've fit in any place, but our great li'l beauty of a spot lucked out -- ours was the pocket of land he really cottoned to.
Seemed like God just picked him up from Baltimore City and tucked him into that passel of land of his in our White Mountains. Can¹t ever picture Jim as a short-order cook in a big city. But that¹s the life he come from!
Strange, the way got here. Seems like he was willed that farm by a distant cousin -- one he'd never heerd of -- the old Speare place, the oldest buildin' in town, perched right on the edge of three hundred and sixty acres of nat'rel woods He was good stock. all right -- just like all those pioneerin'- type folks he come from. And it seemed like they saved everythin'. There was plenty of ole stuff in both buildin's Good antiques some of them.
This windfall like to have turned him and Elly on. It meant goin' back to nature for them. They¹d live off the land. So, Elly and the kids backed Jim up all the way and nobody doubted he could pull it off for them all. Jim could do anythin'! Made sundials, to order, for summerfolk, from our native granite. Could set them for any spot in these United States -- probably any spot in the world, for that matter. So folks came from miles around for Jim to do their impossibles.
Like when the Congregational preacher lost the antique key to the church. Giant thin' it was. Never could figure how such a whopper could of got lost! Well, sir, not one of the locksmiths for miles around these parts could make a new one.
But Jimmy Fortune did! A bunch of us Lakeland couples had a ball one night around his parlor fire, cuttin¹ up over some of his latest fan-dangled creations. Well, it seems like Mrs. Gude, or ³Goody Two Shoes² Jim calls her, had got hold of some wood pipes from an old church organ. Now, how sly old Gudy had gotten her hands on them, we¹ll never know, but she hankered for Jimmy to fashion her some door chimes out of them. Like to have died laughin' over ideas we all threw out on how he should go about it. Meantime, Jim's homemade wine -- made it by the magnum -- was ripenin' us up to a mellow state, and each idea got nuttier and nuttier.
Jim explained how there¹d have to be air forced through the pipes somehow. And, just at that minute he heard his pigs in the barn cellah out back a gruntin', a snortin' and a squealin'. That brought to Jim's mind those three little pigs and the old wolf huffin' and puffin' on their steps. He lept up and shouted, "I've got it! I¹ll just make a hole in the door, line it up with those pipes, and have callers huffin' and puffin' their way in to music."
Yeah, Jimmy Fortune sure had his sparkle in those days. And, another way he could let out that sparkle was through a paint brush. Don't claim to know much about art myself, but most folks said he turned out a real good oil picture.
Painted real happy-like ones -- lookin' just as happy as he did in those days. And summerfolk, mostly the female ones, would buy ones he¹d have hangin' on the front porch clothesline. Then they would make over him like they had personally discovered a sparklin¹, goldenboy-like man up here in our hills. And even some of our local folk paid hard earned cash for their kids to learn paintin' from Jim. Yeah, Elly was mighty proud of him those days, but likewise a wee bit jealous of how those city women made over him. Don¹t know why, 'cause he loved only her -- a rare doll-like beauty: blonde-haired, sky-blue eyes, kind of cameo-like, she was.
His paintin' kind of mixed her up. She knew it was also that sparkle in his eyes that got those city women to buy. She liked it, too, but Mrs. Gude nagged her that it was real animal in him, and that you never saw a vegetable sparkle. Said his was an out-and-out evil gleam. Come to think of it, old Goody-Two-Shoes mouthed some weird Bible stuff about evil that day Jim saved Rosey, and I saw her nudge Elly and whisper. It was just as he dismounted Rosey and give that big whoop, 'cause she was stilll livin':
"Quick, Elly, look at Jimmy¹s eyes. Don't let on to him. Is that evil gleam gone, girl?"
Well, gleam or no gleam, Elly said Jim could always paint -- kind of born with a paint brush in his hand. So, when he wasn't sloppin' the hogs, or workin' the soil, he was paintin' -- mostly pictures of our hills and valleys. Never saw him do none of real live people in those days. Well, sir, Elly didn't cotton to his paintin' for long hours at a time. Was kind of jealous of it 'cause it took him away from her and the kids. I felt for Elly 'cause, no matter how pretty it is up here, our small town livin' can get kinda lonely and borin' for a city gal. So Elly always tried to get him away from it. That was woman-like.
So, to 'scape the naggin', he put himself up a lean-to with a potbellied stove for heat, 'way over on the farthest side of their land, right up near a pretty water fall runnin' into a nice skinny-dippin' pool. Well, that's what us Lakeland kids used to use it for when I was young. Well, Jimmy would 'scape there and paint to his heart's content, and Elly couldn't hound him at that distance. At first he went over there about once a week. Then oftener and oftener, sometimes stayin' for days on end.
There wasn¹t no harm in it, as far as I could see. Still kept the farm and did his chores. Kids didn't ever seem to want for nothin' in those day, either. Yeah, Jimmy was a good fella, and Elly was a good wife and the kids a thrivin' healthy bunch -- all as smart as a whip!
Most town folks say Mrs. Gude started their breakup -- poisonin' Elly¹s mind, She claimed that on the day of the pig sale his eyes had grown sparklier - he had added Rosey¹s evil to his own. I love that family, and. to me, Jimmy Fortune is one of my special people. And I, for one, will never forget him.
And, if there's such a thin' as miracles, hell be right smack in the middle of one of them. And as sure as my name is Ethan Allen Hathaway, they'll be a special one. just for him -- to bring him, his sparkle, and the whole crew of Fortunes right up theyah with him -- you mark my words!
THE END
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