Truman Capote's Southern Years, 25th Anniversary Edition: Stories from a Monroeville Cousin

Chapter 14. Hatter's Mill

14 Hatter's Mill I settled with relatives, a cotton-growingfamily who lived in a remote part ofAlabama: cotton fields, cattle pastures, pinewoods , dirt roads, creeks and slow little rivers, jaybirds, owls, buzzards circling in empty skies, distant train whistles-and, five miles away, a small country town. ... I was walking in aforest along the bank ofa mysterious, deep, very clear creek, a route that eventually led to a place called Hatter's Mill. The mill, which straddled the creek, had been abandoned long ago; it was aplace wherefarmers had brought their corn to be ground into cornmeal. As a child, I'd often gone there with cousins to fish and swim. ... TRUMAN CAPOTE, Prologue, Other Voices, Other Rooms One scorching hot summer day Dick Carter yelled outside my kitchen window, "Hey, Big Boy! Let's go swimming at Hatter's Mill." He and his colored helper, Charlie McCants, were each straddling a mule lathered from a hard gallop down Drewry Road. They had been plowing when, nearly overcome by the heat, they unhitched the mules and raced to my house two miles away. My mother looked up from the bowl of black-eyed peas she had been shelling, wiped her hands on her faded, blue-flowered apron, and opened the screen door. "Big Boy's in here helping me," she called. I put aside the green beans I'd been snapping and stood beside Mother at the screen door. In the distance we saw Edison McMillan 194 A!I1 Hatter's Mill IaIl 195 coming up the path with yet another basket of beans from the garden. Sweat was dripping from Dick and Charlie as they sat bareback on the mules. "C'mon. Let's go swimming at Hatter 's Mill," Dick said. I looked at Mother, hoping she would agree, but doubting she would let me out of the job at hand. "We've got all these peas and beans to put up," she said in dismay. "I'll be over that hot canner half the night as it is. Oh, all right, go on. See if Truman wants to go along. He needs to get out and get busy at something." I was so happy to be rescued from the kitchen I hardly knew what to do. "Give me a few minutes," I said to Dick. "Truman's in the living room reading. I'll have to get him. Then catch up the mule." "Okay," said Dick. "I'll go see if Buddy Ryland wants to go. You wait here, Charlie." Dick rode off in a cloud of dust. Edison had reached the house by that time and was left staring at a basket brimming over with beans. "I sho nuff would like to go along with them boys," he said to Mother. She smiled at him. "Okay, Edison. But first do your train imitation for me." Edison grinned. "Why, Miz Carter, I didn't know you knowed about my train." "The boys said you sounded just like the mail train passing through Drewry. I want to see you do it." Edison was a gangly black boy with sinewy arms and legs and wide-palmed hands. He had a smiling face planted on a small head, about the size of a grapefruit, leading some of the older folks to say "He's a boy whose body has outgrown his mind." He was mildly retarded, but he worked and played along with the rest of us boys. He was especially good at mutations, and enjoyed the praise for doing them. Edison started huffing and puffing. He flailed his arms like the connecting rods going to train wheels, and he shuffled his feet on the gravel path. "All aboard!" he said, then blew a loud whistle between big, white teeth. He went forward before applying the brakes and squealing the wheels to a halt. Slowly he reversed, huffpuff, huff puff, huff puff-then faster as he trotted backward. He puckered his lips. "Whoo whoo. Whoo whoo. Whoooo whoooo." About the time he finished the choo-chooing routine, Truman walked in and we all applauded. "Great!" said Truman . "I didn't know you were so talented." "It ain't nuthin'. I jest practiced a lot," Edison said. He crawled up on the mule beside Charlie. "See y'all over to the Rylands' house." As the two rode off, I started out the back door to catch Mary, the...