Gap Creek : The Story of a Marriage

by Robert Morgan

• ISBN13: 9780743225359
• ISBN10: 074322535X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-08-28
• Publisher: Touchstone

Summary

Julie Harmon works hard, "hard as a man" they say, so hard that at times she's not sure she can stop. People depend on her. She is just a teenager when her brother dies in her arms. The following year, she marries Hank and moves to Gap Creek. Julie and

Author Biography

An accomplished novelist and poet, Robert Morgan has won the James B. Hanes Poetry Prize, the North Carolina Award in Literature, and the Jacaranda Review Fiction Prize. He is a professor of English at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Excerpts

Chapter 3 After Papa's death things hadn't changed as much as you might think. For Papa had been sick a long time, and I was already doing most of the outdoor work, me and Lou, and sometimes Mama helped. You didn't get Rosie much out in the fields or woods. She was a house worker. When things had to be done in the fields or woods, Mama would complain, and then she would tell Lou and me to go do it. But it was up to me to see that things got done. In any house somebody has to take the burden. Mama would say, "Julie, don't you think it's time to plant the taters," and I'd say, "Mama, I've done dropped the taters yesterday, and I'll plant corn today." She had never got over the death of Masenier, and then Papa died, and it seemed to leave her wore out, like she didn't feel up to trying no more. Wasn't anything for me to do but take over and get out and do the work, whether I liked it or not.There was this Spanish oak that had fell in a storm the winter before, on the bank of the road. It fell in the wind on the night Papa died, but I had been too busy in the fields all summer to cut it up. So it laid there and dried out and seasoned a little, which made it easier to saw.The first time I saw Hank I was too embarrassed to speak. But that was just because I was took by surprise. Because it was the last thing I was expecting, to fall in love. It was late summer after Papa died in early spring, and Mama and me was sawing the Spanish oak right on the bank of the road where it comes up from Crab Creek.I reckon there's nothing awkwarder in the world than the sight of two women in long dresses at either end of a crosscut saw. It was still hot and my hair had come unpinned when I wiped the sweat off my forehead. My face was hot and there was big rings of sweat under my armpits. I was so busy working I didn't hear the horse until it snorted and kind of cleared its throat. And when I looked up and brushed a strand out of my eyes, I saw this wagon hitched to a chestnut mare. The wagon stopped and this man, really almost a boy, a big, strong boy, stood in the bed holding the reins."Howdy," he hollered to Mama, not paying much attention to me."How do," Mama said, standing up. She had took to saying "How do" the way Papa used to.I can say without doubt the man in the wagon was the handsomest I had ever seen. His hair was black and he had this high rounded forehead. And already he had a soft mustache that hung around the ends of his mouth. He was tanned dark from working in the fields all summer. But the thing that caught my notice first was his shoulders. He had the straightest, widest shoulders, and you could tell how powerful he was, and how much he could lift. It was the way he was made, and not that he was such a terrible big man."I'm looking for the Willards that are selling sweet taters" he said."You ain't there yet," Mama said and pointed on up the road."Figured I had a ways to go," the man said."Where you coming from?" Mama said. It was not what she would have said when Papa was alive. She said it the way Papa would have."All the way from Painter Mountain," the main said. "I'm Hank Richards.""I'm Delia Harmon," Mama said. "And this is my daughter Julie.""Pleased to meet you," the man said and tipped his hat.That was when I felt myself get red in the face. The sweat run down my temples, and I felt myself blushing all over. Because it wasn't till that second that I remembered I didn't have any shoes on. I was saving my shoes for winter and I didn't want to wear any heavy work shoes if I was just going to be standing in the leaves and sawing. And it was so much cooler to go barefoot. But at that instant I knowed I didn't want Hank Richards to see me barefoot, like a little girl or a pauper. It was bad enough that he had seen me pulling a crosscut saw.I wiped the hair off my forehead and tried not to look at him. And trying not to show I was moving, I worked my feet