Budda Ben hated July. He declared July was a wicked sinner, a crapshooter, a poker-player, a gambler, a dancer who sang reels, and carried his “box” (guitar) everywhere he went playing wicked tunes for the sinners to dance by at birthnight suppers and parties and playing on Saturday afternoon at the crossroads store for the boys and men who loafed there when the week’s work was over. He sang songs with bad words and he was no fit company for Mary to keep. Budda Ben and Maum Hannah wanted her to marry June, July’s twin brother, who had loved Mary all her life, and who was hurt to the heart now because she chose July instead of himself.
Mary prized June’s devotion for he was steady and kind, a faithful friend, who helped her do all her tasks: bringing in the wood Budda Ben cut at the woodpile, fetching water from the spring, or bringing broom sedge out of the old fields for the winter’s supply of brooms, setting out plants in the vegetable garden and hoeing the rows clean. June often helped her scour the floors Saturday morning when July went rabbit hunting. He was far more thoughtful than July and as much unlike him in looks as in disposition. July was tall, lean, quick-spoken. June was short, big-chested, heavy, slow.
They fought all through their boyhood, for they were evenly matched, and to this day they would fight again at the drop of a hat, not with weak scuffles or wordy quarreling, but with terrible blows of clenched fists that brought blood.
Yet they loved each other, and to meddle with one of them meant to meddle with both.
When Mary told June she was going to marry July, he drew his thick black eyebrows together and his hands doubled up into hard fists. Something like surprise filled his eyes. “July?” he asked. “You is gwine to marry July?” Then he grunted and shrugged his big round shoulders. “July ever was a lucky boy. E ever was. I never had a luck in my life.”
“Ain’ you glad I’m gwine to be you sister, June?” she asked him.
“Not so glad, Si May-e.” June smiled a wry smile and looked far away.
Maum Hannah called July a trifling time-waster and complained that he never stuck to any work; that he never saved a cent or stayed in one place long enough to take root; that he was always courting girls, then leaving them high and dry, and often in trouble. He would never stick to Mary. June would. June was honest and hardworking, strong as an ox, and he would make a fine husband even if he could not play a box like July.
Whenever July came to see her at night while Budda Ben and Maum Hannah were both at meeting it made the old woman suspicious and unhappy. She’d sigh and say, “Company in de dark don’ do, gal. Company in de dark don’ do. When de kerosene is out and de moon don’ shine and it’s too hot for bright fire—just de dark and company—company in de dark don’ do, gal.”
Deep down in Mary’s heart she knew this was true, but after she was married to July, she would help him to be steady and faithful. She would make him a home where he liked to stay. She would save his money, and teach him how to be a serious-minded man. He needed her to help him, for, in spite of his tall sinewy body and broad shoulders, July had a child’s heart in his breast. He liked play better than work because something inside him had never grown up.
He liked to tease her and plague her in all sorts of ways. One spring day while she was seeking peace and July was helping June mark his pigs, cutting every one in an ear before it was carried over the river to roam in the pasture with its mother, so that he might be able to tell his own hogs the next fall, July came where she was, caught her by the arm and held her. She thought he was going to kiss her, but he took his knife out of his pocket and slit the lobe of her ear. “Now, you is marked for life,” he said and laughed gaily. Mary wept with the hurt, but Maum Hannah called July and asked him why he had cut Mary’s ear. He grinned sheepishly and said he had marked her with an underbit.
“Is dat you mark?”
“Yes’m,” he answered boldly, adding that he had marked Mary so he could tell she was his when she grew up.
“Well, son, May-e’s mark is a swallow-fork. Two cuts. You stand still while de gal cuts you ear. Lend em you knife. I ain’t got a sharp one in de house.”
July took out his knife and stood still while Mary cut his ear this way and that to make the swallow-fork. He was marked for life, too. His blood flowed fast, but he grinned good-naturedly and said nothing.
That very night he told her he loved her and was going to marry her when she grew up and she felt that she could walk on air, or fly like a bird, or blossom like a flower, when she heard his beautiful words.
Last summer he went away to find easier and better-paid work and her heart sickened in her breast so she could hardly eat or smile. But now he was back, thin and bony, with new lines in his face; his clothes were worn out and his pockets empty, but his old happy grin was as bright as ever. No matter what Budda Ben and Maum Hannah said, July should never leave her again.
All the money he made was gone and June had to lend him some to go to town and buy his wedding clothes. He used part of it to buy Mary a present, a pair of hoop earrings to
