Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Other Stories by Sharyn McCrumb Page A

heavy coal drags come south or the time freight goes by headin’ north, that whole little house of yourn purt near shakes itself to pieces. No wonder yer pictures fall. You’ll fall out of bed if you ain’t keerful.”
    But the white phantom out back?
    Aunt Till studied about it. “Well,” she allowed, “sometimes of an evening I go out back there in my nightgown, looking for that no-good rascal Old Painter.”
    They weren’t bothered by haints after that, though Old Painter continued to roam and squall. They took to calling that northbound freight the Ghost Train, first as a family joke, and then from force of habit.
    Sam was twisting the hedge twig into the damp ground, trying to make it stand up by itself. He pulled the leaves off the lower part of the stem to give himself a better grip. After a few more turns the stick found a wobbly purchase in the wet earth. Sam scooped up a handful of dirt and patted it around the base of the twig. He wondered if it would take root if he left it long enough, like Grammaw Hemrick’s switch. Every time they went up home to Preachin’ Grampaw’s, Sam would stare at the mulberry tree in the front yard, and try to picture Grammaw as a young bride from Sinking Creek riding sidesaddle over the mountains with a young black-haired Preachin’ Grampaw.
    He must have heard tell a dozen times how she got off her horse at her husband’s homeplace and stuck that riding switch in the ground in the front yard, where it grewinto a mulberry tree with limbs strong enough to support him and Jamie both for berry-picking. Sam liked going up-home even if he was a little scared of his stern old grandfather. The house was always full of grown-up uncles, and there was Jamie, the youngest, who was only two years older than Sam, even if he was an uncle. That mulberry tree was the least of the wonders up in Pigeon Roost. The uncles had rigged up a generator in the barn and made their own electricity with creek water, so that the old homeplace had real electric lights, while Sam’s parents’ house like the rest of those in town was still using oil lamps. Sam liked to hear the uncles tell how they rigged up the old waterwheel on the gristmill with the materials Lewis brought back from up north, and how they wired up the house, the barn, the outhouse, the chicken shed, and even the backyard and put in electric lights. Then Francis would tell one of his stories about coon-hunting or bee-tracking. He always had a couple of hives in white boxes down near the creek. Last, and best, was Sam’s daddy’s turn. Wesley, the town-dweller now, would allow as how it was all right to track coons or play with your mechanical toys, but he was a man of experience: he’d been there when they hanged the elephant. Sometimes he’d even get Grammaw to take down the family album and he’d turn to a picture of himself and announce: “That was the day they done it.” The photograph showed a solemn young man with the Hemrick cheekbones staring into the camera. It was a close shot of his head and shoulders against a gray sky; there was no sign of the elephant or its railroad gallows, but Sam never forgot which picture was the crucial one, proving that his daddy had actually been there.
    Sam tested the twig with his forefinger. It gave a little to the pressure, but remained firmly in position. The gallows was ready. Now he’d go and get the tiny wooden elephant that Dad had carved for him. It took Sam a while to get back out of the house, once he got in. Hefound the elephant right off, but when he went to ask his mother for twine, she’d put him to work setting the jars of home-canned pickles and beans on the table. She was busy in the kitchen frying up side-meat and potatoes for supper. By the time he got back out, Dad was already home, chopping firewood for the kitchen range.
    “Don’t get too close here,” he warned when Sam stopped to watch. “Wood chip might catch you in the eye.”
    Sam nodded and took a step