Mary Elizabeth Counselman

“ Hettie nodded with a smug grin. “It’s a strange case—almost a legend up around Bald Mountain. Although,” she added, blatantly climbing into my car, “it’s not without precedent, in the old Greek legends. Zeus was forever turning some girl into a spring or a flower, or some inanimate object, so his wife Hera wouldn’t find out about his goings on. Even as late as the fifteenth century, there were proxy weddings, where some queen or other married her knight’s sword because he was off at war. Then, there’s an African tribe in which the men are married, at puberty, to some tree.” ”

“ Hettie chuckled. “Oh, no. Mountain men take it for granted that their wives must work like mules. All they do is feed ’em, shelter ’em, and protect ’em—with an occasional pretty thrown in when they feel in a generous mood. That’s what Florella expected from her tree-husband, and that’s what she got. Though I suppose a psychologist would say her delusion gave her a sense of security' that merely made her able to fend for herself. Lots of people need a crutch for their self-confidence—if it’s only a lucky coin they carry around. ”

“ In a matter of minutes, the posse had both fathers handcuffed and hauled off to jail. But, behind them, they left a tragic tableau—little Florella weeping over the body of her lost lover, with old Reverend Adkins standing dumbly in the background. Two of the posse had stayed behind to help with Joe Ed’s body, which the weeping girl had begged the preacher to bury, then and there, “under our tree.” It was there Joe Ed had first caught her and kissed her, holding his hand over her mouth and laughing, with Lafe not ten yards away. ”

“ Hettie chuckled, “it seems her coat got tangled in a tree branch that dipped down over the gate. It yanked the coat right off her back, the way she told it. She lit out of there, screaming bloody-murder, and told everybody that Joe Ed took her coat for Florella! When the girl tried to return it to her, she wouldn’t touch it. Said it wasn’t her best coat, anyhow, and she wasn’t going to argue with a tree!”
“Oh no!” I shook my head, laughing—but still trying to ignore a small shiver that kept running down my spine. “These mountain people are awfully superstitious, aren’t they? ”

“ Sometimes they are portrayed as nymphs who occasionally marry mortals, only to die when their tree form is cut down. Sometimes the wood spirit is particularly vindictive. To strike at it invites an attack of sudden weakness; to some who approach it with an ax it brings instant death. ”

“ Next time Kirby will know better! I rather imagine,” she chuckled, “that this experience will keep him sober for some time!”
The girl nodded shyly, and bent to pick up the child. But small Josie toddled away from her and ran around the great tree to where a low limb dipped almost to the ground.
“Pa!” she chirped suddenly, holding up her chubby arms to the giant oak. “Fing baby! Fing high, Pa!”
Florella laughed, shaking her head mildly and calling: “No! No, now, Joe Ed—you’re liable to drop that young’un! Don’t ye—”
But as I stared, that low limb dipped down as under unseen pressure. ”

“ And I kept glancing up nervously at that tall spreading oak tree, brooding over the little mountain cabin, and the woman and child who lived there alone.
A lone—?
“Pitiful case, isn’t it?” Hettie murmured cheerfully, as she climbed into the car and waved goodbye to Florella Dabney— or “Mrs. Joe Edward Jennings,” as she was listed in the Welfare files. “I mean,” my friend expanded, “the way that poor girl lives, with her baby. From hand to mouth, and the prey of —well, men like Kirby. She’d be so lonely and frightened if it weren’t for that pathetic delusion of hers. ”

“ Then, as gently, it let her down again, while the young mother shook her head again in laughing reproof. My scalp crawled at her matter-of-fact, unselfconscious manner.
“Joe Ed’s always a-doin’ that,” she said pleasantly. “She loves it. Why, Miss Hettic!” she broke off, pouting as I sidled pointedly back toward the gate, “I thought you-all would stay for dinner! Joe Ed caught me a rabbit, and I was just fixin' to fry it real nice and brown. Cain’t ye stay?”
But I was out the gate and climbing into my car by that time, shaking my head covertly and beckoning for flettie to come away. ”

“ These old legends come from very ancient agricultural customs when man and the plant and animal life around him were mutually interdependent. Today, when the despoilers of our land are cutting down our forests and ruining our environment, a story such as “The Tree's Wife’’ seems particularly pertinent in its portrayal of a primitive belief reawakened in modern times. ”

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