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GREAT JEHOSHAPHAT AND GULLY DIRT!
By Jewell Ellen Smith
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Great Jehoshaphat and Gully Dirt!
By Jewell Ellen Smith
Copyright (c) 1975. All rights reserved.
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GREAT JEHOSHAPHAT AND GULLY DIRT!
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GREAT JEHOSHAPHAT
AND GULLY DIRT!
By
Jewell Ellen Smith
"Great Jehoshaphat and Gully
Dirt" is presently out of print. It is reproduced here in its
entirety.
Copies of the first edition of the original work are available by
e-mail from nkemp@busprod.com,
or WSmithMD@aol.com.
Copyright © 1975. All rights reserved.
All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Click Here to go to the Jewell Ellen Smith Homepage.
Chapter 1
An usher I'd not seen before carefully wheeled my chair down the center aisle and over to the right so that I would be facing the pulpit. Most Sunday mornings I sat on the opposite side of the church. But this usher didn't know that. Oh well, no matter.
The usher was saying something to me, but before I could adjust my hearing aid, I had to push my shawl back and slip a glove. By then, he had quit talking.
He let my chair roll to a stop so close to the chancel rail. I could have reached out and kicked it with my foot—that is, I had been in the mood to kick a chancel railing and if I could have moved either foot.
I was almost in a kicking mood!
No, no! I shouldn't think of such a thing as kicking that brass rail. I should be wishing I could kneel down before it. Somehow, though, my mind wasn't on praying.
The usher stepped back, then hesitated.
"Will this be all right, Mrs. Goode? Can you hear Dr. Shirey's sermon from here? Or would you rather be a little over toward the choir and the organ?"
"This is fine. Thank you kindly." I was surprised the man knew my name.
He smiled and handed me the morning bulletin.
The minute the usher's back was turned, I clicked off my hearing aid so that I wouldn't have to listen to the pastor's sermon, the organ, or anything else. I just wanted—well, I didn't know exactly what I wanted.
The only reason in this round world I kept coming to Central Avenue Church was that it was right across the street from Crestview Rest Home, and I had to get out and away from that place once in a while. Crestview wasn't so bad, as nursing homes go. In fact, it was all right. Still, any rest home is a sad comedown from one's own house—and such a change.
As the congregation filed in, I looked about me. The sanctuary, quiet and beautiful with its stained-glass windows, its high, arched ceiling, and its deep carpets, was the only serene spot I had found since I came to the city. Out on the streets all was rush, confusion, turmoil—enough to drive one to distraction.
Here, too, I managed to block out for a little while the feeling of helplessness I'd had since I became so frail. The doctors kept saying that my general condition was good and my arthritis might improve some. But as yet I couldn't see much change.
To make myself lift my head and quit looking at my stiff, swollen knees, I turned toward the nearest window. I liked those green velvet curtains and the matching cushions on the pews. Both were the exact color of an Arkansas pine in early spring, when it takes on new life and puts forth myriads of tender buds, each a creamy, candle-like shoot, lovely enough to adorn a sacred altar.
I gazed at the candles on the altar and at the open Bible, crisscrossed with its narrow scarlet ribbons. The sight of that Bible was always a pleasure. It brought back memories my old church down at Drake Eye Springs—small, standing so calm in its grove of aged white oaks.
That little church had everything a big church has—except a steeple. But the colored folks up at Sweet Beulah Hill had a steeple. They had built a tall belfry and spire for church, and Sweet Beulah's bell could be heard for miles.
But it wasn't green curtains or candles or the memory of old country churches with their Bibles and bells that drew me to this large sanctuary. And it wasn't the quiet beauty of the room that made me want to come. It was my duty to be in some church.
Besides, the young minister had invited me to attend. I didn't care for Dr. Shirey's sermons. Not yet. But I did like him, and no doubt his sermons would improve. After all, a preacher is like wine. To warm the heart, each must age.
Young Dr. Shirey visited the nursing home every Tuesday afternoon, talking and passing the time of day with each of us. He always let me talk of my late husband Wallace, of our children and grandchildren. Lovely youngsters, little Vic, Nan, Jodie. Dr. Shirey seemed to understand why I refused to go live with any of my children after my health failed so.
Sometimes the young preacher and I discussed religion. One day I took up practically an hour of his time with the tales about my preacher grandpa, Grandpa Dave. Dr. Shirey was intrigued with the old man's ministry. And for some reason or other, he was delighted to hear about Grandpa's double buggy and his matched white mares, Martha and Mary. He said it made him wish he could have been a country preacher back in horse-and-buggy times.
I was much concerned for Dr. Shirey. Standing there now behind the pulpit, he looked bone tired. And no wonder, for besides his parish work he was forever running here and there—to the juvenile detention home, the clinic for alcoholics, the mental health center, the Black ghetto. Often, he told me, he got discouraged over it all.
Never did I mention to him how I felt: bewildered, lost, like an autumn leaf caught up in an angry storm and carried far away from its forest, a leaf that longed to stay where it was, there to turn golden yellow, then brown, and finally, late on a winter evening, to flutter to the ground and to its sleep beneath the trees.
Nor would I ever breathe to my young pastor that some days I was utterly cast down, so broken in heart that I wished I were a little girl again and could run and hide under my grandma's bed.
I couldn't confide such a thing to Dr. Shirey. It would show I had lost courage —as so many older persons do when change comes with the years. Half the patients at Crestview are like that. They don't want to keep up. They want to look back. My roommate has that attitude, and I try to tell her not to give up, to face the present, to look to the future. It's all right to remember bygone days with a grain or two of nostalgia, but there's no need living in the past.
I was doing just that—remembering bygone days—while I waited for the choir to finish its anthem. When I was a little girl in Arkansas, in the section of low Ouachita hills that lies between the Mississippi River and the Red, our manner was slow and simple, down to earth as gully dirt. The horse-and-buggy days were already fading away, but we didn't sense it. The swift pace that was to come, virtually overnight, was still undreamed of. There were not many automobiles, no superhighways, no jets, and no spacecraft. In south Arkansas, the fastest thing on wings was a thieving chicken hawk, and anything in the sky bigger than a buzzard was referred to as a "flying machine."
There seemed to be fewer problems then. Nobody had yet thought to build nursing homes and institutions for this, that, and every other kind of person with a complaint. The elderly, maimed, halt and blind were sheltered beside the hearth of their blood kin.
The Negroes I knew—Shoogie, Doanie, Sun Boy, Ned, Little Stray, and all the rest—lived out in the country close by us. I couldn't have managed without Shoogie, for she was my main playmate, even though my sister Mierd and my brother Wiley were still living at home. Why, if it hadn't been for Shoogie, I never would have learned to build a good frog house in the sand. I'd love to see Shoogie again. After she married Doanie's oldest boy, they went off to the West Coast. I'd like to be with her, climbing pine saplings, wading in the branch, and jumping deep gullies!
We were all eating our white bread then and didn't know it.
There were no alcoholics. A heavy drinking man was a sot, a sinner. Women didn't drink—or if they did, they didn't tell it. And as for mental health, it was an unheard-of term. Any persons slightly off were said to be "curious," or at worst, "touched in the head." They were tolerated by family and friends, while those considered dangerous were sent off to be locked up in the state asylum.
Ah, old man Hawk! He must have had a mental problem! I hadn't thought of that old coot in years. I wonder what a psychiatrist would have said about him. And Miss Dink. She didn't have a mental problem; she was just blind and had to be looked after. Fortunately her niece, Miss Ophelia, gave her a home. And Ward Lawson, Miss Ophelia's husband! Now he was sure a sot drunkard—an alcoholic if there ever was one.
One summer afternoon Mama had let me ride with her in our buggy to visit Miss Dink, who, at that time, was living with the Lawsons on the run-down Crawford place some few miles beyond Rocky Head Creek.
I had a gourd dipper in my hand and was skipping along the edge of the woods on my way down the path to Miss Dink's spring. My hair, braided tight, was tied with ribbons that flipped and rippled as I bounced along the trail. I could smell honeysuckle blooms and climbing jasmine, and I was wishing I had the time to chase the yellow butterflies that were swooping and fluttering zigzag from bush to bush. But Miss Dink had wanted me to hurry to the spring and bring her a gourdful of fresh water. She had said, "It ain't far from the house here to the spring, sugar. Just stay in the trail till you hit the branch and turn down left a little ways."
Then she had skimmed her bony fingers over my face and braids to find out how I looked. "Ah, Nannie," she said to Mama while she still had her hands on my cheeks, "I can tell you and Jodie won't have no trouble a-tall marrying your baby off. She's pretty as a pink. What color's her eyes and hair?" Miss Dink patted my head.
"Her eyes are sort of greenish blue, like a gander's. And her hair's about as yellow as a crooked-neck squash when it's good and ripe. But that don't matter. If Bandershanks does as well as she looks, she'll fare fine."
"Just so she ain't got buck teeth. Many's the old maid I've seen with teeth like a beaver."
"Well, we can't be sure about her teeth yet. She's still got her baby set." Mama looked down at me.
I kept thinking about Miss Dink's eyes. Mama had told me she was losing her sight. Poor thing. The minute she said I was pretty as a flower, I knew she was plum blind, for I wasn't pretty. It hadn't been two days since Wiley had told me I looked exactly like a billy goat.
Mama was saying, "Bandershanks, you take Miss Ophelia's gourd out of the water bucket on the porch and run get some fresh spring water. Follow the trail now, like Miss Dink said."
I was following the trail, but I was beginning to think I wasn't ever going to find that spring. Then I heard Mister Ward Lawson yelling at his wife.
"Good God A' mighty, Ophelia! Damn you! What in God's name are you doin' down here, roamin' round at the branch this time of the evenin'?"
"Just looking for berries, Ward."
"Berries, hell. You're lookin' for my still, that's what you're doin'. Huckleberries ain't ripe yet!"
"Still? What still?"
"My whiskey still!"
Miss Ophelia dropped the basket on her arm. "Lord help my time. You must be lying to me, Ward."
There they were, right down the trail in front of me—Miss Ophelia wringing her hands and twisting them up in her flimsy apron, Mister Ward shaking his fist at her.
I darted behind the nearest sapling.
"Naw, I ain't lyin'! I'm aimin' to turn out some first-rate whiskey and roll in big money doin' it!" Mister Ward grinned and let his clenched fist unfold so he could push his hair up from his eyes. His fat, sweaty face was as red as his hair.
"Don't you know somebody'll turn you in so quick it'll make your head swim? Folks in this settlement ain't gonna allow no whiskey-making!"
Mister Ward spit out a wad of tobacco and wiped his shirt sleeve across his mouth. My papa didn't ever let his shirt get as dirty as Mister Ward's.
"You wanta bet?"
"There ain't a drinking man in Drake Eye Springs, 'cept you! They'll ride you out on a rail, even before the Law gets wind of it."
"Hell, gal, that's where you're wrong! Ain't nobody findin' out about my still. It's gonna be hid good. Quit wringin' your damn hands! That's all you know to do ever' time I try to tell you somethin'. Com'ere. Lemme show you the spot I got picked for settin' it up at." He grabbed his wife's arm and they started up the branch. The bottom of her skimpy skirt caught on a briar vine, but Mister Ward wouldn't wait for her to untangle it, so it got torn.
I had already noticed when Miss Ophelia lifted her apron that her dress was stretched so tight against her stomach it was like a sack on a rooster. But Miss Ophelia didn't look much like a rooster. The freckles, thick on her face and arms, made her look more like a poor little brown speckled wood thrush wearing a bonnet and being dragged along by one wing.
She kept stumbling on with Mister Ward, and he kept shouting to her about some contraption he wanted to build. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. But, whatever it was, Miss Ophelia didn't like it.
"See this level ridge? My platform for the mash barrels is gonna be right 'long here under these willows. Ah, here's where I'm gonna set my drum. It'll be pure copper. That's what I'm gonna buy—a pure copper drum! Won't that be a beaut? Undergrowth's so heavy in here even you couldn't spot at first! Now, could you?"
"Oh, Ward, you can't do this! It ain't right to make moonshine!" Miss Ophelia was beginning to cry. "It'll ruin us! Think what could happen! All our young'uns need clothes so bad, Ward! If you've got money to—"
"Shut up, Ophelia! Stop that Goddamn cryin' and snifflin'."
Now that they were out of sight, I tiptoed back to the narrow, winding trail. I dropped the water gourd, and it got sand and grit inside. I didn't know whether to pick it up and run back up the hill to the house or whether to skedaddle on to the spring and dip up Miss Dink's cool water, like she had told me to do.
I grabbed the gourd and swiped it out as best I could with the tail of my underskirt. I could still hear Miss Ophelia and Mister Ward. Her sobbing and his yelling sounded like they had stopped close by, but there were so many dogwood bushes and briar vines and pine trees growing tangled together on both sides of the trail that I couldn't tell for sure where they were. I ran on down the hill.
When I got even with Miss Ophelia's berry basket I slowed down to look at it, but I didn't dare touch it. It was lying bottom side up, but I couldn't see any huckleberries spilling out.
The more Mister Ward shouted at Miss Ophelia, the faster I scooted on down the steep hillside. Once I stumped my toe on the root of a sweet gum tree and fell. But I held on to the gourd. As I was getting up, I saw the spring just ahead.
I decided I'd better wash the dipper in the branch water before I stuck it into the deep, clear spring. As I waded out to the middle of the branch, cool sand oozed up between my toes, and for a minute I forgot all about Mister Ward's loud, ugly talking.
But I heard him again.
"I don't know why in hell you can't get it through your thick skull, Ophelia! I got it all figured out. All I gotta do is rake up money to buy the copper cooker, and I'm sure gonna get it, one way or another. 'Course, this summer I'll have to buy chops and rye too. But come another year, I'm gonna plant a heap of corn. I ain't gonna raise a stalk of cotton on the whole place. That won't set so good with old Ned. But hell, if that nigger don't like it, he can lump it! I got new plans for him anyways."
"New plans?"
"Yeah. He's gonna be helpin' with the runs. And them burr-headed boys of his are gonna be cuttin' wood and keepin' up the fires. Ah, I tell you, it's gonna be a perfect setup! Like Hicks said, I got plenty of water and a nice spot here in this hollow, way own the main road. Even the smoke ain't gonna drift far! Can't figure why I haven't done rigged me up a still long ago. Like Hicks said, ain't no need of a man with my brains workin' hisself to death walkin' behind no plow!"
"Who's this Hicks you're talking about?"
"You don't know him, Ophelia. He's sorta my business partner. Lives down below the State Line Road. Now, he's a moneyed man! He's got him one of them automobiles! Me and him's goin' in together fifty-fifty. I'm gonna take the whiskey to him in big batches—gallons and five gallons. Naturally, I'll be obliged to get myself a automobile! Then Hicks—"
"A automobile?"
"That's what I said! A automobile! I'll buy me one soon's the money starts pilin' in. Then, by God, when I ride through Drake Eye Springs, folks won't say, 'Yonder goes Old Ward.' They'll say, 'Yonder goes Mister Ward Lawson.'"
"And I'll say, 'Yonder goes the biggest red-headed fool the Lord ever let breathe!'"
"Makin' easy money ain't bein' a fool, Ophelia! Like I was fixin' to tell you, after we get the whiskey 'cross the Louisiana line, Hicks can sell it retail—you know, in fifths. And sometimes by the drink. We'll get a sight more for it that way. He's gonna get regular customers lined up and see to it that I'll have plenty of sugar—two or three hundred pounds at a time. He can arrange with a fellow so there won't be no suspicion round here. You know yourself if I was to go to Drake Eye Springs and start buyin' a heap of sugar at Mister Jodie's store, that'd be a dead giveaway. Say, he might be the very one to loan me some money! Providin' I don't let on to him what it's for."
"Ward, you ain't talking sense! You're just—"
"Dammit, woman, shut your mouth! This is the first sensible thing I ever—Good God A' mighty! Ophelia, look down yonder at the spring! Who in hell's that? Heerd ever' damn word I said! Why didn't you tell me somebody was around? Looks like some young'un!"
"I didn't know nobody was here. I sent the young'uns to fetch the cow, and I left the house just a minute ago to come look for berries."
"Ophelia, that's that damn little gal of Mister Jodie's and Miss Nannie's! I swear to God, if she tells her pa, I'll kill her! I'll kill her! So help me!"
It was me, all right! I snatched up the water gourd and started streaking back up the trail!
"Good God, Ward! You're drunk, or crazy! Don't say such a thing! Anyhow, she's so little she wouldn't know what's going on! See how little she is? Just look at her spindly legs!"
I didn't have time to look at my spindly legs. I just tried to go faster!
"Ain't no little gal gonna stop me! Dammit! I'm gonna set up my still come the devil to my doorstep! And if the Law comes bustin' it up, I'll know exactly who turned me in! Woman, you get on to the house and see who all else's up there. I swear to God! Don't nothin' ever go right for me! Get!"
"I'm going, Ward. I'm going. Miss Nannie must've come to set with poor Aunt Dink."
"Poor Aunt Dink! Poor Aunt Dink! That's all I hear! When's that old blind bitch ever gonna die?"
"Ward, she's my aunt! She raised me from a baby!"
"Yeah, yeah! From a bastard baby. You've told me ten times how your ma died a-birthin' you and didn't nobody want you, so Miss Dink and her old man taken you and raised you. Then, fool me, I come along and married you! My pa told me I'd rue the day. He said I ought to marry me a big rawboned gal—one that could plow a mule and do a day's work in the field. Pa was a blame fool about lots of things, but he sure know'd women. He said these little stringy ones like you ain't good for a confounded thing but birthin' young'uns, and he was sure right. Here I am thirty-nine years old, goin' on forty, and ain't got a damn thing but two old mules, some wore-out plows, and a houseful of young'uns—and you expectin' another one."
I was so far up the slope now I didn't try to hear any more Mister Ward said. Nearly half of Miss Dink's water had sloshed out of the gourd before I could get it back up to the house, but Miss Dink and Mama didn't seem to notice, or care either. Mama wouldn't even listen when I started to tell her Mister Ward was going to kill me. She just shushed me and whispered she was proud of me for being so smart and for me to sit down on the floor by her straight chair.
Mama and Miss Dink were talking about the World War and about Miss Dink's nephew, who was already fighting way across the waters in some place called France, and about my two big brothers, who went off to the army camp. Then they got started telling one another of long-time-ago things, with Miss Dink doing most of the telling.
"Well sir, time's a-flying fast. It fair scares me to think it's already 1918. The Mister, he's been in his grave ten years, Nannie. He passed in the summer of 'aught-eight. Come the first Sunday in June—and that'll be next Sunday—it'll be ten years, even."
"Mama, Mister Ward said—"
"Shh, Bandershanks, Miss Dink's talking, hon."
Miss Dink talked on and on. Mama just nodded her head or said, "Yes'm, that's right" or "Well, I declare to my soul!" or "I reckon so."
"Mama, when is Mister Ward gonna—"
"Bandershanks, get up here in my lap and be quiet! How can me and Miss Dink talk if you don't be quiet?"
Miss Dink started telling about hound dogs stealing goose eggs and about how it's easier to pick a goose than a gander when you're making feather beds. She told all about her drove of geese that nipped off the grass in the cotton fields, and that made her think about the summer the lice crawled off the geese and got all in her hair.
Then Mama remembered that once when she was a little girl, way back in Alabama, she and all the other pupils at Clay Hill School got lice on their heads. The teacher sent word home that every last young'un had to have his head shaved.
Miss Dink laughed. "Makes me recollect the time Ophelia caught the seven-year itch over at Calico Neck School. I never was so put out over nothing in all my born days. And 'course, Ophelia just know'd she was disgraced for life! But, like I told her, getting the itch ain't nothing, but it's sure a disgrace to keep it! Well, sir, Nannie, I didn't have no notion of what to do. And I couldn't let on to a soul that Ophelia had caught it, not even to Doctor Elton. Finally, I smeared hog lard on her, and that cleared it right up."
Mama let me slide out of her lap so she could stand up and take my hand. "I hate to leave, Miss Dink, but I promised Jodie's pa I'd take his new Gazette by the Goode place so's to read a piece to Mister Malcolm—something about Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations ideas. Mr. Thad couldn't go himself, this time. You know he walks over there ever so often to read the war news to Mister Malcolm."
"Mister Malcolm will be proud to hear you read. He's like me: setting there blind as a bat, with no way of knowing what's going on, 'less somebody comes and tells him."
"Mr. Thad says the weekly's got a right sensible column about this new law they're getting up to let women vote. I left the paper out yonder in my buggy, but I'll go get it."
"That rigamarole is all beyond me, Nannie. I'll never live to vote. Anyhow, that ain't women's business! Set back down, Nannie, just for a minute."
Mama let go of my hand and sat down again in the worn-out chair, the only one in Miss Dink's room.
"Nannie," Miss Dink whispered, raising herself up on her elbows, "I oughtn't to breathe this, but I know you ain't gonna talk it. Nannie, that devil Ward is running after the Bailey girl!"
Mama caught her breath! She grabbed my hand.
"You know which one I'm talking 'bout, Nannie—Wes and Lida Belle's daughter."
"Not Addie Mae!"
"Yeah! The darkies here on the place—Ned and Eulah—I got it straight from them. Folks say the girl is slow-witted. She must be, to be fooling 'round with Ward."
"Bandershanks, baby, you hurry on out front and be climbing into our buggy."
I was so glad to get to leave I didn't even ask Mama why she wanted me to be in a rush.
Old Dale was standing there in the shade of the tree where Mama had hitched him, his ears dropped down, his eyes half closed, all his weight on three feet. Once in a while he would give his tail a swish to scare away the two horseflies that kept settling on his hind legs.
He didn't even notice when I climbed up into the buggy seat and started playing with the reins. I put one forefinger between the flat, slick leather lines and joggled them up and down with both hands. Then, stretching my legs so I could prop one foot up on the dashboard, like Papa always did, I practiced saying "Glick! Glick!" out of the corner of my mouth, just exactly like Papa.
I eased the whip out of its holder and waved it round and round high in the air. That whip was as old as the buggy but it looked brand new, for Papa and Mama wouldn't ever use it. They said Dale was too decrepit to be whipped. The whip's green tassel on the wrist loop was still fluffy and soft as silk.
I was squeezing the tassel to make finger waves in it when I saw Mama coming. I put up the whip quick!
It didn't take Mama long to get Dale untied, waked up, and headed around toward the Drake Eye Springs road.
"What do you know, Bandershanks, Dale actually wants to trot now!'
"How come?"
"His head is turned towards home!"
"Mama?"
"What, hon?"
"Mister Ward's gonna shoot me."
"What?"
"Mister Ward's gonna kill me with his gun."
"Child, what on earth are you talking about?"
"Mister Ward said it!"
"Bandershanks, sometimes I wonder about you! When did you see Mister Ward?"
"I didn't see him good, but—"
"Well, then, you quit imagining things—or telling stories. It's mean to tell stories, and a sin, besides. You don't want the Old Bad Man to get you when you die, do you?"
"No'm!"
Mama had told me a long time before who the Bad Man was. When Brother Milligan preached about him, he called him "that Old Split-Foot Devil." But Mama said "devil" is an ugly word for ladies to use, so she always said "the Bad Man." No matter what his name, I didn't want him to get me and burn me up, so I quit talking about Mister Ward.
Soon we came to the main road, where we turned into what Mama said was the left fork. She told me if we were to go the other way, and kept on riding eight or ten miles, we'd wind up down in Louisiana.
I never had been to Louisiana.
A few minutes later we met Old Mister Hawk in his narrow wagon. Mama said he was the only man for miles who had a one-horse wagon. He didn't have a horse, though, just a mule.
Mister Hawk made his old, bony, gray mule go over in the weeds and grass so there would be lots of room in the road for our buggy. When he said "'Evenin', Miss Nannie," he took one hand and lifted his hat clean off his head.
Next, we came to the Baileys' house. Miss Lida Belle was sitting on the front porch, and she waved and called out for Mama to stop. Mama drew up the reins, slowing Dale to a walk.
"'Evening, Lida Belle."
"Lord, Nannie, here I sit barefooted as a yard dog! You caught me resting my feet! Tie up your horse and come on in!" Miss Lida Belle took her snuff brush out of her mouth and started putting on her shoes.
'Td love to, Lida Belle, but it's getting on over in the evening. I'll have to come another day."
"Do that, Nannie! I'd sure be proud."
"I will. And y'all come!"
"We will!"
Mama flapped the reins ever so lightly against Old Dale's back. He trotted on.
"Mama, where's Addie Mae at?"
"I don't know, hon."
"Is Mister Ward gonna run after her like our rooster chases hens?"
"Bandershanks!"
"But Miss Dink said—"
"I declare to my soul! You hear too much. Now quit asking questions."
Mama didn't talk any more for a long while.
"Mama, Miss Ophelia said I don't know what's going on."
"What?"
"But Mr. Ward said I'd tell Papa."
"Bandershanks, I don't know what in Heaven's name you could be worrying about! When did you ever hear Mister Ward or Miss Ophelia talking about Papa, or anything else for that matter?"
"At the spring."
"This evening?"
"Yes'm."
"What'd they say?"
"I don't know."
"Well, surely you remember something—if you heard them. Just tell me one thing they said."
"She was crying and crying. And he said, 'Shut up.' And she said, 'Don't do it.' And he said he's gonna get lots of money and buy him a au-something."
"A automobile?"
"That's it! And he saw me squatting down by the spring dipping up water, and he said he'd kill me."
"Good Heavens!"
"Miss Ophelia said I wouldn't tell!"
"I declare to my soul! Tell what?"
"I don't know, Mama!"
Mama yanked the buggy whip from its holder and gave Dale a quick, sharp whack that made him fairly fly on up the road! It was the first time I'd ever seen Mama do that. She wouldn't let him slow down, not even when we got to the Goode place.
"Ain't we gonna stop and read none to Mister Malcolm?"
"No, hon. I've changed my mind."
"I want to play mumble-peg with Wallace! Mama, Wallace can throw mumble-peg knives better'n Wiley, or anybody!"
Mama didn't answer or say another word. She kept Dale trotting on, fast as he could go.
In a few more minutes we were going up the hill in front of our house. Dale started turning off the road to go to our wide gate, just like he always did, but Mama made him pull the buggy back into the sandy ruts.
"No, Dale, we need to go on up to the store!" She gave him another hard flip with the reins.
"We're going to Papa's store?"
"Yeah, hon. I've got to talk to your papa. But you won't even have to get out. When we get there, you can just sit in the buggy while I run in and speak to Papa a second."
"I gotta get me some candy!"
"I'll bring you a piece of candy. You just stay in the buggy."
When Mama came out of the store, Papa was with her. Papa was frowning and looking down at the ground, and Mama was looking at Papa. He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and whispered something I couldn't hear.
He walked on over to the mulberry tree to untie Dale's bridle, while Mama gathered up her skirt and climbed back up into the buggy.
"Did you get my candy?"
"Your papa's got you a piece."
He handed me a long peppermint stick. "Bandershanks?" he said.
"Sir?"
"I want you to tell us what all you heard Mister Ward say to Miss Ophelia this evening when you went down to their spring. Every word. Understand?"
"Yes, sir." I turned my peppermint stick over and licked the other side.
"Well? Start telling us."
"Miss Ophelia was crying."
"What had Mister Ward said to make her cry?"
"He said, 'Won't that be a beaut?'"
"What was gonna be so pretty?"
"I couldn't see nothing, Papa. Just the branch. And tadpoles in the water."
"What else did Mister Ward say?"
"He ain't gonna plant no more cotton. Just corn. And he ain't gonna buy no sugar from you."
"Sugar? And corn? Hmm. Hon, what did Miss Ophelia say about the corn and sugar?"
"She said, 'Ward, don't do it.'"
"Don't do what?"
"Don't say nothing about shooting."
"Yeah? Go on! What else?"
"'Don't make the moon shine.'"
"Moonshine? Great Jehoshaphat and gully dirt! Nannie, take this baby home! Don't let her out of your sight!"
"Papa, you mad at me?"
"No, hon. You're a sweet girl. You and Mama go on home now, and you help her milk the cows and fix supper. I'll be there directly, and maybe I'll bring you another stick of candy."
"Peppermint?"
"Yeah. Peppermint!"
On the way home, Mama kept the buggy lines clenched tight with both hands, yet she allowed Old Dale to walk or trot slow, suiting himself. She seemed to be thinking about something far off down the road.
By the time we got back to our hill, the sun was all the way down. The sky, way across Papa's cotton field, looked red. Mama said that was the glow of the sun against some sinking clouds.
"It's a sign of no rain, Bandershanks, when the sky's red in the evening."
We could see the moon, too, rising over the walnut trees, between the top of our wagon shelter and Grandpa Thad's house. It looked just like always, when the moon is full, and I didn't think Mister Ward had anything to do with it.
Chapter 2
Next morning, nothing was said about the moon shining or about Mister Ward. Instead, while Mama was fixing my breakfast, she told me it was a perfect day to make sauerkraut.
"How come, Mama?"
"Our cabbages are ready, and Doanie and Huldie are up here to fix them."
"Did Shoogie come?" I jumped out of my chair to run to the side window.
"Probably so."
"I see her! I see her! She's out yonder in the well lot. Mama, lem'me go play with Shoogie!"
"Not till you eat your biscuits and fried meat. You and that Shoogie have got the whole morning before you. Come away from the window, now, Bandershanks. You want syrup on your biscuits?"
"No'm. Just smear on butter."
By the time I got out to the well lot, cabbages were piled everywhere, and Doanie and Huldie had gone back into the garden to cut more. Shoogie was sitting down in the sand, leaning back against a big water tub.
I picked my way toward Shoogie, being careful not to bump into the mounds of cabbages or the kraut-making stuff spread all the way from the well curbing to Mama's wash shelter. Even so, I stumbled against a sack of salt.
Shoogie saw me and grinned. I squatted down beside her to watch her rake together some sand for a frog house. She already had one black foot buried in the sand and was heaping a stack of wet dirt on top of her other one.
"My frog houses fall in, every time!" I said.
"I told you, get water and sprinkle hit on, and pat the sand hard. Pile hit up high and pat some more. Then, wiggle your toes just a little speck 'fore you eases out your foot!'
Shoogie knew how to make the best frog houses in the world. So I raked up a pile of sand and shoved my foot down under it. I smoothed the sand over, then gave it a pounding with both fists. Next I reached around behind Shoogie to get some water out of the tub she was leaning against.
"Let hit trickle 'tween your fingers on the sand. You is doin' good!"
"Look, Shoogie! My house! It's staying up!"
"Get you a dab o' wet sand and patch that little cave-in at the door."
Before Shoogie could show me the best way to fix my door, Huldie called her to come help with the kraut. I hadn't even noticed that Doanie and Huldie were back from the garden.
"Get a hustle on! Girl, you is big enough to flop one of these churn dashers!"
"I'm big too, Huldie! Can I flop some?"
"Sho', baby. We's got two churns and two dashers, and more nice green cabbage heads than you can shake a stick at!"
Huldie handed one of the churn dashers to Shoogie, the other to me. Then she and Doanie dumped a thick layer of sliced cabbage leaves into the bottom of each churn and sprinkled on lots of salt.
"Now, you girls can start beatin' hit down. Here, baby," Huldie showed me, "make the dasher go up and down just like this was a churn o' clabbered milk. That's the way! Wham hard! We's gotta mash them leaves till the water runs out and melts that salt. Then we can put in some more."
Shoogie and I kept pounding away. I saw her reach down into her churn and get a handful of the salty, bruised cabbage and eat it, so I tried some. It was good!
I ate more and more of it, but after a while I got to where I couldn't bear to put another bite of the briny shreds into my mouth. Jogging the dasher up and down wasn't fun any more, either.
Shoogie's arms got tired, but Huldie said we couldn't quit. As soon as her grandma wasn't watching, Shoogie sidled over to me and whispered, "Bandershanks, tell her your arms is wore slap out. Say, 'Huldie, my poor little arms is a-killin' me! Please let me and Shoogie quit!' She'll pay you some mind. Then we can go play!"
"But, Shoogie—"
"Say hit! You wants to play, don't you?" Shoogie scooted back to her churn.
"Huldie?" I said.
"What, baby?"
"My poor little arms is a-killin' me. Shoogie said— I mean, let Shoogie— I mean, please let me— My poor little arms is—"
Huldie and Doanie started laughing so I couldn't finish what Shoogie wanted me to say.
"Law, y'all is a pair o' sly ones! Shoogie, you the one what's puttin' this baby up to tellin' such as this. Her poor little arms! Why, you is got the child talkin' just like you does! Tell you what: me and Doanie'll let you both rest them poor little wore-out arms right now! Y'all trot down yonder to the gully at the syrup mill and fetch us two good-sized rocks so's we can hold down the kraut in the brine water. Don't just pick up the first ones you sees. Find some that is nice and flat and smooth."
Shoogie grabbed my hand. "Come on, Bandershanks, let's go. I's gonna show you how I can jump clean 'cross that gully—where hit's way deep!"
We ran through the horse lot, past the pigpens, and down the lane as far as the calf pasture. Then we climbed the rail fence and went farther on toward Huldie's house and the syrup mill, till we came to the place where Shoogie wanted to jump across the gully.
The gully was deep, and wide—too deep and wide for me. But Shoogie leaped back and forth across it so many times she was out of breath.
"Let's get them rocks now, Bandershanks. I sees some just right, there in the bottom. All we's gotta do is pick 'em up and wipe off the gully dirt."
The two rocks Shoogie picked out were so heavy it took us a long time to lug them up to the well lot. When we did finally get back, we saw that Huldie was in the garden again, and Doanie was gone. Shoogie said she must be in the kitchen helping Mama cook dinner.
"Bandershanks, you reckon they gonna cook cake?"
"No. We don't have no cake or pie, 'cept on Sunday."
"Let's make us some more frog houses."
"I wanta play like we're big. You be Huldie, and I'll be my mama. Let me tell you to stir up nice 'tater pies and cakes, 'cause the preacher's gonna come!"
"Iffen we plays like we's wimmins, where we gonna get some snuff? When I's Grandma Huldie, I gotta have me some snuff!"
"Run in the garden and ask Huldie."
"Bandershanks, is you outta your head? Snuff's too good. She ain't gonna gim'me none o' her'n. You gotta go get hit from your grandma! She got some, ain't she?"
"Yeah, but Grandma Ming says I must never, never in this round world take a dip."
"Tell her hit's for me. That'll be the truth."
"I better not. I know what! I'll get Mama to stir up sugar and chocolate. It's just like snuff."
"Is it good?"
"Yeah. Gooder'n candy!"
Mama wasn't in the kitchen; neither was Doanie. So I got the chocolate box and the sugar bowl by myself. I grabbed a spoon too and ran outside before I filled my mouth.
"This sho' is sweet!" Shoogie mumbled after she had packed three spoonfuls of the mixture down between her lower lip and her front teeth. Then she handed the bowl and spoon back to me.
"My mama don't dip snuff. She's a nice lady. She says nice ladies don't dip—just old grandma women."
Huldie walked up while I still had the spoon in my hand. She was puffing, wiping sweat off her forehead, and talking to herself.
"Mercy, this is one more hot day!"
The basket Huldie balanced on her head was heaped up with cabbages. If she was going to make me and Shoogie churn them all down, we'd never get to bake Preaching Sunday mud pies!
"What's you girls doin'?"
Shoogie's eyes got big. She gulped, stretched her neck, and beat herself on the chest. In trying to answer, she nearly choked!
"We're dipping snuff," I told Huldie, as soon as I could swallow.
"Good Lawd 'a mercy!"
Huldie grabbed for Shoogie! She caught her arm, but she was having such a time trying to get the basket down from her head that Shoogie snatched away. The basket tipped over, spilling cabbages all over the well lot.
Huldie whirled around and grabbed Shoogie with both hands. She started screaming. I hid behind a tub.
"I'll learn you! I'll learn you! Cuss your black hide, young'un, I's gwine to break you from this snuff-stealin' and dippin'."
Shoogie wasn't listening. She was shrieking and kicking as if her grandma were tearing her apart, and Huldie still hadn't hit her the first lick. The next second, though, she bent Shoogie over her knees, yanked up her dress tail, and started giving her pink bloomers and her bottom one hard "whap, whap, whap" right after another!
"What's going on out here?"
Mama had come flying out the kitchen door!
"Is somebody hurt? Bandershanks, where're you at? Huldie, what's wrong?"
Huldie slacked up on beating Shoogie, but Shoogie didn't slack up on bawling. She got louder and louder!
"Miss, these chillens done stole my snuff!"
"Stole your snuff? I declare to my soul! Bandershanks, come here!"
"Yes'm. They both been dippin' hit up! See all on their faces? This Shoogie brat, she so black snuff don't show on her'n, but just look 'round that baby's mouth!" Huldie pointed at me and began spanking on Shoogie again.
Mama pulled me toward the garden fence, where she jerked up a Jimson weed!
"Mama! It's chocolate, Mama! Just chocolate!"
But Mama couldn't hear me for all of Shoogie's loud bellowing! She started stinging my legs to pieces!
"Mama! It ain't snuff!" I screamed louder. "It ain't! It ain't! Mama! Mama!"
She kept flailing my legs.
Shoogie, still bucking and rearing like a young colt, broke loose from Huldie and ran streaking toward the wagon shelter. All I could do was dance on one foot and then the other and cry, "Chocolate, Mama! Chocolate!"
"Come back here, you little heifer!" Huldie screamed at Shoogie.
When she whirled around to see which way Shoogie was running, she stepped on the sugar bowl. She didn't break it, but she bent the handle of the spoon and kicked over the chocolate box.
"Law, Miss, how come your pretty sugar bowl settin' down here in this dirt? And here's your chocolate, all spillin' out!"
Mama stopped switching my legs.
"I declare to my soul! Bandershanks! Huldie, they was just playing like they had snuff. See? It's sugar and chocolate!"
"The Lawd help! What chillens won't do! That Shoogie can drive me outta my head!"
Mama used the hem of her apron to wipe away the tears and grit on my face. She got off all the smeared sugar and chocolate, too, while she was at it. Then, she kissed my cheek and told me to run on and play.
As soon as Shoogie came slipping out from behind the wagon shelter, we settled down in the sand and made frog houses until we heard Mama calling me.
"Ma'am!"
"Com'ere, hon."
"What you want, Mama?"
"Papa's coming home to eat his dinner now in a few minutes. After dinner, you can go back to the store with him."
"And ride Jake? And help Papa sell stuff?"
"He might let you do that. Come on in here in the side room. I want to get you on a clean dress. My, you look like you've been playing with the pigs, instead of Shoogie!"
"Is Shoogie going to Papa's store?"
"No. Just you."
"Mama, you going somewhere?"
"Yes, hon. I want to drive over to see some folks and try to get them to come to preaching this Sunday, and to Protracted Meeting, when it starts."
"Who you gonna go see?"
"Nobody that you know. Come on, let's get you ready."
"Mama, lem'me stay here and play with Shoogie."
"No, no. You've got to be with me or Papa one all the time now."
"'Cause Mister Ward wants to shoot me?"
"Bandershanks, just hush about that! We're not gonna talk about it any more!"
After dinner, Papa and I rode Jake back to the store. "Papa, my bonnet's choking me! It won't come undone!"
"I'll untie it for you soon as I hitch Jake. Where'd you get that fancy bonnet, anyhow?"
"Grandma Ming made it."
"It's so blessed hot this evening I think I need a sun bonnet! I know Jake ought'a have one! Look how he's sweating!"
"Do horses wear bonnets?"
"I was just talking. Now, here we are. Jake, boy, I'm gonna put you on the East Side of the store, and in about an hour you'll have yourself a good shade."
As soon as Papa had looped Jake's bridle over the hitching rail, he lifted me straight from the saddle to the store porch, without my feet even touching the ground.
"Lemme see if I can help you with that bonnet, Bandershanks. Shucks, these little strings tied under your chin are plumb wet. There you go! Now, if I can just find my key, we'll unlock the doors and be ready for business."
"Lemme twist it!"
"All right. No, Bandershanks, turn it the other way."
The lock clicked. Papa turned the knob and gave the thick double doors a shove.
Inside, it was much cooler, but I could hardly see a thing. I rubbed my eyes good, and still the room was black and I couldn't half see.
I could smell plenty of stuff: hoop cheese, chewing tobacco, coffee beans, musty sacks of chicken feed, and Papa's coal-oil drum with its old pump that always squeaked so loud. All those smells were mixed up with the good smell of the leather harness and the big pretty saddles hanging across the back wall.
"Papa, let's light the lamp."
"Your eyes will get used to the dark. I'll go open up the back door. That'll help."
I followed Papa around behind the counters and down the aisle as far as the candy showcase. I stopped to see the candy, but he kept going—and talking.
"If we don't have any customers this evening, Bandershanks, I tell you what we can do: we can sweep and clean up and start taking inventory. It's a good day for that."
"Take what, Papa?"
"Inventory. We'll count things. Go from shelf to shelf to see how much flour and salt and all such as that we've got on hand. Then, next week when I'm in town, I'll know what all to buy. That's taking inventory."
"Oh."
"For one thing, I've got to lay in a good stock of sardines and soda crackers. Lots more cheese, too, 'cause when cotton ginning starts, men will be flocking in here at dinner time—'specially on days when they have to line up their wagons to wait their turn at the gin. That's when I make my money, Bandershanks."
I wasn't half listening to Papa. I had already lifted the lid of the candy showcase and poked my head inside so I could see all the boxes of good candy.
"Fact is, Bandershanks, fall of the year is the only time folks in the settlement have any cash to speak of. See, when they sell cotton, they can settle up what they owe me. 'Course I have to turn right around, get on Jake, and go to town to straighten up my own debts. Most times, there's not much left. But thank the Good Lord, looks like crops are pretty good this year. I'm expecting to come out even—maybe better."
"Papa, we gonna count candy?"
"Gal! I see what sort of inventory you'd take! Get your head out of that showcase, hon, before you break my lid!"
"I ain't gonna break nothing, Papa."
"It'll be one piece of candy today! That's all. You want an all-day sucker or a gumdrop?"
"I want a jawbreaker!"
"Which color?"
"I can't see 'em."
Papa held me up so I could poke my head farther into the wide glass case.
"Give me yellow!"
"One yellow jawbreaker coming up!"
"Papa? Lemme have a green one too? Please?"
"Good grannies! Just this one time, now mind you."
Papa started laughing as soon as I popped the hard candy balls into my mouth.
"You look just like a little fox squirrel toting two big hickory nuts!"
My mouth was so stretched I couldn't answer a word. I could move my tongue, but not my lips. And I wanted to tell Papa the candy tasted so much like lemonade that I didn't mind my cheeks being funny as a squirrel's.
"Want to do a little dusting for me now?"
I nodded my head.
"The feather duster's right over yonder in the corner, hanging on a nail. See it?"
I nodded my head again.
"Start up there at the front window, hon. And while you do that, I'm gonna be back in the back straightening up the sacks of oats and cow feed."
I began brushing up and down on the window panes. A feather broke off the side of the duster and fluttered to the floor. I stooped to pick it up, but I didn't know what to do with it, so I just put it on the windowsill. Then, I looked out the window—down toward Mister Hansen's gin, on past Mister Goode's grist mill, and up the road toward home.
"Pa—" I had to grab both candy balls out of my mouth. "Papa, yonder comes somebody riding on a little bitty mule with a dog following him."
Papa came over and looked out between the window bars.
"That's Ned Roberts, Bandershanks. I don't reckon you know him. He lives over across the creek on Mister Ward Lawson's place. Or I should say the old Crawford home-place. Ward's just renting it. And that's not a little mule Ned's riding. That's a jack, a donkey. Some folks would call it a 'jackass.' But you don't say that, Bandershanks. It don't sound pretty."
"Ooh, Papa, look how fat that dog is!"
We watched Ned and his donkey and the bulged-out dog come on up the slope. It took them a long time. They stopped at the edge of the porch, where Ned tied the fuzzy, slow-walking donkey to one corner of Jake's hitching rail, but he was careful not to let the donkey stand close to Jake. A good thing, Papa said, for Jake could, and would, kick him.
"I see Ned aims to buy coal oil."
"How come he's got that old wrinkled Irish 'tater sticking on the spout of his can, Papa?"
"To keep his oil from sloshing out when he starts home."
The dog clambered up the steps behind Ned and followed him inside. As soon as she could spread herself out in the middle of the floor, she took a long, deep breath and closed her eyes.
"'Evenin', Mister Jodie."
"'Evening, Ned."
Papa looked back down at the tired, fat dog. "'Pears to me like you're in the dog-raising business, Ned."
"Yes, suh. Sylvie, she gwine t' find puppies pretty soon."
"Is she any 'count?"
"Yes, suh, Mister Jodie. She sho' is. Sylvie 'bout the best coon hound I's raised yet. She sho' know how to tree 'possums, too. Folks done a' ready askin' for the puppies. But I saves one for you, Mister Jodie, iffen you wants hit."
"I wouldn't mind having two, Ned. 'Course I've got five or six young dogs, but a man can't hardly get too many good dogs. Well, what can I do for you this evening, Ned?"
"I needs me a nickel worth o' coal oil, Mister Jodie. And I wants to talk with you. I wants you to 'vise me, Mister Jodie." Ned let his talking go down low. "Hit's Mister Ward. He don't act right. I's uneasy."
"What's he done? Does he want you to move?"
"No, suh. I wish he did. I wish he'd run me off. He don't do that, 'cause ain't nobody else gwine t' move on his place."
"You could leave, couldn't you?"
"No, suh. Not 'zactly. You see, I owes Mister Ward a right smart money. And I ain't movin' off owin' a man. That ain't right. 'Tain't right, no more'n it's right for a white man to run off a colored man when the crops is half made. You knows that, Mister Jodie."
"Yeah, I know, Ned. Still, we see a good bit of both. It's like Doctor Elton says: 'Rascals come in all colors, 'specially black and white.'"
Ned didn't say anything.
"Mister Ward drinks considerable, don't he?"
"He sho' do, Mister Jodie. I tell you the big trouble. When Mister Ward's drinkin', he say one thing. Then when his head's clear, he do somethin' else."
"That's the way with a drinking man."
"Mister Jodie, you knows that white folks has got their ways, and us blacks has got our'n. We all works the ground together; then our roads just naturally parts at the field gate. That's awright. Everybody knows where he stands. A man likes to know where he stands."
"Yeah, Ned."
"When a white man wants to talk crops and such, he sends for you. He don't come to your house. Mister Ward, he funny. One time, he come and say his wife sick and want my Eulah to come do the wash. Eulah, she gets up there, Miss Ophelia not sick! She not to home. Miss Dink, she gone, too. And he come 'bout this and 'bout that all the time. Yestidy he done brung a hoe. Wants me to sharpen hit with a file. Mister Jodie, there just ain't no call for sharp hoes here this time o' summer. Crops is near 'bout laid by. Gardens, they's dried up. There ain't no hoein' to do!"
"Well, Ned, I—"
"I's uneasy, plum uneasy, Mister Jodie."
"Well, to tell you the truth, Ned, I don't hardly know how to advise you. I reckon about the best thing would be to sit tight one more year, try to pay out next fall, then find you another man. I know a Mister Taylor down on the State Line Road. He's looking for a good family with plenty of big boys, like yours. If we have another good year, and you don't owe Mister Ward too much, Mister Taylor might pay you out and move you down to his place."
Ned didn't answer. Instead, he eased over closer toward the counter so that he was standing right in front of Papa.
"I ain't telled you the worst, Mister Jodie."
"Yeah?"
"This mornin' Mister Ward show me how he gwine t' start makin' whiskey! Say I gotta help him! Say he gwine t' put in the biggest still you ever seen. I's plain a-feared, Mister Jodie! He say my chillens gwine to help chop and tote the wood!"
"He can't—"
"He say he shoot me 'tween the eyes iffen I tells hit, Mister Jodie! But Lawd, Mister Jodie, I's got to think 'bout my chiliens. Little Stray, too. He that pitiful one what's not mine. I calls him my chicken coop stray boy."
"Chicken coop?"
"Yes, suh, Mister Jodie. Years back I finds that chile—one freezin' mornin'—all scrooched up in my chicken house. He near 'bout starved to death and shakin' like a leaf—he can't talk. Me and my wife, we warms him up and feeds him. And we tries to take him back to his mammy. She don't want him. So we keeps him. That's 'fore I comes to Mister Ward's place, and—"
"Papa! Look! Yonder comes somebody to buy stuff!" I dropped my duster and ran to the door to get a better look at the man and horse up the road. "He ain't got no coal oil can, Papa. He's got a shotgun!"
"Oh, Lawd, Mister Jodie! That's him! That's Mister Ward! He follow me!"
"Yeah! Can't see his face from here, but it's him. He's the only red-headed man anywhere around."
I grabbed hold of Papa's pants so I could hide behind his legs.
"Is he gonna shoot me now, Papa?"
"Mister Jodie, don't tell him nothin'! Don't tell that man what I say!"
"Bandershanks, hon, you come back here to the back of the store real quick. I want you to do something—play a game for Papa. Come on!"
Papa thought I wasn't walking fast enough, so he scooped me up in his arms and ran with me to the back corner.
"What we gonna do, Papa?"
"We're gonna have a cat and mouse game. It's fun. You scrooch down right here behind this sack of oats and make like you're a little mouse!"
"A sure 'nuff mouse?"
"Yeah! You be a little bitty one, hiding from a cat! Be still, now. Don't make a noise. A mouse is real quiet when he thinks there's a cat coming. Just a minute, I'll bring you a whole handful of jawbreakers. A store mouse likes to nibble on candy."
"Mister Jodie, come look at the man! He gwine t' fall own his hoss. He drunk. That hoss, he know when Mister Ward's done been at the bottle. He walk easy with him. I's done seen him afore. What's I gwine t' do?"
"Just act natural, Ned. I won't let on to a thing. Anyhow, Mister Ward's probably already seen your donkey, and there lies your mammy dog. He'll know her."
"Yes, suh."
"I'll walk out on the porch. Then, when he staggers in. you just hold your tongue, 'less he asks you something."
Ned must have followed Papa out to the porch, for I could still hear talking. I slid farther down in my corner and put a purple jawbreaker in my mouth. Then, a green one. The others I stuffed into my pocket. I wondered why Papa had decided to let me have so much candy, and why he wanted me to play cat and mouse.
Ned sounded excited about something. Glad, too.
"Praise the Lawd! Look, Mister Jodie, he ain't gwine t' stop here! That horse ain't turning to come up the trail. Praise the Lawd!"
"Yeah, he's going on somewhere else."
"Mister Ward tryin' to tell you somethin', Mister Jodie. The man so drunk he can't talk."
"'Evening, Ward. What's that you say?"
"I say, 'Don't waste time!"
"I won't, Ward."
"Don't pay— Don't pay no mind to—to what Ned tells! It's wastin' time!"
"Ward, where're you headed, such a hot evening?"
"John Mason's. Gotta get John to fix this damn gun. Hammer's stickin'. If this Goddamn horse would just move on. Get up! You sway-back fool, get up! Mister Jodie, you got any shells?"
"Yeah."
"I'll be back directly and buy some. Soon's John gets this damn piece o' gun fixed."
"All right, Ward."
"Ts glad he's gwine to Mister John's."
"I tell you, Ned, if he thinks John Mason's gonna sit right down and work on that shotgun this evening, he's badly mistaken. Mister Mason can mend anything, make anything. But he sure takes his time. He never hurries 'cept when he's building a coffin. He works like lightning on coffins."
"Yes, suh."
"Thank goodness, he's outta sight. Come on in, Ned. I'd better measure up your oil. Now, where'd I set that can?"
"Here 'tis, Mister Jodie."
I fell asleep, or something, for the next I heard was Papa yelling at some man and a big blamming racket that sounded like chairs falling over.
"You're a fool for thinking up such a notion! A plain fool! I ain't gonna let you have money to set up no whiskey still! I don't care who you threaten!"
I raised up to see who Papa was calling a fool.
It was Mister Ward!
"God damn! It wouldn't take no heap to get me my copper cooker! Folks'd never suspicion nothin' neither, you bein' a church-goin' man—Miss Nannie's husband, to boot. Ever'-body knows she's purt nigh a walkin' saint!"
"Ward Lawson, don't call my wife's name when you're talking whiskey, cussing every breath!"
"You tryin' to tell me how to talk? You goody-goody church deacon!"
"You'd better go on home, Ward, and—"
"'Fore Chris'mas I could pay you back! Whiskey sells quick! Good money in it! Why, I'd pay up what's done charged on your store books! Think o' that!"
"I told you no, Ward! I mean it!"
Mister Ward hauled off and hit Papa so quick it knocked him down! He straightened up and gave him back a big wallop!
"This ain't nothing to fight over, Ward!"
"I ain't gonna fight. I'm just gonna knock hell outta you!"
Next minute they were down in the middle of the floor, fighting like all get out, rolling over and over! Both of them jumped up! Down on the floor they sprawled again—but just for a second. Mister Ward leaped behind the heater, but Papa went at him and started banging him to pieces! Mister Ward grabbed Papa's arms and threw him against the wall. His head hit the side of the phone, and he slid to the floor, blood running out of his nose! Mister Ward jumped on Papa! More blood came streaking across his face from a gash by his ear!
I had to do something!
I thought of the time Mama dashed cold water on some fighting dogs to make them quit, so I ran for the water bucket. The thing was slam empty! Then I saw the coal oil drum. I snatched the measuring can off its hook and dipped up all the oil it would hold!
By the time I could get to Papa and Mister Ward, Papa was just lying on the floor doing nothing! And Mister Ward was astraddle of him, beating his head with both fists!
Mister Ward hadn't seen me, so I ran up close and splashed the oil on him! I didn't mean for it to go in his eyes and ears, but that's where it all landed. He screamed and grabbed at his face!
"God A'mighty! You little devil! Tryin' to blind me?"
He jumped up. Before I could run around the heater, he yanked up a chair and threw it at me. I ducked. The chair crashed against the stovepipe and it fell tumbling from the ceiling. Two joints hit right across Mister Ward's shoulders; the other rolled toward Papa. Soot flew everywhere. But not on me! I was already under the candy counter.
Papa was coming to. He caught hold of the piece goods counter and dragged himself to his feet. But quick as Mister Ward could kick the stovepipe out of his way, he rammed his head at Papa's stomach and tried to knock him down again.
Papa jumped to one side and whirled back around. He leaped at Mister Ward, giving him a shove that sent him skidding through the front door and out onto the porch!
"Get out, you drunken wretch!"
Mister Ward scrambled to his knees, then up to his feet, and staggered back toward us. To keep from falling he had to grab hold of the door facing.
"God damn you, Mister Jodie! You'll pay for this! I'll get both y'all! Ain't no little bowlegged witch gonna put my eyes out and get away with it!"
I was afraid he was coming right back inside, but he didn't. He sort of shook himself and stumbled out to his horse. He had a hard time climbing into the saddle, but, when he finally made it, he turned round and shouted at Papa: "You gonna rue the day your little witch was born!"
Chapter 3
When Protracted Meeting time came, it was like Preaching Sunday every day, morning and night. God willing, it would go on two full weeks, Brother Milligan said.
Getting to put on my frilly, thin dresses and my best bloomers and two starched underskirts and new white ribbed stockings was fun. But having to squeeze my feet into shoes and then sit still on a church bench two times a day was awful.
Everybody in Drake Eye Springs dressed up in Sunday clothes and came to the meeting; that is, everybody except the Baileys and the Lawsons. Mama said Mister Wes Bailey and Miss Lida Belle were sure making a mistake, not bringing Addie Mae and their three boys. Everybody had known beforehand that Ward Lawson wouldn't darken the church door or hitch up a wagon so Miss Ophelia, their young'uns, and Miss Dink could attend services.
During the second week of the meeting, we were late getting off to church one night because, while Mama and Papa were getting dressed, they whispered so long about Mister Ward. Papa was real bothered about something Mister Ward might do. And Mama kept saying, "Jodie, please don't you do anything drastic! You'd just make bad matters a heap worse."
Papa slipped on his good shirt and told her, "What gets my goat is that he's started telling all over the settlement that I didn't fight him fair and square. Says I yelled for the baby to pour that coal oil on him. That makes me so mad I could kill him! To hear him tell it, I started the fight. He's hell-bent on getting revenge!"
"Shh, Jodie, don't forget who's sitting right behind you, buttoning up her shoes."
That was me. And I was having a hard time with my shoes.
"Mama, can I go barefooted tonight? Just one time?"
"Not to Protracted Meeting!"
So I wore my squeezing shoes again.
Mama said I could get a lot out of the meeting if I'd only listen to what was going on. I tried listening, but I didn't get a thing. I found out, though, that at the night services, when Brother Milligan finally got through preaching and stepped down in front of the pulpit and said, "The doors of this church are now open," it didn't mean we could all walk out the door and go home! It meant the time had come for the bad sinners to go to the mourners' bench with their heads hanging down. Everybody else would stand up and sing the song about "Poor sinner, harden not your heart … and close thine eyes against the Light." We'd sing it over and over for them—four or five times.
Some nights half a dozen would go up the aisle and shake the preacher's hand. He'd ask them if they believed in Jesus and wanted to be baptized and join the church, and each one would nod his head. They would then sit down on the bench, and everybody except me would be glad and happy.
While we sang another song, the grownups who already belonged to the church would line up and shake hands with the sinners. That, the preacher said, was "giving the right hand of Christian fellowship."
Other nights nobody would even look toward the mourners' bench, no matter how loud the preacher called them to come or how long we sang. Those nights we got to go home early, and that made me glad and happy.
Every night I got sleepy. The last night of meeting, I tried to get Mama to let me go lie down on the quilts where all the babies were sleeping, but she said I was much too big to be sprawled out on the floor by the side of the pulpit.
Yet, the very next minute, when I told her I wanted to go sit on the mourners' bench so I could get baptized in the swimming hole down at Rocky Head Creek, she said I was too little for that.
I decided I'd never be the right size at the right time.
Summer dragged on and on. One morning in late August, a very good thing happened to me. Grandma Ming made a new flour-sack Dolly Dimple for me. She was pretty—the grandest doll ever stuffed with cotton, Grandpa Thad told me.
When I ran home to show her to Mama, I thought she would meet me out on the front porch and say, "Ah, Bandershanks, what's your new dolly's name?" Then, I was going to say, "Sookie Sue!"
But Mama wasn't on the porch. I hurried on into the front room. There she was, leaning against the wall, talking on the phone. She just reached down, patted my head, and kept on talking to Aunt Vic. She didn't even notice Sookie Sue.
I crawled up into a rocking chair to wait.
I wished I could talk on the phone—about cotton crops, or peaches, or just anything. It wouldn't do a speck of good though to ask Mama to let me try it. She'd only say I was too little. But I knew exactly how to turn the crank on the side of the phone and how to hold the ear piece.
And I could remember every ring on the line. Ours was two longs and a short. Aunt Vic's was two longs. Aunt Lovie's was a short and a long. And if I was going to call up Papa's store, I'd just give the phone's crank one long twist.
I didn't dare ask Mama if I could talk. She'd tell me all that business about telephones being for important matters and that when anybody called us, some grownup person should answer—not me, or Wiley, or even Mierd, who was already going on twelve years old. Then she'd say all over again that when I heard the phone ring two longs and a short, I was to get her or my big sister Bess or one of my big brothers—that is, when they were at home.
They weren't ever home any more—neither Bess nor my brothers. Bess was boarding in town so she could go to high school. And Clyde and Walker were still off in that army camp, wherever it was, and Dorris was down at the Caledonia Academy. I didn't know for sure where Caledonia was, but it wasn't far away, or terrible, like being in a camp for the World War.
Nobody was home any more, except me and Mierd and Wiley and Mama and Papa. Grandpa Thad and Grandma Ming were nearly there because their house was just the other side of the dying Chinaberry tree.
Finally, Mama hung up the phone, turned around, and stooped over so I could hug her neck and she could hug mine.
"You have a Dolly Dimple!"
"She's Sookie Sue!"
"Just let me look at her!"
"Grandma saved that flour-sack doll pattern just for me."
"She's fine as silk!" Mama held my homemade doll out at arm's length, looking first at her purple dress and the freckle dots on her face, and then at her long, soft legs. Sookie's legs were turned up at the ends and made black so she'd look like she had on Sunday shoes.
"Bandershanks, this is the kind of girl you want to be: one who wears her smile all day long!" She handed Sookie Sue back to me.
Mama stood up straight again and started toward the kitchen. I followed her.
"Me and you've got lots to do today, Bandershanks."
"What?"
"First thing is to finish working up the light-bread dough, else it won't have time to rise once, much less twice."
"Mama, can I shake the sifter?"
"Sure. Soon as I dip the flour outta the barrel. Hon, you better lay your doll on the bed, or you'll get her all mussed up."
I had hardly put Sookie to sleep and crawled up on the end of Mama's cook table when the phone started ringing—two longs and a short.
"Mama, it's our ring! Lemme answer it! Lemme, Mama! Please!"
"All right. Hurry. I'll be in there soon as I wash this sticky dough off my fingers. I can't imagine who—"
I couldn't wait for Mama to finish whatever she'd started to say. I dropped the sifter, jumped off the table, and streaked up the hall toward the front room. The phone kept ringing.
As soon as I could push a chair over to the wall I climbed on it and started jerking at the cord on the ear piece. That stopped the ringing. Then, by standing on tiptoe, I managed to yank the hearing thing all the way off its hook.
"Hello!" I hollered up into the mouth cup.
"Hello? Hello? Who's this?"
"It's me!"
"Who?"
"Me! I mean—"
"Call your ma to the phone, honey. This is Mister Hawk Lumpkin. I gotta tell her somethin'."
Grandpa had said lots of times that Mister Hawk couldn't hear it thunder.
"Here's my mama," I screeched.
I handed Mama the ear thing, but she didn't put it against her head. Mister Hawk was yelling so loud she didn't even have to hold it close.
"Hello! Mister Hawk? This is Nannie."
"Nannie? Say, Nannie, send one of your young'uns out to Thad's house and tell him if he wants to see a automobile to get down to the road. One just passed, headed that way! Tell Thad he'll have to make haste 'cause that fellow must be hittin' twenty or twenty-five miles a hour!"
"Yes, sir, Mister Hawk, I'll tell Pa."
He must have hung up, for Mama stopped talking.
"Run out to Grandpa's and tell him Mister Hawk called and said—"
"I heard him, Mama. I'm going."
"Don't you make a lotta racket and bother Grandma Ming. I'll go call Wiley."
I didn't want to use the front doorsteps; it was easier to run to the end of the porch and jump off. Besides, that put me right at the gate between our yard and Grandpa's yard. In a second I was on his porch and standing right by his rocking chair.
Grandpa was sitting in the hot sunshine, his hat tilted down over his eyes and his Gazette spread out across his knees. I could hear him snoring, loud.
I eased up closer to his rocker and tapped him on the hand. "Grandpa?"
He didn't hear me.
"Grandpa?"
"Huh? What? Oh, it's you, Bandershanks." He pushed back his hat brim and moved the newspaper. "How's my girl?"
"Grandpa, Mister Hawk said for you to get down to the road. And make haste. It's going fast!"
"What's going fast?"
"That auto'bile coming!"
"Automobile? Oh, my! Let's go! We gotta see that! There's not many traveling our road yet. Get me my stick there in the corner, sugar. I'm sure proud Hawk phoned."
I had a hard time trying to catch up with Grandpa. He wasn't waiting for me—or his walking cane. And he was almost out to the front yard gate before I could hand it to him.
Mama was unlatching the gate.
"Nannie, where's Wiley? And Mildredge? They don't want to miss seeing a automobile!'
Before Mama could tell Grandpa that Mildredge, as he always called Mierd, was over at Aunt Lovie's, we saw Wiley come bounding across the corner of our yard, heading toward the road.
Trixie was right with him, and he and that red mammy hound didn't even look at us, or the gate. Side by side, they skirted around Mama's cape jasmine bush and went over the fence in one big leap—like they'd been practicing together for days, Grandpa said.
"I declare to my soul!" Mama cried. "Wiley, you tore your pants!"
Mama always said "I declare to my soul" when something went wrong. If Papa had been there, he would have said "Great Jehoshaphat and gully dirt!" That's what he hollered when anything bad happened—torn pants or anything else.
Grandma Ming said the reason Papa wouldn't say nothing but Great Jehoshaphat and gully dirt was because my mama was a preacher's daughter, and she wouldn't stand for "poor Jodie doing no cussing."
Grandpa thought Wiley's tearing the back end of his britches on the yard fence was all right.
"Never mind, Nannie," he was telling Mama. "It's not every day a boy gets to see a automobile. Wonder what make it is."
I skipped on ahead so I could sit down beside the edge of the road with Wiley and Trixie. Wiley was leaning back against a good-sized pine sapling, dangling his feet in the gully, and trying to hold Trixie around the neck. She twisted and turned and swished her tail. After a bit, though, she settled down between us and stopped panting long enough to reach over and lick Wiley square in the face.
"Quit it, Trixie! And get quiet, I'm listening for a automobile. Bandershanks, you hear anything?"
"No, I don't hear nothing. What's it gonna sound like?"
"Like a motor, you silly goose! Hot diggity! I hear it!" With that, Wiley jumped across the ditch and tore off down the middle of the road, running as fast as he could sling his fat legs and bare feet. Trixie was having a hard time keeping up with him.
"Wiley! Get outta that road, son!" Mama screamed. "You'll get run over!" Mama started running after them, but Grandpa called her back.
"Nannie, don't fret! They'll get outta the way soon as they see it coming!"
Wiley and Trixie, rounding the bend, disappeared behind the plum thicket.
"Boys and dogs has both got plenty of gumption," Grandpa told Mama, "more'n folks give 'em credit for."
Just then, we saw it!
"Look, Grandpa!"
"Yeah! There 'tis. It's a automobile all right. A one-seater. Foot dool! I wish it wasn't coming so all-fired fast. It ain't a Ford Model T. But hanged if I can tell what make it is." Grandpa was talking low and quick, as much to himself as to me and Mama. "Man, man, just look at her wheels roll! Lickety-split!"
Mama shielded her eyes against the morning sun and looked hard at the black automobile. I put my hand up on my forehead too, and stared. The thing sailed right by in a big whiff of dust and was gone before any of us had a chance to get a good look at it.
Wiley and Trixie ran up in the thick of the dust cloud. He was hollering and waving his arms; she was barking at every breath.
"Did y'all see it? Did y'all see it? What kind was it, Grandpa? Could you tell? Didn't it have a funny gasoline tank? Mama, lem'me go to the store! Will you? It's bound to stop, and I could see it up close. Can I go? Can I, Mama?"
Wiley was gasping for breath as he talked.
"Son, you couldn't run all the way from here to your papa's store. It's a mile, and you're out of wind already!"
"No'm, I got plenty of wind. And I ain't gonna run. I'll ride Dale. Please, Mama! Please?"
"I don't think—"
"Why don't you let him go, Nannie? If I was ten years younger, I'd go myself!"
"Well, all right."
"Hot diggity!" Wiley gave a whoop and lit out toward the barn.
"That's it, son! Light a shuck!" Grandpa called after him.
"Bandershanks, open the well-lot gate," Wiley hollered back, "and I'll dance at your wedding!"
Grandpa said, "Come on, sugar, I'll give you a hand with that dilapidated old gate; you couldn't budge it. Reckon I'm gonna have to come out here and brace that thing with some two-by-fours. Jodie don't never get time for fixing things."
With Mama's help, we got the sagging gate dragged open just in time for Old Dale to come jogging through, with Wiley astraddle of his back. Wiley hadn't even put on Dale's bridle, his blanket, a saddle, or anything! He was just holding on to Dale's mane with both hands and kicking his ribs with both feet.
"Why, son, I could've helped you get the saddle!"
"Don't need no saddle, Grandpa! Get up! Get up!"
Mama said Old Dale didn't appear the least bit interested in going to see any automobile. But, he did strike up a trot when Wiley got him to the foot of the hill and on the main road. Trixie barked and wanted to follow them, but we called her back.
"I'll tell you, Nannie," Grandpa said as he fastened the sagging gate back in place, "I got so carried away with looking at the automobile I wasn't paying no mind to who was on it. You happen to notice who 'twas?"
"One of them was Ward Lawson, but the man holding the wheel was a total stranger to me."
"Ward? Wonder what he's up to? I heard talk he's aiming to buy the old Crawford place."
"He may be aiming to. But Jodie says Ward couldn't raise a dollar for a dead man's eye! Why Jodie ever gave him credit at the store all last year and this spring I just can't see. There's no telling how much that man owes Jodie! 'Course I sorta pity Ophelia and all their young'uns and Miss Dink."
"Yeah, Nannie, I know. Maybe Ward will settle up what he owes in a month or so—soon as he sells his cotton."
"He didn't last fall. Right after he hauled his first bale to town he let Jodie have seven dollars on account—seven dollars, mind you—and that's the last copper Jodie collected."
"Nannie, this evening soon as Jodie gets in from the store, send me word. I'm anxious to hear what he's gonna have to say 'bout that automobile."
"Sure, Pa. I'll send you word."
Just at dark Mama sent the word, all right. By me. Grandpa was busy trying to get the smut and smoke out of a lamp chimney. He couldn't go talk to Papa about anything right then, he said. He had a dishpan full of soapy water, and he kept sloshing the water through the chimney. Grandma, propped up in her bed like always, was eating her supper and watching Grandpa.
"Thad, you ought'a get a rag and wash that chimney right."
"Bandershanks, tell Jodie I'll come on as soon as I can put some oil in these dratted lamps!"
"Quit muttering and complaining, Thad. A-body can't expect lamps to give out a decent light if they don't keep the wicks trimmed and the chimneys polished—and put oil in them!"
Grandpa said for me to run on back home before I heard him say what he was thinking.
"Just tell Nannie not to wait supper on me, Bandershanks. I'll be out there directly, though."
We did wait. All of us sat down around the supper table to wait-that is, all except Wiley. Papa sent him back out to the hall washstand to rewash his gritty hands.
Mama and Papa kept talking back and forth over the top of my head, mainly about how little milk old Moolie was giving. Papa said it wasn't time for her to go dry, 'cause she wouldn't freshen till spring. Mama thought what Moolie really needed was a few more cotton seeds and lots of pea-vine hay.
I couldn't hear what Mierd and Irene were saying. Aunt Lovie had let Irene come to spend the night with Mierd, and they were over on the bench against the wall, whispering and giggling about something. I wished I knew what was so funny. But, there was no way to find out, for I was way across the table, up in my high chair. Well, it wasn't exactly mine, and it wasn't exactly high. It was a little oak chair some old, old grandpa man had whittled out for Papa when he was a boy. But, I always sat in it. The good thing about it was that over on the side next to Mama's chair, the arm was missing. So, when I got sleepy, all I had to do was lean right over into her lap. Besides that, it had a brand new cowhide bottom with fur that sort of tickled my legs.
Mama and Papa soon quit talking about Moolie and started talking about my big brothers.
"Nannie, quit fretting over the boys! Like as not, the war'll be over before the army gets either one of them trained. You mustn't let it drive you to distraction. Ah, here's Pa."
Grandpa jammed his hat on the peg next to Papa's and wiped the back of his hand across his beard. "Whew!"
"'Evening, Pa."
"Mercy me, I thought I'd never get away from Ming tonight! Jodie, you know how your ma is some days. She lies there in that bed, thinking up a thousand things for a-body to do. Right at sundown she took a notion for me to fix all three lamps."
"Yes, sir, Pa. I know. Here, take your chair."
Grandpa eased himself down at the head of the table and hooked his walking stick on the back of his chair. Mama looked around the kitchen. She waited a minute for Wiley to slide back into his place and for Mierd and Irene to get quiet.
"Pa, will you return thanks?"
I wondered why Mama always asked Grandpa if he'd say grace. We all knew he would—three times a day. He never changed it a bit. I liked that 'cause I could remember every word.
We bowed our heads and squinted our eyes shut.
Merciful Father, smile on us;
Pardon our many sins;
Make us thankful for these
And all Thy favors,
We ask in the Redeemer's name.
Amen.
"Grandpa, guess what?" Wiley blurted out before we could even raise our heads.
"What?"
"I rode on it!"
"Naw!" Grandpa looked at Wiley as if he could hardly believe such a thing. "Well! Now that's something to crow about!"
"Rode on what?" Irene asked.
"A automobile!"
"When did you ever ride a automobile?"
"Just this morning, up at Papa's store. All y'all just ought to 've seen me!"
"What was it like?"
"Irene, it was sorta like being in a buggy—only smoother and a whole lot faster! It was real, real fast!"
"Son, how'd you happen to get to ride?" Grandpa asked.
"Well, sir, that man said, 'Sonny Boy, you want to take a little spin?' I ain't 'Sonny Boy,' but I was dying to get on that thing, and Papa said I could. So, I did! He rode me all the way up to Doctor Elton's and Miss Maime's house and then wheeled around and brought me back to the store. We just went a-skimming along—like a bird!"
Wiley flung out his arms to show how a bird flies.
"Whoops!"
"Watch out, Wiley!" Mierd screeched. "Look what you've done! You've knocked over the syrup pitcher with one clumsy hand and Irene's buttermilk with the other!"
"Irene, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it. Gee, it's running down all over your dress."
"That's all right."
Mama rubbed the spot on Irene's skirt with a damp cloth till it looked fine.
"What I'm waiting to hear is what make automobile that was," Grandpa said, turning to Papa. "It wasn't one of the Ford tin lizzies, was it, Jodie?"
"No, sir. It was a Chevrolet. It—"
"It was a 'Four Ninety'! That's what it was" Wiley hollered out. "It cost four hundred and ninety dollars!"
"Hold on now a minute, son. Don't interrupt when anybody's talking. 'Specially if it's somebody a good bit older than you are. We'll let you have your say in a few minutes."
"Yes, sir."
After that, Wiley seemed to really try to stay quiet. Papa went on talking.
"That automobile created quite a stir. Doctor Elton had walked down to the store, and I was out on the porch, talking to him. Old Black Idd was sitting there peddling his shoulder sack of parched peanuts. When that automobile pulled up nearly to the edge of the store porch, I thought Idd would fall outta his chair! I reckon it was the first automobile he'd ever seen so close.
"Well, the driver stepped down outta the thing and came up on the porch. Said his name was Hicks. I told him mine, and we shook hands. I made him acquainted with Doctor Elton. Then we passed the time of day. I figured he must be some of Ward's kinfolks, but he wasn't. You oughta've seen Ward. He was in his glory, all sweetness and light. He had this fellow Hicks thinking I was his best friend. Finally, Hicks got around to saying he was from off down in Louisiana somewhere—I forget the name of the place. He wanted to know if I had any gasoline for sale. 'Course I told him no, that I didn't have any calls for it. He said he figured he could make it to the next town with what gasoline was still in his tank. That was a real odd tank, Pa. Sorta oval shaped, and sitting up behind the seat. First one I've seen like that."
"Yeah, I noticed that tank myself."
"This Mister Hicks tried to explain a few things about his automobile to me and the doctor, but Ward kept running his big mouth. Then the crowd started gathering. After that, Hicks couldn't explain nothing."
"That's when I got there, wasn't it, Papa?"
"Yes, Wiley. And Old Man Hawk drove up about that time too. Mister Hansen was obliged to stop the gin, and Hal shut down the grist mill, 'cause every man and boy at both places had come rushing up the hill. They swarmed around that automobile like bees! Wes Bailey and his boys was the worst ones for questions. Then, soon as the man and Ward left, all three boys set in hounding Wes about getting a automobile himself!"
"What'd Wes say?" Grandpa asked.
"Wes just laughed. Finally he said, 'Well, boys, I got plenty of money and no poor kin! And I'm aiming to keep it that way.'"
Papa stopped talking long enough to pass the fried ham to Grandpa. Mama wanted me to eat some more, but I was too stuffed.
"Before everybody left the store I found out one thing I'd been suspecting all summer."
"What's that, Jodie?" Mama asked.
"Wes and Ward have had a big falling out and don't speak. They don't say 'Good morning,' 'Good evening,' 'Kiss my foot,' or nothing!"
"For goodness sakes!"
"'Course Wes claims it's the feud cropped up again."
"Feud? Jodie, folks don't have feuds nowadays."
"I know, Nannie. And it would take me the balance of the night here to explain what all Wes said, but years back they did have a bad feud through here between the Williamses and the Parkers. It's all over now, and most of them on both sides are long gone. But it turns out that Wes Bailey's ma was a Parker, and Ward's grandma was right smart kin to the Williamses. Or, that's how Wes claims him and Ward fell out. The real trouble between them may never be told."
Mierd and Irene began talking to each other about how stupid the three Bailey boys were at school and about all the silly, bad things Bud and the younger boy did.
I couldn't decide whether to listen to Irene telling what happened the day Jap Bailey slipped a dead frog into the schoolhouse spring, or whether to listen to Papa telling more about that automobile. But just then, Mierd said, "Come on, Irene. Let's go roll our hair," and they asked to be excused. She and Irene went flouncing out of the kitchen, both of them giggling again.
When I turned back around, Mama was talking to Wiley.
"If you're through eating, son, I want you to go draw a few buckets of water. We've got to put on some to heat for baths. Wish you'd bring in the foot tub so we can fill it and the kettle too."
"Mama, do I have to take a bath tonight? I ain't dirty."
"Wiley, it's Saturday night."
"But I bathed last Saturday."
"Son!"
Wiley went out the back door, fussing about how he hated Saturday nights. He let the screen door bang.
Papa and Grandpa didn't even hear the door slam; they were still talking about buying automobiles.
"Pa, you know what a loud mouth Ward is. He was telling everybody at the store this morning that he's sure gonna get him a automobile. 'Course didn't none of us believe him; that is, nobody except Old Mister Hawk. He got so mad I thought for a minute the old man would whack Ward over the head with his cane! I wouldn't have much cared if he had! I was thinking to myself: 'By hoakies, Ward Lawson, you red-headed coot, you'd better pay your debts before you start buying automobiles!'"
"I should say so."
"Doctor Elton must've been thinking about the same. He told me that during all those years the Lawsons lived over at Millers Crossing, Ward sent for him every time a young'un was born and never paid him a dime. 'Course the doctor just laughed it off. You know how he is."
"Yeah. Too easygoing. Got a heart in him big as a mule. Jodie, have you heard any more about Ward making you-know-what?"
"No, sir. Ned told me last week he still hadn't rigged up the still. And Doctor Elton says he didn't come across no signs last time he was over there to see Miss Dink. If Ward had had any mash fermenting, the doctor would've smelled it. But, I'm just waiting. I aim to call the Law, threats or no threats! Hal Goode laughed and told me if I had brains enough to carry me across the branch, I'd encourage Ward, help him make some money so he'd pay me what he owes!"
"You oughta've took a mortgage on Ward's mules last year, Jodie. That's what other storekeepers do when they're furnishing a man. Then in the fall, if the man won't pay up, they foreclose and get a little of their money back. You're too trusting."
"I know, Pa. Trouble is, if you take a man's mule, come the next spring he can't make a crop! And you never would collect."
"Well, have it your way. What happened this morning that made Hawk Lumpkin so mad at Ward?"
"It was what Ward said about the road. You see, Old Man Hawk had come riding up in that one-horse wagon of his pretty soon after the automobile stopped. He was mad and just a-ranting. I couldn't tell at first if he was talking to his mule or to himself."
"Probably both, if I know Hawk. He thinks more of that old gray mule than he does of his wife! Why, he's had that old bag of bones thirty years!"
Papa laughed.
"The mule, Jodie! Not the wife!" Grandpa laughed too. "What was Hawk raving about?"
"He was grumbling that a man and his mule ain't safe on the road no more. He said that all them dad-burned automobiles come tearing through—'course 'dad-burned' wasn't exactly the word he used—trying to run a-body in the ditch and scaring the living daylights outta you."
"That's Hawk for you, all right. He hates automobiles."
"A few minutes later, when this Hicks man said something to Hal Goode about the stretch of road between Union and Drake Eye Springs being narrow and rough as a washboard, I thought Old Man Hawk would explode!
"'Oh,' he said, 'you town fellers figger we ain't got a blessed thing to do but get out and drag the roads nice and smooth for you!'
"That set Hicks back on his heels. Ward, though, piped up, 'Why, Mister Hawk, when I get me my automobile, I'm gonna be countin' on you to help lay down a plank road 'fore winter rains set in. Rocky Head Bottom gets powerful muddy!'
"Pa, that sent Old Man Hawk into such a rage he nearly swallowed his chewing tobacco!"
"I'm here to tell you, Jodie, Ward Lawson had better not tangle with Hawk! Get him riled, and there's no telling what he's liable to do. If Ward was to buy himself a car, Hawk would as soon burn it up as to look at it!"
Chapter 4
In September Drake Eye Springs School started again, this time with a new teacher named Mister Shepherd.
Mierd and Wiley both got new book sacks. I begged the grownups to get me a book sack and let me go. I could say my ABC's and count all the way to a hundred! But Mama said I wasn't old enough to start to school, Papa said my legs weren't long enough, and Grandpa Thad said I still had to eat a lot more baked sweet 'taters.
Shoogie couldn't come any day to play with me because she had to go to Sweet Beulah School. Her legs were already real long. So I played by myself. Sometimes Mama and I kept the store while Papa went to town. That was fun to me, but Mama didn't like it.
"I wasn't cut out to be a storekeeper, Bandershanks, and I'll sure be glad when Papa gets his shelves stocked."
"How come Papa goes and goes to town, Mama?"
"He's got to buy his winter goods before bad weather sets in. Once the rains start, the roads get so muddy wagons bog down. But Papa will soon be through. He's got one more haul to make—next Monday."
When Monday came, Papa and Mama got up while it was still night. They didn't wake Mierd or Wiley or me. But when I smelled the ham Mama was frying for Papa's breakfast, I woke anyway.
I slid out of bed and tiptoed into the kitchen.
"Bandershanks! What're you doing up? It's not even three o'clock yet."
"I'm hungry, Papa."
"Here, get one of these biscuits and go back to bed."
"Mama, can I take Trixie a biscuit?"
"Child, dogs don't want biscuits this time of night."
"Trixie's done woke up. I heard her out on the front porch, moaning just like Mierd does when she's dreaming bad dreams."
"Well, take her this'n. Then you crawl back in bed and dream yourself some sweet dreams, little gal!"
Just as I squatted down by Trixie to give her the biscuit, I heard somebody shooting firecrackers—or guns—way off up the road. Trixie jumped up. She growled and lay back down. She sniffed the biscuit but wouldn't eat it. I heard some more loud bangs. Trixie heard them too and started barking. Then I noticed the sky was glowing—like the sun was coming up. It couldn't be the sun; I knew that.
I ran back to the kitchen.
"Papa, come see! It's a big, big light!"
Papa set down his coffee cup.
"Where's any light?"
"Up in the sky. And somebody's shooting firecrackers! There they go again! Hear them?"
"Yeah!"
Papa and Mama ran with me out to the far end of the porch.
"Lord, Nannie, that's a big fire! Up about the store!"
"Looks like it's far enough away to be Doctor Elton's house, don't you think?"
"Maybe. Whatever it is, it's burning down! I'm gonna go see!"
"I'll go with you, Jodie."
"Me too, Papa!"
"Y'all hurry, Nannie. Wake Mierd and Wiley while I hitch up the wagon. Just let them come on in their night clothes!"
The light from the fire kept getting brighter and brighter. By the time we had splashed across the branch and reached the next rise we could see the huge blaze, already up higher than the trees.
Papa kept jerking on the reins, trying to make Belle and Puddin' Foot trot faster.
"Nannie, you think it might be Hal's grist mill?"
"Yeah. Or, it could be the cotton gin. Mister Hansen's got lots of cotton stored there."
"Cotton don't burn as fast as that fire's going. It's blazing like an old house made out of heart pine."
Papa gave the mules another slap with the lines.
"Jodie, what if it's the church? Who was supposed to tend the heater last night after services?"
"Wallace Goode and Wiley. Son, did y'all douse it good with water like we've always told you to do?"
"Yes, sir. Me and Wallace drowned it slap out! Say, maybe it's the schoolhouse, and we won't have to go to school no more!"
"Son! You oughtn't to say such a thing!"
"I didn't mean it, Papa."
We wheeled around the last big curve in the road and began climbing the high hill between us and the fire. Just as soon as the mules could pull our wagon to the top, we'd see what was burning up.
For a minute I wondered why nobody had said it might be Papa's store. Then I knew. It was his store, and they all knew it.
"Papa?"
"Yeah, Bandershanks?"
"I wish it ain't your store, Papa."
"Yeah, sugar, I know. Great Jehoshaphat and gully dirt! Look at that! Nannie, look!"
We all saw it. Not the store—it was done swallowed up. The huge blaze shooting up was as high as stores and stores stacked on top of each other and getting higher all the time! Wild flames, roaring and leaping, were trying to climb to the clouds and set them on fire!
"Oh, Nannie, our lifetime of work, going up in smoke!"
The wind was blowing smoke toward us, and already we could feel the heat. As we got closer, more and more sparks and cinders came flying in the air.
"Jodie, yonder's a whole bunch of men!"
"Where?"
"Backed up there between the fire and the schoolhouse branch."
"Yeah, I see them now. They've been trying to put it out for us! Nannie, it won't be safe for y'all to go any closer. I'll stop the wagon here at the gin. Now, you young'uns stay with your mama."
"Jodie, it's too late to do a thing! Don't you go up close! All them cartons of shotgun shells could go off."
"They've done exploded. That's what Bandershanks heard. Nannie, I've gotta go close enough to see if I can tell how and where that low-down fool set the fire."
"What'd you say, Papa?"
"Nothing of any consequence, son. You hitch the mules for me. Here, hold the reins."
Papa leaped from the wagon and ran up the slope, straight toward the fire.
"Take care, Jodie!"
"Mama, soon's I hitch the mules, lem'me go find out what it looks like on the other side! I ain't never seen such a fire in my whole life! I'll run way around. I won't get no closer'n we are right now."
"Lemme go too, Mama."
"If Mierd goes, can I go, Mama?"
"Now, now, children, Papa said for y'all to stay with me. I tell you what we'll do. I'll walk with you, and we'll make our way up toward the schoolhouse spring. But now y'all have got to keep close to me and close to the branch."
"Hot diggity! Come on!"
"Mama?"
"What, Mierd?"
"How come the fire just keeps on and on burning so terrible?"
"For one thing, the timbers in the store are pine, heart pine, full of fat—even the shingles on the roof. Besides, the shelves were stocked full of Christmas goods—things that burn easy. And, there's all that coal oil, and cloth—just everything."
"Mama, all our candy's burning up!"
"Yeah, Bandershanks. I guess it is. Don't cry, hon!"
"Hot diggity! Yonder's Wallace Goode! Mama, see Wallace standing up there with all the men? Lemme go where he's at!"
"Just for a minute, son. Then you come straight back."
Mierd and I wanted to go see Wallace too, but Mama wouldn't let us. Wiley came streaking back, Wallace with him.
"Mama, Wallace was one of the first ones here, and him and Mister Goode and all of 'em poured on lots of water, but it was too far gone!"
"Yes'm, Miss Nannie. Doctor Elton, he was the first one who seen it, and me and Papa was next. Doctor Elton woke up smelling smoke. Soon's he run out in his yard and looked down this way, he seen 'zactly what it was. He got on the phone and started calling. But the phone, it went dead 'fore he could get y'all 'cause the line going past the store melted in two!"
"Mama, you know what Mister Goode thinks?" Wiley asked. "He says somebody set Papa's store afire. Poured on coal oil!"
"Well, son, we—"
"Doctor Elton says so too, Miss Nannie! He figures somebody built a blaze under the porch first 'cause that porch was slam gone when we all got here."
"Yeah, Mama, and the back west corner was already blazing sky high too!"
"On top of that, Miss Nannie, we found rags and a soda pop bottle that smelled just like coal oil. Papa's done give 'em to Mister Jodie! And he's gonna take 'em straight to town and show both of 'em to the Law!"
"Come on, Wallace, let's run back up yonder where the men are at! Mama, can I go?"
"I reckon so."
We walked up a little closer to the fire, too. The flames weren't so high any more, but the whole hill was terribly hot. Mama said the fire would die down and that by daylight there wouldn't be a thing left but red-hot ashes.
"Ouch! Ouch! Oh, my foot!"
I had stepped on something.
"Mama?'
"What on earth, Bandershanks?"
"It's sticking m my heel. Oh!"
"I declare to my soul! Lemme see."
"Don't pull it out Mama! It'll hurt worser! Please! Please!"
"Mercy sakes, you've stepped on a horseshoe with two nails still in it!"
"What'll we do, Mama?"
"Pull it out and get you home so we can soak your foot in coal oil, that's what."
"No'm! Please don'