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.