Cold Sassy Tree (18 page)

Mama blushed and picked up little Mary Toy, who was four, and took her out. Papa blushed and said, "Well, uh, let's see, son. It's kind of like the way hens lay eggs and then biddies hatch out of the eggs." He stood up and wiped his mouth on his napkin.

"But what about the rooster? Don't he have something to do with it? Bluford says the rooster does something when he lights on a hen. What—"

"I got to get down to the store, Will." It didn't dawn on me till after he left that I still didn't know any more about ladies having babies than I did yesterday when I was just nine.

Filling one of Miss Love's boxes, I remembered one time Smiley said his folks were gone off and he'd get his little sister to go down to the barn with us. He wanted to show me what "it" was like. I was twelve. His sister was only five and wouldn't know what it was all about, he said. But just the idea scared me so bad I made up that Papa had told me to build a shelf on the back porch for Mama's flower-potting stuff.

By then I understood how it was with roosters and hens, of course, and cows and dogs and cats. And because of all the smutty stories I'd heard, I had a pretty good guess about people. I certainly knew that getting married meant you were supposed to sleep in the same bed, and that the bed had a lot to do with having babies. When Aunt Loma got married, she and Camp didn't have but one bed. Still and all, I used to look at her and wonder if they had done "it." The day I found out she was in the family way, I finally knew for sure they had.

Well, it looked like Miss Love and Grandpa weren't aiming to do it or anything else—have a baby or sleep in the same bed, either one.

I could hear Miss Love in the kitchen, getting Grandpa's good supper started. I emptied a bureau drawer full of ragged, baby-stained old quilts into a big box. In the next drawer was a stack of baby clothes, ironed and done up nice, like for the next birthing. Why come Granny hadn't given all that to Mama when I was born—or when Mama was expecting the baby that died or when Mary Toy came? Or at least why didn't she give the clothes to Aunt Loma? By time Campbell Junior came along, Granny surely wasn't still hoping to have another baby herself.

I kind of wished the little gowns and lacy caps could stay here in the bureau. With a new young wife, Grandpa might still get him a boy. But this was Miss Love's bed in here, and his bed was in yonder, so I knew it wasn't ever going to happen. Anyway I, Will Tweedy, was his boy. And I was certain that's the way Mama and them wanted it to stay.

I reckon I did, too, I'm ashamed to say.

Miss Love brought me some sweetmilk just as I emptied one of the small top drawers into a box. It was full of old brass keys, old receipts, yellowed letters tied in bundles, hairpins, tintypes, and at least a dozen pairs of gold-rimmed spectacles with bent or missing rims, and some with the glass missing. I pointed out Grandpa's medal from the Confederate Veterans' Reunion in 1875. Miss Love picked it out of the pile. "I suppose we should put this in a drawer in his room. But take the rest of it home, Will."

Her face was flushed with heat, and the pink dress was so soaked that it stuck to her skin in the back. She had the same cardboard fan in her hand that I'd fanned Granny with when she lay dying. Miss Love fanned hard, and birdsong's funeral parlor became a blur. "I'm so hot, Will. And I'm tired. I think I'll go lie down a while."

"Yes'm, you look like you could use a rest." I gulped down the sweetmilk. "Most ladies take a nap after dinner."

"Take what?" Miss Love hadn't heard a word I said.

"A nap, ma'am."

"I have never napped in my life."

"Mama says a nap makes her feel better."

"How could I feel any better?" she asked, laughing. "Anyway, I'm not planning to sleep. I'm just going to lie down a minute."

"Yes'm." I drained the glass. My thumb accidentally touched her forefinger as I handed it back. "Thank you, ma'am."

Miss Love had hardly sat down on the daybed in the hall before she hopped up and said maybe we ought to bring the parlor rug in out of the sun. We did, and then she decided we should place the parlor furniture. I saw right off that she didn't plan on putting anything back just like Granny had it.

"I want this over here, this over there," said Miss Love, pointing first to the loveseat, then the marble-top table. After I moved them, she got at one end of the piano to help shove. When the furniture was all changed around, she asked, smiling and fanning, if I thought my mother and Loma would like it.

"You think Grandpa will?" It was just as well not to say about Mama and Aunt Loma.

"Men think they don't like changes, but they can get used to anything. Besides, I think furniture likes to be moved. Wouldn't you say so?" I thought that sounded foolish, till I saw she was just teasing.

"I reckon." Grinning, I glanced around the room. It did look nice. "Want me to hang the pictures back up, Miss Love?"

"Well, uh, I'm going to let you take those to your mother and Loma. All except the round print of the three horses' heads over there. I want it. Did you know it's part of a big battle scene? I saw the whole picture once, in a book. Look at those flaring nostrils and wild eyes, Will!" She held the picture up to show me, as if I hadn't been seeing it all my life, then traced her finger over the profile of the biggest horse. "I rode a lot when I was out in Texas. I haven't seen any ladies riding in Gold Sassy except Mrs. Sheffield."

"That's because she's the only one that does."

Miss Love fanned some more. "Golly Pete, Will, it's so hot!"

Later I couldn't of told you to save my neck why I asked her what I did then. I was thinking with my mouth, not my brain. But after she took off the dusty head rag, her brown hair came tumbling down around her flushed face, and she was so pretty that I couldn't for the life of me figure out why in the heck she would marry an old man.

Anyhow, I said it: "How come you married my grandpa?"

The question blurted out like a pitcher's fast ball, and I knew right off that I had overstepped.

B
LUSHING
, I stammered out that it was none of my business and please forget I asked.

Miss Love blushed, too. Didn't say a word. She fanned fast for a minute, then sank down in Granny's big rocker, the high-back one with apples and pears carved on it. I knew she must be furious.

But as it turned out, she was busting to talk. I think if I was a frog she'd of talked to me just the same, once I got her started with that smart-aleck question. Twisting her hair into a topknot and fastening it with three big tortoise-shell pins, she said, "Sit down, Will." I sat. "Partly I married your grandfather to have a family." Oh, Lord, that's what Mama was scared of. But Miss Love didn't mean babies. "I don't think of myself as a stepmother to Mary Willis and Loma, of course. But I hope they'll come to regard me as—well, like a sister. I want so much to belong in this family. I want kinfolks."

"You ain't got any?"

"My mother died when I was twelve. Cousin Lottie raised me, and she died last year. She was eighty-five. I'm my own last living relative, so to speak."

Gosh. It would be awful not to have folks. "Your daddy, what about him?"

A hard look came on her face. "I have no living relative." Then, taking a deep breath, she said, "My father was a drunkard. I decided a long time ago to pretend he never existed. But enough about my people. Will, I'm aware that I've given Cold Sassy 129 plenty to gossip about this week, and I know your mother and Loma are upset. I wish I could apologize but ... I don't know how to approach them."

I didn't know either, so I didn't answer.

"I hate being talked about. I hate feeling disliked. I hate it that your folks are embarrassed." I wondered if she knew
scandalized
was more the word for it. "But Mr. Blakeslee thinks the talk will die down if I don't feed it. He says just keep my mouth shut."

And get Aunt Loma to shut hers, I thought. "Yes'm, he's right. He gets away with a lot that way. And if he don't want to hear about something, he just changes the subject or makes a joke."

She smiled. "Yes, I've seen that happen at the store. People will be arguing politics or complaining about the weather and he'll say, 'What time will the sun set this evenin'?' or, 'I been tryin' to remember when was the Battle of Chickamauga.' But I'm not answering your question, Will. I married him because—"

"You ain't got to answer, Miss Love." I fumbled with the rusty wire on the back of the horse picture, twisting it back in place. "I shouldn't of ast that."

"But I want to tell you. Usually people who don't approve of what you do never wonder or care why you did it. I appreciate your wanting to know."

"Ma'am, I didn't say I disapprove. It ain't my place to say."

"But of course you disapprove." She was rubbing sweat off her face and neck with the dusty head rag. It left a grimy smear down one cheek. She took a long breath, like before diving into a swimming hole. "So I am going to tell you how it happened. I went back to the store last Wednesday after the parade. Nobody else was there. The store was closed, of course, but Miss Pauline was anxious to get her hat, so I was going to finish it. Then your grandfather walked in. He came right over to the millinery table and asked if I would marry him." She blushed. "Said it would be a marriage in name only. I'd just be his housekeeper. He made it clear he didn't love me or anything, and said of course I didn't love him. 'But I always liked havin' you around the store,' he said, 'and I figger you like me all right, bein' as you ain't quit or nothin'.' You know how he talks."

"Yes'm."

"And he said he liked my coffee. I reminded him it was Mrs. Crabtree's coffee. Mr. Blakeslee was coming to work every morning without breakfast, Will, and I got worried about him and asked Mrs. Crabtree if I could take him some coffee. I got him to eat store cheese and crackers with it."

"Yes'm. I heard."

"You did? How?"

"Well'm, Papa told us. He knew Mama was worryin' about Grandpa not eatin' breakfast. He was glad you'd thunk it up."

It didn't seem polite to tell her what Miss Effie Belle Tate said, namely, that every old maid and widow woman in town had been bidin' her time, tryin' to wait a decent period after the funeral before invitin' Rucker to Sunday dinner. "But wouldn't you know Love Simpson got to him first with a quart jar a-coffee!"

Miss Love was talking on. "...so it would just be a business arrangement. I was to cook and clean up and wash. In exchange he would deed the house over to me. He said that seemed fair enough. Will, I decided he had to be joking, so I joked back. I said, 'Now, Mr. Blakeslee, that sounds fine, but you'd have to deed over the furniture, too. After you pass on, what good would the house do me without a bed to sleep in?' He said, 'Gosh a'mighty, woman, you're astin' too much.' I laughed and said, 'Take it or leave it, Mr. Blakeslee.'"

Miss Love said she was still just carrying on. "It didn't seem appropriate to be joking like that, Will, Miss Mattie Lou being so recently dead. But I didn't know how else to handle it."

After pondering a minute, Grandpa had agreed to give her the furniture with the house. "Thet way, when I die they won't be no big fuss bout who's to have what."

"Will, that's when I realized he really meant to marry me," said Miss Love. "I was flabbergasted. I told him, 'I'll have to pray about it, Mr. Blakeslee. I've never made an important decision in my life without praying about it.' 'Well, kneel down,' he said. 'Let's go to prayin'.' He had one knee bent toward the floor when I said, 'Don't rush me, Mr. Blakeslee—me or God, either.'"

Miss Love put her hands up to her cheeks and closed her eyes for a minute, then talked on. "I couldn't believe this. Two years ago I—I almost married somebody, Will. When things didn't work out, I felt that God was trying to tell me I shouldn't ever marry. But—well, if I was just to be a housekeeper, that would be the same as not marrying, except I would have a home. On the other hand, it was a proposal that blasphemed holy matrimony. I sat there not saying a word, my mind a jumble. I guess Mr. Blakeslee thought I wasn't sold on the idea, because he put some more icing on the cake. Said, 'Well, and I'll set aside a little cash money for you in my will, Miss Love. Say two hundred dollars.'"

"Grandpa must of been mighty lonesome, or else mighty anxious to get the house cleaned up," said I. "It ain't like him to pay that much for anything."

"Well, he made it plain he had offered as much as he was going to. He also made it plain that the store and all his other property would go to your mother and Loma."

Oh, boy, I couldn't wait to tell Mama. I grinned. "Well, it ain't hard to figure out you said yes."

"I told him I couldn't possibly give him an answer, just like that. He said if I needed a while to think it over, I could let him know next day."

All of a sudden Miss Love hopped up like she'd sat on a pin, plopped herself down on the piano stool, and went to playing chords. I thought she'd gone loose in the head. But I soon saw she was playing music to go along with what she was saying, like at a picture show. Glancing over her shoulder at me, she slowly walked two fingers of her right hand up and down the keyboard. "This is me thinking," she said, nodding toward the two fingers. "Trying to sort out all Mr. Blakeslee said.... Now this is me talking." Accompanied by a
plink-a-plink
up above middle C, she quoted her answer: "'What's the rush, Mr. Blakeslee? We'd have to wait a year anyway.'"

With bass notes and a deep voice, Miss Love became Grandpa: "'I ain't talkin' bout no year. I'm talkin' bout t'morrer, Miss Love. Marryin' t'morrer. I got to go on and git married or hire me a housekeeper, one.'" Gosh, she sounded just like him. Even looked like him, using her tongue like a wad of tobacco being switched from one cheek to the other.

"I said,"—
three stiff, prissy notes
—"'It's not proper, Mr. Blakeslee. It's not even right.'"
A pause, then sad chords.
"'Sir, Miss Mattie Lou has been dead only three weeks.' What he said then sent chills down my spine, Will."
Heavy bass notes followed by harsh discords.
"He said—"