Some Sweet Day (12 page)

I'd never seen so many people in church before. The windows were open wide, but it was very hot, anyway, and many of the women cooled themselves with cardboard fans with the picture of Jesus praying that were always stuck in the songbook racks on the backs of the pews.

A-bide with me: fast falls the e-ven-tide;

The dark-ness deep-ens; Lord, with me a-bide:

When oth-er help-ers fail, and com-forts flee
,

Help of the help-less, O a-bide with me!

“I don't know what the Lord had in mind when he took Richard Henry Turnbolt,” Brother Haskell said. “He was a little boy, hardly big enough to sin. He wasn't yet to the age of accountability. But the Lord must have seen in that small body there a means to work his will, and he used it. What was the Lord's will? Why did Richard Henry Turnbolt die to accomplish it? Our souls are fallen and cannot comprehend. We grieve because a child has died. Yet we know that death in the Lord—and children always die in the Lord—is not the end, but the beginning of a far, far better life that will never end! We miss him because he is small and beautiful and we love him. But, brothers and sisters, it's just for a little while! We are going to see Richard Henry Turnbolt in glory, by and by! The Lord sees even the sparrows that fall out of the air. How much more closely he must be looking out for Richard Henry Turnbolt!

“As for him that committed this foul deed, what is to be said for him? That he is to be hated? No. That he is to be despised? No. ‘To me belongeth vengeance and recompence,' saith the Lord. ‘Their foot shall slide in due time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.' Don't be angry, brothers and sisters! Don't be afraid! The Lord will take care of things!”

Then he prayed.

We shall reach the riv-er side
,

Some sweet day, some sweet day;

We shall cross the storm-y tide
,

Some sweet day, some sweet day
.

We shall press the sands of gold
,

While before our eyes un-fold

Heav-en's splen-dor yet un-told
,

Some sweet day, some sweet day
.

While the choir sang, we started out of the pews for our last look at Rick. Harley and Ellen moved aside and let Mother and Gran go ahead of them. Then Ellen grabbed Belinda's hand and Harley grabbed mine and walked us to the casket. Harley picked me up and held me so I could look in. Rick was dressed in the little blue sailor suit and the sandals that Gran had brought him from Comanche. His hair was brushed into the long curl down the middle of his head that Mother used to make when she dressed him up, and his hands lay loosely open on his belly. He looked like he was asleep. Mother reached into the casket and squeezed his hand, then turned away.

Bill Allison was standing there. “Lacy,” he said, “if you'd let me, I'd put this in with him.”

“All right, Bill,” she said.

He laid a rabbit's foot in Rick's hand.

We shall meet our loved and own
,

Some sweet day, some sweet day;

Gath-ering round the great white throne
,

Some sweet day, some sweet day
.

By the tree of life so fair
,

Joy and rap-ture ev-'ry-where
,

O, the bliss of o-ver there!

Some sweet day, some sweet day
.

The long, black funeral-home car was very hot when we got in, although all the windows were down. Cherry Ann woke up and started crying. Mother rocked back and forth in the seat, trying to quiet her.

“We should have taken Virgie up on her offer to stay home with her,” Gran said.

Mother shook her head. “Someday it's going to be important to her to know she was here,” she said.

Belinda stood on the back seat. I was on my knees beside her, looking through the back window at all the cars following us up the hill to the cemetery. The hearse and our car went on through the cemetery gate and moved slowly among the tombstones to the green awning that had been stretched above the hole where we were going to put Rick. The other cars stopped alongside the road, and the people piled out of them and tramped up the gentle rise to the gate.

Brother Haskell stood, Bible clasped to breast, at the head of the grave while Harley and Jim Bob carried Rick's casket from the hearse and laid it on the two poles that had been laid across the hole. They stepped back with us then, and Jim Bob put his arm around Mother's shoulders. She had handed Cherry Ann to Virgie, and Virgie was jiggling her up and down in her arms. Cherry Ann gurgled.

“‘Let not your heart be troubled,'” Brother Haskell read. “‘Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.'”

And he prayed. The scalloped edges of the awning popped like small flags in the breeze.

Harley and Jim Bob and Bill and one of the men from the funeral home passed two ropes under Rick's casket and lifted it, and another man from the funeral home moved the poles away from the hole. The men lowered the casket, then yanked the ropes out from under it. Harley grabbed the shovel that was sticking up in the mound of dirt next to the hole and held it out to Mother.

She shook her head. “The man of the family ought to be first,” she said, and pointed to me.

Harley handed me the shovel. “All right, son,” he said. “Do you know what to do?”

“Yes.”

I carried the shovel to the dirt pile, filled it as heavy as I could lift, and threw the dirt into the hole.

“‘The Lord is my shepherd,'” Brother Haskell said. “‘I shall not want.'”

I handed the shovel back to Harley, and he picked up some dirt and helped Mother carry it.

“‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters.'”

Then Gran.

“‘He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.'”

Then Harley.

“‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'”

Then Jim Bob.

“‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over.'”

Then Bill.

“‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.'”

We were about to get back into the funeral-home car when I saw him standing in the shade of a big cedar among the tombstones. A man wearing a gun was with him, and Daddy looked very lonesome.

We were moving. I didn't know why, or exactly where, but we were. All our furniture and stuff was out in the front yard, and people were driving up in cars and pickups and wagons, and Mother and Gran were selling it for whatever they were offered, and the people were hauling it off. By sundown, there was nothing left but a couple of broken-down chairs and one book end and a few old shoes and books and stuff. Gran just gathered them all up and took them out to the trash pile and set fire to them.

We rattled like marbles in that empty house. Mother and Gran moved around, folding clothes and putting them in suitcases and cardboard boxes and Gran's old trunk. Their footsteps echoed through the rooms. Belinda followed them around, talking to them and getting in their way. Cherry Ann was asleep in a washtub with some quilts in it. The house seemed darker with everything gone. The bare light-bulbs dangling from the ceilings looked dimmer than before, and the shadows of all of us were bigger and darker than I remembered them being. The wallpaper was faded and spotted with soot and water rings. The linoleum was cracked and broken. I'd never noticed these things before. The house was old and worn-out. I was glad we were leaving it. I wished we were already gone.

“Gate, come help us pack the car,” Mother said. “Belinda can watch the baby.”

“Okay.”

Gran's car was parked under the tree next to the back door. She was poking around inside the trunk with a flashlight.

“I think the suitcases and some of the boxes will fit in here, Lacy,” she said. “The rest can go on top.”

“Yeah, but if we tie the baby bed on the back, we can't open the trunk,” Mother said.

“I know. We'll just have to wear the same clothes until we get there. Cherry Ann's diapers can go in the front seat with us.”

“Well, okay. God, I dread this.”

“So do I. But we have to do what we have to do, so we might as well get started.”

We lifted and pulled and shoved. Gran's old trunk was the hardest part. It had to go between the seats, and since it was a two-door car, it was hard to get the thing in. I got inside the car and pulled on the handle, and Mother and Gran shoved and turned the trunk every which a way until we finally got it in. The top of the trunk was almost level with the back seat, so we spread quilts over it all and made a pretty cozy-looking pallet.

I climbed to the top of the car, onto the rack that Pearly White had given us, and Mother and Gran heaved boxes and bundles up to me. I piled them the best I could, covered the whole thing with a sheet, and tied it down with some cotton rope. Then we tied the two spare tires on the front, and the pieces of Cherry Ann's bed on the back.

“What's left?” Gran asked, poking the flashlight around in the darkness.

“Just the ironing board,” Mother said.

“Oh, Lordy! Where are we going to put that?”

“Don't worry. We'll make it,” Mother said. “We're not licked yet.”

“How about the running board?” I asked.

“Well, we couldn't open the door…” Gran said.

“We could open one door,” Mother said. “We're lucky we won't have to climb through the windows.”

Cherry Ann let out a yell. Mother went into the house to check on her, and Gran and I worked on the ironing board.

“How far is it to El Paso?” I asked.

“I don't know. Three days. Maybe a little longer. There. One more knot ought to do it, honey.”

“Okay. I'm finished.”

“Let's check it over.”

We walked around the car, and Gran flashed the light around over all the ropes and knots.

“It's sure loaded, isn't it?” she said.

“Yeah. Hope it all stays on.”

“It will. Let's go in.”

Mother was changing Cherry Ann's diaper on the kitchen drainboard. She chuckled while Mother sprinkled the talcum powder on her.

“We're through,” Gran said.

“Good. Get the kids in the car while I finish up here. I don't want to stay around here any longer than we have to.”

Belinda was sitting on the living room floor, staring at the wall. “I want to go to bed,” she said.

“Too bad,” I said. “There's no bed here.”

“Come on, honey,” Gran said, picking her up. “There's a nice pallet in the car. Will you turn out the lights, Lacy? I don't want to come back.”

“Yes, I'll be right out.”

Gran laid Belinda on the pallet and put a pillow under her head, then scooted under the steering wheel and across the front seat.

“Can I sit in the front for a while?” I asked.

“Sure, honey.” She patted the seat beside her.

We watched the light go out in the living room, and then in the kitchen. Belinda sat up.

“Are we moving now?” she asked.

“Yes, just as soon as your mother gets here,” Gran said.

“When are we coming back?”

“Oh, I don't know. Someday. Maybe.”

Mother came down the steps and handed Cherry Ann through the window to Gran and got in and started the engine. The lights flicked on.

“Everybody set?” Mother asked.

“I think so,” Gran said. “How's the gas?”

“Full. I had it filled when Pearly put the rack on. He gave it to us out of his own gas stamps.”

“That was mighty nice of him,” Gran said. “There are lots of good people in this world.”

Mother backed the car into the street and turned it toward town. Lights were still on in some of the houses. People were sitting on their front porches, getting the breeze. They looked at us when we went by. Gran waved at some. Nobody was downtown. Everything was closed. Small bulbs burned in some of the stores, making their ordinary merchandise look eerie. Others were dark, and our headlights flashed back at us through their black windows. A light was burning behind a drawn shade above the drugstore. Mother turned and drove by the burned-out bank and the Helpy-Selfy. Soon we passed the last house, stopped, and turned onto the highway. I turned and grinned at Belinda. I could barely see her through the darkness.

“We're on our way!” I said.

She nodded. She was sleepy. Everybody was quiet. Mother hunched over the steering wheel, looking straight ahead, too. The car wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be. The diaper bag and the Thermos jug were on the floor. The flashlight and the map were on the dashboard. That was all. The headlights cut a short yellow path ahead of us. A cottontail crossed it. A nighthawk crossed it. Two headlights met us, dimmed, moved past. Johnson grass and sunflowers waved lazily in the edge of the light. There were fence posts, bridge rails, a light in a farmhouse window. The motor hummed. The dashboard lights shined on Cherry Ann's sleeping face. She had her thumb in her mouth. I wanted to talk.

“How far are we going tonight?” I asked.

“Shh! You'll wake the kids up!” Gran whispered.

“How far?” I whispered.

“Far enough to find a tourist camp and put these kids to bed.”

“How far is that?”

“We'll see. Dublin, maybe.”

“That's not far!”