The Thanksgiving Treasure (7 page)

“Lines!” he said. “Wrinkles, you mean!”

“Well, wrinkles are interesting. My grandma has wrinkles. She says they're like a map … that all the things you've done in your life show on your face. I don't have any wrinkles because I haven't done anything yet.” I looked at him more closely. “Next time I'll bring my paints. You have such blue eyes.”

“Huh!” he said, raising the newspaper again. “Blue eyes!”

“Put down that newspaper, please.”

“Boy, you're a bossy kid!” he said. “You remind me of a bossy little girl I once knew. She lived on the next farm when I was a boy. Pearlie Blake was her name. You're a lot like Pearlie.”

He put his paper down and seemed to be thinking back for a moment.

“She was always bossing me around and getting both of us in trouble. I remember one time she was sassing her ma at the dinner table, and her ma sent her up to her room without any dessert. So Pearlie snitched a big plum out of the kitchen on the way up to her room. Then a few minutes later I come by outside her window and whistled up at her, and she was going to climb out the window. So she put the big plum in her mouth so she could use both hands to raise the window, and she just got her head out and
bam!
Down come the window right on her neck and she was stuck. She couldn't get no leverage to push the window up from inside, and she couldn't yell because the plum was stuck in her mouth.”

He started to cackle at that, and I laughed too. It was the first time I had ever seen him even smile, let alone laugh.

“I about died laughing,” he went on. “I finally went and got her ma, and she let her loose and give her a good spanking for it.” He looked over at me. “So you better watch your step, sister.”

“What happened to Pearlie?” I asked.

“I don't know,” he said, sadly. “She moved away. She'd be old now, like me. Maybe she's dead.”

He seemed to be lost in his memories, and didn't say any more, and neither did I. I kept on drawing, and he picked up his old concertina and began to play a sad little song I had never heard before. When he finished, he looked over at me and seemed to remember where he was. Before he could tell me to get out, I jumped up and showed him the sketch of him I had just done.

“How do you like it?”

“Ugly,” he said.

“Would you like to have it?”

“What would I want with that?” he asked. “Go on home, you're wasting my time.”

“OK, I'm going …”

“And don't forget to put Treasure in the barn and make sure she's got her feed …”

“I know, I know, I'll do it.”

“Well, see that you don't forget … Pearlie!” he said.

As he went to open the door, I left the sketch of him behind on the kitchen table, where he'd be sure to find it.

The next time I was in the house, I saw the sketch hanging on the wall, all pasted down on a piece of cardboard, to keep it from getting wrinkled.

When he saw me looking at it, he looked embarrassed.

“Looks real good there,” I said, feeling rather proud.

“Had ta get it out of the way somewhere,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “I thought maybe you put it up there because you liked it.”

“Smart-aleck kid,” he mumbled. “Just like old Pearlie Blake.”

“She must have been a lot of fun,” I said, thinking of the story he had told me.

“Yep, that Pearlie was something,” he laughed softly. “We used to have the best times together. I remember her dad had a big old pig that was Pearlie's pet. She used to ride him. She had an old wooden bucket that she took most of the staves out of and turned it upside down over the pig's back and sat on it like a saddle. And she'd get on that pig and ride all ever the barnyard.

“One Sunday we just come back from Sunday School together … all dressed up, and Pearlie's ma told us to get changed into our old clothes before we played outdoors. Course old Pearlie never listened to her ma, so she just whistled at that pig and it come waddling out, and we both got on its back, and it took off running. Dumped us both right in the hog wallow. Oh, our clothes was covered! The worst thing you ever smelled.

“Pearlie's ma and pa came running, and I thought we was gonna be tanned for that, but when they saw us they busted out laughin' so hard they couldn't get mad. So Pearlie's pa just took us over to the horse tank and got a bucket and threw water on both of us till the slop was washed off. Then her ma pressed our clothes out dry. She never did tell my folks, or I'd a got tanned myself.”

He looked at me for a moment. “You sure remind me of her,” he said. “Smart-alecky as the day is long!” And he stomped on outdoors to do his chores.

After that I would sometimes sketch him doing things when he was working around the house or the barn. I'd try to catch the line of his old body or the way he moved, and he would always shake his head and wonder aloud why I didn't get tired of that fool drawing. But he always wanted to see what I had done, and sometimes he would say that it about looked real, which I took to be a compliment, coming from him.

Meanwhile, I was going crazy trying to find enough time to sneak away from home and be with Treasure. I daydreamed that I could get Dad to buy her for me, but I knew it was just a dream. I made my usual big hints about horses at the dinner table every night. I wouldn't dare come right out and ask for a horse, but I thought talking about it—lots of mentions of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and Trigger—might help. I always left my Roy Rogers comics lying around in conspicuous places, and cut out all the pictures of horses in the
Saturday Evening Post
and put them on my mirror.

My dad knew what I was up to and would make his own hints back, about how people who lived in town couldn't have horses unless they wanted a horse sleeping in bed with them, and then I would casually mention that Billy Wild kept his horse in Haskell's barn, which was very cheap. It was a rule of this game Dad and I seemed to be playing that neither of us ever mentioned directly that I wanted a horse. But I did ask for cowboy boots like Billy's.

“You never know when I might have a chance to ride somebody else's horse,” I said, trying to sound practical. “At least I would be prepared with boots.”

My father didn't seem impressed. “It's dangerous to go riding someone else's horse. You never know what might happen.”

Grandma chimed in. “Cowboy boots will ruin your feet.”

“Oh, Roy Rogers wears them all the time,” I pointed out. “And his feet aren't ruined.”

“You've got to wear good, sturdy oxfords until your feet stop growing,” said Grandma.

“My gosh, I'll probably have to wear my oxfords to the senior prom when I'm in high school … just to make sure my darn feet don't get ruined!”

I got no further with any of my arguments, and I decided I should be happy that I had Treasure to take care of and ride once in a while. It never occurred to me that things might not go on forever just the way they were.

Chapter Ten

One cold afternoon I went out to Rehnquist's and found Treasure loose, grazing in the front yard. I couldn't imagine how she had got there, and I tied her to the porch rail and went to the door. I knocked, but got no answer and went on in. I called and heard Rehnquist answer from upstairs, but I could hardly make out what he was saying. I went up, and found him in bed, looking very pale.

“What's the matter, Mr. Rehnquist? Don't you feel well?”

“No,” he said, weakly, “I'm fine … just resting.”

“Do you have a cold? Want me to fix you a can of soup?”

“No, no … I ain't hungry.”

“Are you sure you haven't got the flu?”

“No,” he said. “I just got a bad case of old age … there's nothin' you can take for that.”

“I found Treasure loose in the yard.”

“Oh, yeah. I went to see to her, and I just got to feeling so tired I had to come in and lay down.”

“That's OK, I'll go and take care of her now.” I got up and started for the door.

“Sit down and talk to me for a minute,” he said. “Treasure ain't going anyplace. You like that horse a lot, don't you?” I nodded and sat down in a chair near the bed.

“I like her too,” he said. “She used to be the only thing I talked to around here before you came pestering me. I used to like horses the way you do, when I was a kid.”

He seemed to be drifting off with his memories again, and I sat quietly and listened.

“That Pearlie Blake I told you about,” he said. “Her father had a big old plow horse named Lucky. We used to take turns riding him. And in the winter, when he pulled the snowplow, Pearlie and me sat on the plow to make it heavy. Pearlie's father drove Lucky, and we'd go to all the farms around to push snow off the roads. It was cold … I can tell you that! But Pearlie and me would be all huddled up behind that steamy old horse, and we'd be snug as a bug. Every farmer would give Pearlie's father some hot cider to warm him up, and he'd give Pearlie and me a taste. The three of us would sing at the top of our lungs and laugh till we about split our sides. What a time! I think that bossy Pearlie was about the best friend I ever had.”

He stopped for a moment and looked over at me.

“You're my friend too, ain't you?” He reached out for my hand, and I nodded and held his hand for a moment. It felt like it was on fire.

“You're so hot!” I said. “I think you have a fever.”

I tried to feel his forehead. “Hands off!” he said, irritably.

“I'm going to get my Uncle Will,” I said. “He's a doctor.”

“I don't want no doctor poking around me. Sit down here and talk to me …”

“I promise I'll be right back,” I said, and headed out the door.

“Come back here and talk to me,” I heard him say as I left. “Don't you ever do anything you're told … bossy kid …”

I rode my bike as fast as I could back into town and went to Uncle Will's office on Main Street. When I told him how Mr. Rehnquist had looked, he said we had better go right out there. He didn't even ask me how I had come to be at Rehnquist's. Uncle Will had that nice way of never bothering other people's privacy, and just getting the facts he needed, which was one reason folks liked him so much. I jumped into his car with him, and we drove quickly to Rehnquist's.

He went up to the bedroom, and I waited downstairs, sitting on the porch, talking to Treasure and finally going into the kitchen. I paced around and looked at my drawing of Mr. Rehnquist on the wall, and at his old concertina on the table. I wished Uncle Will would hurry and went back outside.

Finally he came out on the porch, pulling on his heavy coat and carrying his black doctor's bag.

“How is he?” I asked, going over to Uncle Will. “Can I go see him?”

“I'm afraid not,” he said, sadly.

“How come?”

“He's dead, Addie,” Uncle Will said gently.

“Dead?” I said, stunned. “But … but I never even said goodbye! I promised I'd be right back …”

“There wasn't anything I could do.”

“Didn't he ask for me? Didn't he wonder where I was?”

“He was unconscious. I'm sorry, Addie.”

I couldn't believe what had happened. I went slowly down off the porch and untied Treasure, and took her out to the barn. I didn't know what would happen to her now.

After I had taken care of Treasure, I went home and decided I had better tell the whole story to Grandma. I had learned by then that the best system was to tell Grandma first, and let her help break things to Dad.

She was down in the basement, doing the weekly laundry. It was always my job to help her put the clothes through the wringer and get them into the rinse tubs—first hot rinse and then cold rinse—then wring again and hang on the line with an apron-bag full of clothespins. Her old machine with the agitator made a chugging noise that we decided sounded like “choc-o-late, choc-o-late, choc-o-late,” and we would often laugh and chant along with it while we did the washing.

Grandma would fish the steaming hot clothes out of the machine with a stick, then take hold of them with her bare hands and start them through the wringer. She never seemed to be burned by it, but as I took hold and pulled them through the other side, I could barely touch them for more than a second, and juggled them from hand to hand before I flipped them into the rinse tub.

Today, I didn't feel like laughing at the sound of the machine, and she sensed something was wrong. I began to tell her the whole story as we worked, and Grandma was surprised at all the things Carla Mae and I had done that we weren't supposed to do—riding so far out of town, going to Rehnquist's place and me riding a horse. She seemed pleased at the idea of our taking him dinner, though, and was particularly pleased that he had liked her whole-berry cranberry sauce with the grated orange rind.

“You know,” she said. “If you'd asked me about that Thanks-giving dinner for Mr. Rehnquist, I'd have packed it myself and given it to you.”

“
I know, but I was afraid of what Dad would say.”

“You were doing a good deed for a lonely old man.”

“He said I'd make a terrible wife, because I was so bossy. He liked it though. He liked me making him sit still so I could draw his picture. I was going to paint him too, but I never got a chance. I didn't know he was going to die.”

“We never know when that's going to happen, Addie.”

“Mr. Rehnquist was nice to me. He let me ride Treasure. I think he was really a good person. I don't see why he had to die.”

“We don't die because we're bad people, Addie,” Grandma said. “Mr. Rehnquist was in his eighties. He lived out a full life. And look at me. I'm in my seventies—already outlived most of my friends and raised two families now.”