When I Crossed No-Bob (15 page)

"What's wrong with Mr. Frank's pa?" I say.

Then Mr. Frank gets up and leans over his pa and says, "Pa? Pa?"

"Jack? Jack?" Mr. Frank's ma asks.

And Lord help that poor man, for he is dead. Mr. Frank's pa is dead.

When Mr. Frank sees my uncle Garner O'Donnell coming down the road, and when Garner tells him his intentions, Mr. Frank just stares. As an act of kindness and sympathy for Mr. Frank, Garner says he has come over to help Frank dress and put his pa away. He will help Mr. Frank bury his pa. Garner rolls up his sleeves, then shows Mr. Frank that he has brought over a razor to use to shave Mr. Frank's pa before Mr. Frank dresses then buries him.

Mr. Frank leans on the door frame, looking down at his shoes. The two of them don't say anything as Mr. Frank looks to be trying to decide. I figure he will shut the door. But he lets him in. Mr. Frank lets him in, and I can see by the way Garner puts his hand on Mr. Frank's shoulder that these two here are not just friends who drink together, not like Smasher and
Pappy or Mr. Smith and Pappy. These two men have come to an understanding betwixt themselves. Once upon a time they argued, even fought over some land, and now, now they are friends. They are friends.

They are in the house together for quite some time.

Miss Irene cooks some chicken and Mr. Frank's ma makes bread. I sweep. As we work together in the kitchen, and as Garner works in the parlor room, we are quiet like the woods are quiet.

Later we get word from Garner that the law caught up with my pappy and tried him in Jackson, and they put him in jail.

I think how Pappy swore he would never spend time in jail because it would kill him to be behind bars.

What with Mr. Frank's pa dead, I see all the love and kindness that the Russells show their kin. And all the mourning makes me sorrowful sad for all the love that I missed from my own kin.

Even in the middle of all this sadness, I get to hating Pappy, and it isn't easy hating Pappy. People say he was the meanest devil that ever lived on the Lord's green earth. Others say he was the funniest. Which is it? Either-or? Or is it both?

He is like a monster that way, and over and over I hate hate
hate. But once I just plain think of him as Pappy, once I see him plain, as a man, pitiful and scared as he was standing in front of the judge at the courthouse in Raleigh, caught, I feel sorry for him, and when I feel sorry for him, the hating goes away and everything flattens out and I can sleep again.

Mr. Frank's pa had told his wife he wanted to be buried under the peach tree north of the house, and this is what they do.

They have a quiet ceremony. I think of what Zula would do. I think about the comfort of her actions. I think about how maybe Zula and Mr. Frank's pa would have liked each other. He was always calm-like and saving his words.

I think of what people leave behind when they die. At school, Mr. Frank told us that when George Washington died, he owned fifty-seven mules. He was called the father of mule-breeding and now mules are more important than oxen in farm work.

I think of all that dies with Mr. Russell—all his recollections, all his memories and love. So much in one body.

I do what the Choctaw do when they mourn. It helps Little Bit to help. We make a fire outside the Russells' house and keep it lit to appease the spirit of the dead and to keep it warm.

We all, each of us, have our ways of saying goodbye to the dead and comforting those who themselves have to say goodbye.

At Mr. Frank's boyhood home, Little Bit and me sit under a tree she says used to be called the freak tree. She says it got hit by lightning once upon a time and got shaped like a
Y.
But the tree next to it grew and leaned into it, and together, they are now shaped like an
H.
She calls them the kissing trees.

I don't have words for the feelings I am feeling. I don't have words for such things. Her pa is dead and I'm powerful sorry for Little Bit.

I scoot closer and hope that'll do.

We read his headstone.

1820–1876
W
AS ALMOST ONE MONTH WALKING TO GET BACK HOME.
L
AID TO REST UNDER A BEAUTIFUL TREE HE PLANTED.
F
ENCED IN WITH AN IRON FENCE.

What would my headstone say?

A
DDY WAS AN
O'D
ONNELL.
H
ER PAPPY LEFT HER, THEN HER MOMMA LEFT HER.

W
HEN HER PAPPY CAME HOME,
A
DDY TURNED HIM IN.
A
ND
A
DDY WAS AN
O'D
ONNELL NO MORE.

Way out in the distance we can hear them working on the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad that will cut through our county and tie us up with the rest of the nation.

Already folks are out plowing and tilling the fields. They are planting corn, cotton, peas, and beans. They wear straw hats to keep the sun off their heads and shoulders. The men tie ropes around their necks and backs to attach themselves to the mules.

They work hard out there in those fields. There is no shade.

Little Bit and I put our heads to the trunk of the tree. We lean our ears into the bark. We press hard and listen.

Little Jack comes running, shouting, yelling, for me.

"Addy, Addy," he's calling. "Come quick. Frank and Ma need you."

I don't even stop to ask,
What for?
I cannot run fast enough to help. Little Bit runs close behind me, shouting, "Wait, wait," and even though she is older than I am, she cannot run fast enough to catch up.

When we get to Mr. Frank's house, he hails us from the porch, holding Little Bit and Jack back, telling them to stay on the porch with him.

"The baby's coming, Addy. Ma's in there with Irene, but she's going to need your help. Little Bit, Jack, you stay with me. I could use your company."

He called her just "Irene." He said Miss Irene's name like she was my friend. He said they need my help.

Miss Irene, Mr. Frank's ma, and me, we stay together in that one room for twelve hours, boiling water, making tea, sitting up, and sitting down.

So many women in these parts die giving birth to a baby. Some just die from too many babies. So having this baby isn't all laughing and celebrating. It is better to be more careful than not.

Babies aren't just born—they got to fight their way into life. Seems like with all that fighting and terrible, painful bloodiness, a life would come out mean and hateful, but babies don't come like that. Not at first, anyway. They just come out hopeful, sweet, and needing.

Miss Irene is slight and weak, but when the time comes, she fights right along with that baby, and soon enough, she and Mr. Frank have themselves a baby girl.

Mr. Frank comes in from the porch looking pale and worried, his chin rattling and quivering. Then, when his ma puts
that bundled-up baby in his arms, he cries. Mr. Frank, big, strong teacher, farmer-man Mr. Frank, cries like a baby, and I can't help but cry too. We are crying happy, sad, mournful tears all at once. We are crying for our passed-away pappies and our lost mommas and for the new ma and pa in this room. What a feeling this is! It is like no other choked-up, throaty feeling. It helps when I look outside the window and see a cardinal chirping on a branch. I have to open the door and swallow to clear my throat.

First thing a child ever takes in her hand will be the thing that she desires and obtains most in future life. That's why mommas and pappies in these parts press a coin into a baby's hand. But this little girl? Before she is bigger than a minute, she takes hold of her pappy's thumb.

I watch as Mr. Frank gently puts her into her crib. His ma takes out a Bible and sits down with it at the kitchen table. She shows me the page with all the recorded births of Mr. Frank, Little Bit, and then Jack.

"What are you calling her?" I ask.

"If she was a he I thought of Jack," Mr. Frank says. His ma looks up from the page. There are tears in her eyes. "After Pa."

"Hey," little Jack says. "That's my name."

"That's right. It would have been confusing. Even if
we called him Little Jack, Junior." Little Bit and Jack laugh, huddled next to the baby's crib. "Or little Little Jack," little Jack says.

Irene calls from the bed. "What about Thelma? After your mother."

Mr. Frank and his ma look at each other. "Thelma," Mr. Frank says, nodding, looking at their baby.

His ma smiles and sets to writing. "Thelma," Mr. Frank says again, looking at me, then at his baby girl. "Thelma Addy Russell."

The names take my breath away.

Looking at this baby, Thelma Addy Russell, I can't help but wonder if the world is going to be good enough for such a sweet little thing. And how can those soft, furry shoulders take on all that they will surely have to take on?

The world is a powerful place, but then again, so are we.

Some folks say that being around death and mourning make Miss Irene and her newborn baby sickly. For whatever reasons, not but a day later, Miss Irene is poorly. I feel of her pulse. She has the fever.

Little baby Thelma gets a bad case of hives and then thrush. Then she has the fever too.

Mr. Frank goes to find a doctor. His ma sets out to air and clean the house while Little Bit minds little Jack. They tend to their chores and collect pecans falling early from the trees out front.

Miss Irene, she taught me how to weave and spin. She took me in and saved my life. Least I can do is return the favor.

I go down to Clear Creek to collect what I know will help.

I know some about babies. I know the rules Momma taught me in No-Bob whenever she helped with an O'Donnell birthing. A baby must never be allowed to look into a mirror until it is a year old, for to do so would cause it to have a hard time in cutting teeth. And for a baby having a hard time teething? Put a string of coppers around its neck and he won't have no trouble at all. They teethe worse in hot weather too. When the babies have the colic, tie soot up in a rag and boil it, then give them the water. To ease the prickly heat, use rotten wood powdered up fine.

I wish Momma was here now to reshow me things and reremind me so that I can be more sure.

But Zula showed me the power of herbs. I saw for myself how one tea made from Jerusalem brushweed can get rid of worms and how another tea made from horsemint, goldenrod, and holly can bring a person back to life.

I use my pocketknife to cut the herbs. I bundle up the herbs I find and pick into my apron and then run all the way back to the house where I crush them.

For Miss Irene, I make a strong tea out of gum bark Momma used to make for herself when she got pains in her stomach. I have Miss Irene drink cup after cup while I sweep the yard with a brush broom. When I come inside and her pains are better, I use wild horehound for the chills and fever and make her a batch of life-everlasting tea.

Miss Irene sleeps for the first time without the fever.

But baby Thelma's thrush is not gone and she is still warm to the touch.

I mix together sage and catnip and brew it into a warm tea the way I seen Zula do once with a Choctaw baby who had the thrush. I use a soft boll of cotton, dip it into the tea, and swab little Thelma Addy's tongue and all inside her mouth.

Then I remember something Momma told me once. It is claimed by many in No-Bob that a person who never saw her father can cure thrush on a baby by blowing her breath in its mouth. A woman in Mize is noted for these powers, her father having been killed in the war before her birth. Babies were brought from far and near so that this woman named Elva could exert her powers. But Elva died not but a year ago.

The way I figure, I never really did see my pappy. Not nearly clear enough.

I breathe into little Thelma Addy's mouth. She yawns. I breathe into her mouth again. She breathes back at me a warm, milky breath. I feel as though others are here in the room with us. I look around but only see Miss Irene's curtains blowing from the open window. The air smells of sage. Thelma Addy's arms are as soft as Momma's hands were once.

"Momma?" I whisper. "Zula?"

I breathe into Thelma Addy's mouth again and again, feeling the presence of Momma and Zula both, and after a while, I can't help but wonder who's curing who.

"Addy? What are you doing?" Mr. Frank comes in with a doctor, a new man with long hair and whiskers named Dr. Hill.

Mr. Frank picks up little Thelma Addy. The doctor is already looking after Miss Irene.

"Your wife has no fever, Mr. Russell," Dr. Hill says.

Miss Irene opens her eyes at the new voice. "It was Addy, Frank. Addy took care of me and the baby."

Dr. Hill nods, then takes the baby from Mr. Frank. He unbundles Thelma Addy, making her cry and howl, and we all see inside her mouth now wide open—clear and pink.

"No fever," Dr. Hill says, bundling her back up and giving her to her momma. "If this baby had thrush, she doesn't have it anymore."

As payment, the doctor stays for lunch, which Mr. Frank's ma has made and brought over.

"You sure do know a lot about caring for folks," Mr. Frank says.

The doctor says yes, he does, and continues to eat. Mr. Frank laughs and says, "Well, Doc, I was talking to Addy."

I look up from my fried chicken and finish chewing, then swallow.

"Yes," Dr. Hill says, asking for more peaches and peas. "She must have had past experiences with such matters. Was your father a doctor?" This doctor sure is busy with his eating, for he hardly looks up.

"My momma used to have seasons of sickness," I say.

"Did you try cod-liver oil?" Dr. Hill asks, stopping for a minute to swallow.

"No, sir," I say.

"Well, I don't know what Miss Irene or I would do without you, Addy," Mr. Frank says.

I am sitting across from Mr. Frank at the same table and I look at him square.

"You and me both know that I've brought a good deal of trouble and heartache," I say.

Mr. Frank laughs. "You used to remind me so much of my grandpa, Addy. When you first came here. He was just as high-spirited. Did I tell you he lived with the Choctaw too?"