Cold Sassy Tree (26 page)

With my threat hanging over their heads, I trusted them all the time we unhitched and tended the mules, turning them out into Papa's pasture for the night.

I trusted them while Queenie praised and patted the black gelding, which Mama wouldn't even look at. Mama hovered around, asking why did we come back so soon and how was Cudn Rachel and them, did we have a good time and stay cool, were we warm enough at night, and did we have enough to eat. But she didn't ask one thing about the gelding.

I still trusted the boys when we all marched down to Grandpa's house, proudly leading the prancy horse to Miss Love, and helped her put him in a stall. When we were leaving she took my hand and said, "Will, he's just beautiful. Mr. Beautiful, that's what I'll name him. Thank you so much. Thank you."

All the time we were unloading the covered wagon, I believed the boys wouldn't tell on me. I still believed it while I took a bath. But about time I sat down to eat, it came to me with a sinking feeling that probably everything I'd said was being repeated right now all over town.

I wasn't too worried about Aunt Loma. Those were whacking good stories, if I do say so myself. And everybody would know they were made up. I'd made up things before. Anyhow, it would be worth a whipping to see Aunt Loma's face after she heard.

What made my stomach sink was knowing I had betrayed Miss Love. Folks would already be sniggering about those separate rooms. It was a strange thing to me that the same people who condemned her on her wedding day for taking advantage of an old man's loneliness would be condemning her now, just ten days later, for denying Grandpa his rights.

We were hardly through supper before here came Miss Sarah Gordy, saying I ought to be ashamed. Mr. French being Granny's stepbrother, his wife felt like they were kin and had a right to speak up in the family. After blessing me out, she took Mama in the house to tell her in private what all Mrs. Snodgrass said Smiley said I said. As they came out, Mama was nodding in agreement. "You're absolutely right, Miss Sarah. This time Will has gone too far."

After Mrs. Gordy left, Mama made me go to my room while she told Papa what Miss Sarah said Mrs. Snodgrass said Smiley said I said. Mama's furious voice drifted up from the porch, and pretty soon Papa came to the bottom of the stairs and hollered for me to get down there. He was already taking off his belt when I came out my door.

After the whipping, Papa said, "Son, we go'n go out to the barn, you and me. I think it's time I told you a few things."

Boy howdy, at last. But it was just another lecture about respecting ladies. "It's not fittin' to make jokes about a woman's—uh, womanhood," Papa began, looking stern. "If you got to show off before a bunch of boys by makin' up tales about a woman's—" He sputtered, unable to say the word. "Well, if you got to make up a story, Will, for heaven's sake don't pin it on anybody that anybody knows."

All in all, I came out about even on Aunt Loma that night. One beating and one lecture was about right for two good stories that would be told for a long time by old men playing checkers under the Cold Sassy tree at the depot. If Aunt Loma was mad, which she would be, that suited me just fine.

The next day at Sunday dinner, Papa had hardly finished serving the baked hen when my mother said, real pleasant, "I wonder who played the piano for the Methodists today."

"Miss Effie Belle," said Aunt Loma. Picking a curly red hair out of her sweet potato sooflay, she dropped it daintily to the floor. "They say there were lots of wrong notes and she played pretty slow, but they got by. Will, start the gravy. Don't just let it sit there."

Scared Aunt Loma might switch from Miss Effie Belle's piano playing to my camping trip, I asked, "Why didn't Miss Love play?"

"She wasn't there. That's one reason." Aunt Loma sounded like she'd just been weaned on a lemon.

Mama said maybe Love went to the Baptist church with Grandpa.

"If they came, I didn't see'm. Did you see'm, Camp?" I said maybe Miss Love is sick.

"She's sick, all right," answered Aunt Loma, talking around a bite of chicken. "After two years of showin' off at the piano, your Miss Love has found out the Methodists can do without her. A committee of ladies went callin' on her last week, Will, to let our new Miz Blakeslee know that a married woman is expected to behave herself."

"It wasn't like that," protested Papa. "The ladies just—"

"—told her they didn't need her to play for preachin' anymore," Aunt Loma said, looking smug. "She tried to act like it didn't matter, but I bet after they left she threw things and cried her eyes out."

"Loma, you listen here—" Papa said sternly.

"Don't worry so, Brother Hoyt. What we're sayin' is in the bosom of the family." She looked straight at me then. "Unless Will here decides to tell it on his next campin' trip."

Just by the way Papa jabbed his spoon in the sugar dish, I knew something was coming. But he stirred his coffee good and put the spoon down before exploding. "I don't know why you're so happy about all that, Loma. Your pa sure ain't. Now I want you and Mary Willis both to hush up talkin' about her."

"You cain't make the whole town hush up, Brother Hoyt."

"Well, y'all don't have to join in. What's done is done, and we go'n live with it and be nice." I knew and they knew he was saying we got to remember which side our bread is buttered on down at the store, and who is buttering it.

"Brother Hoyt's right, Loma Baby," Uncle Camp said boldly. "We need to—"

"Oh, shut up, Camp, and pass my coffee cup to Sister. I just want a half a cup, Sister. Brother Hoyt, Love is the one you ought to say hush to. After her tirade down at the store last week, how can you think it's just me and Sister keepin' the town talkin? It's mostly her."

"Your daddy don't see it that way," said Papa. "He says Miss Love's bein' tarred and feathered for what ain't nobody's business but his and hers." I was dying to ask what Miss Love said at the store, but I didn't dare.

Nobody spoke the rest of the meal except to say the gravy sure is good and please pass the muscadine jelly.

Mainly to get out of Aunt Loma's way before she could catch me alone and fuss about the rubber busts and all, I hurried to the pasture right after dinner. Papa wanted me to get the team and the wagon back to Banks County. Just as I was backing the mules into place on either side of the wagon tongue, here came trouble in the form of Grandpa Blakeslee.

Seeing him with short hair, and without that big droopy mustache and bushy gray beard, I was surprised all over again. I swear my granddaddy didn't look more'n eight or ten years older than my daddy.

It was the expression on his face that made me uneasy, and the sharp edge on his voice. "You fixin' to take thet rig back out to the country?" he asked.

"Yessir." I kept my eyes on the strap I was buckling. The leather was still damp from yesterday's mule sweat.

Grandpa didn't speak again for a minute. Then he said, "Yore daddy says you go'n stop by Temp's place on the way back and see Mary Toy."

"Yessir."

While I hooked the traces, Grandpa asked did my mother change her mind yet about going to New York.

"No, sir. Not as I know of.... Move over, Red!"

As I fastened the last strap, out there in the hot sun with the mules snorting and stomping and twitching off green flies, he finally said it. "Will Tweedy, I'm plumb shamed a-you."

I didn't have to ask why. I just stood there wondering who told him what I said about Miss Love taking over the company room. I even wondered how it was phrased to him. "Grandpa, I was just tryin' to—"

"I ain't inner-rested in what you was a-tryin' to do. What you done was bad enough. You done made a laughin' stock out a-Loma agin."

Loma?

Grandpa was mad about what I told on Aunt Loma?

"Now she does bring a lot on herself," he was saying. "Loma's so hateful sometimes I'm sorry to have to claim her. But you don't make her no nicer by outsmartin' her ever few days or makin' fun of her. Them stories you told ain't so, and ain't fittin' to be told on no lady. Loma may be hateful, but she lives decent and you ain't a-go'n talk bout her like thet no more." He spat his tobacco juice close to Big Red's front hoofs. "You hear me?"

"Yessir." I felt about as low as O.K. Dunbar crawling home drunk at midnight. I couldn't honestly say I was sorry, but I hung my head.

I figured Grandpa would turn then and stalk off, but he didn't. After ordering me in no uncertain terms to apologize to Aunt Loma, he put his arm around my shoulders. "I sure want to hear bout thet campin' trip," he said with a rough tenderness in his voice. I felt like the sun had just come out.

"We had us a swell time, Grandpa!" There wasn't any use saying otherwise. It's bad enough to be miserable on a camping trip without telling the world. Lighthearted now, I put one foot on the wagon axle, whistled for T.R., and swung myself to the driver's seat. The dog jumped up there beside me, landing so hard—
zomp!
—he liked to knocked me over.

"Old T.R. knows you better be gittin' on if'n you go'n be home fore dark," said Grandpa. Then, squinting up at me, he went to talking like I had all day long. "We held church up at the house this mornin'."

"Sir?"

"I was the preacher, Miss Love was the pi-ana player, and the both of us made up the congregation. Hit was a real nice service." He enjoyed seeing I was confused. "Wish you'd a-been there, son. We sang us some hymns, after which I talked to the Lord a while, tellin' Him bout the week, and I then preached a sermon. Tell you the truth, I think I upset Miss Love."

"Sir?"

"I didn't have no words thought out, you know, so I jest commenced sayin' thangs I been a-thinkin' on lately—bout the Virgin Birth and Resurrection and all like thet. I said don't any a-them thangs matter. Well, Miss Love like to had a fit. Said she warn't raised to think like thet. I said I warn't neither, but thet didn't keep me from thinkin', and I ast her do Methodists interrupt and argue with the preacher or do they sit and listen to what he's got to say."

"Gosh, Grandpa. You mean you don't think Jesus rose from the dead?"

"I'm a-sayin' thet did He or didn't He ain't important, son. What's important is thet when the spirit a-Jesus Christ come down on them disciples later, they quit settin' round a-moanin' and a-tremblin', and got to work. They warn't scairt no more, and the words they spoke had fire in'm. Compared to a miracle like thet, Jesus rollin' back a dang rock and flyin' off to Heaven ain't nothin'."

"What did Miss Love say to that, Grandpa?" I was real excited.

"Nothin'. I didn't let her interrupt me agin. I said thet same miracle is still a-happenin', right here in Cold Sassy, in July of nineteen aught-six. A crippled person or a invalid, or the meanest thief or the most despairin' misfit, why, if'n he can ketch aholt of the spirit of Jesus Christ, he can quit bein' scairt and be like risin' up from the dead. Once his soul gits cured, no matter what his body's like, why, he can start a new life. Well, next I preached bout the Virgin Birth. To my thinkin', the birth ain't the dang miracle. Hit's the fact thet a boy like Jesus was born to a mama who could leave Him be. Well, and then I talked to Miss Love bout Eternal Life. As you know, son, jest believin' we go'n live forever in the next world don't make it so—or not so."

I felt awful. "Grandpa, you don't think Granny's gone to Heaven? She ain't Up There waitin' on us to come?"

"I like to think so, son. If'n they is a Heaven, she's Up There, I know thet," he said softly. Then he laughed and slapped his hand on Satan's rump. "Ain't but one way to find out if she is or ain't, though. And I'm not thet curious." He sighed, spat, and said, "Havin' faith means it's all right either way, son. 'The Lord is my shepherd' means I trust Him. Whatever happens in this life or the next, and even if they ain't a life after this'n, God planned it. So why wouldn't it be all right?" He looked dead serious, then all of a sudden laughed again. "You know, if'n I was a real preacher, Will Tweedy, wouldn't nobody come to my church."

"I would, Grandpa."

"Well, I ain't shore bout Miss Love. She was expectin' the Lord to strike me down this mornin'. When I finished preachin', she brought in some lemonade and pound cake and I said it was the best Lord's Supper I ever et, and she didn't like my sayin' thet one bit. Said it was blasphemy. When I wanted to sing some barbershop harmony, she called it sacrilegious, bein' Sunday, but fine'ly I got her goin' on the pi-ana and we had us a real good time. Ever church ought to do thet—give God a good time stead of pomouthin' and always be astin' Him to save us from temptation and sufferin' and death. Ifn you live, Will Tweedy, you go'n be tempted, and you go'n suffer, and you go'n die. Ain't no way out of it. But with the Lord's hep, you can stand up to temptation, and live th'ew the bad times, and look Death in the eye. You remember what I say, son."

"Yessir. But I'd still like to hear you explain Jesus sayin' ast God for something and you'll get it. One time I prayed for a million dollars, to test Him, and didn't get one dime."

"Thet was jest wishin'. Hit warn't prayin'."

T.R. had long since jumped down to chase something, and the mules were restless, but I liked being with Grandpa like this, just him and me. I didn't want him to quit talking. "Did Miss Love think it up? I mean havin' preachin' at home?"

"Naw, son. I did. I—well, I expect you heard bout them Methodist ladies comin' to see her last week?"

"Yessir."

"Figgered you would." His tone was hard. "Miss Love was the maddest white woman you ever saw bout thet. She come down to the store a hour or so later and blessed out the whole dang town. Then yesterd'y she got a unsigned letter in the mail. Well, it warn't a letter, jest a old newspaper clippin' bout fallen women. Hit said thangs like 'A female by one transgression forfeits her place in society forever.' Miss Love cried all night last night."

Poor Miss Love.

"This mornin' she put on her Sunday clothes, but then she got to cryin' and carryin' on agin. I said to her, 'Miss Love, why'n't you stay home?' She said, I can't. They'll know I care.' So I put it to her plain. 'Miss Love, what
good's
it go'n do, mad as you are? Ifn don't nobody speak to you or sit by you, you jest go'n be mad all over agin. We got a pi-ana. Let's have preachin' right here. Jest you and me.'