Cold Sassy Tree (34 page)

"It ain't funny if you know how it came about. You ever noticed that great big sassafras tree, Lightfoot? The one over by the depot?"

She nodded.

"Everybody calls it the Cold Sassy tree. Back a hundred years ago it was a big sassafras grove there, and the wagoners goin' through said that was the coldest spot between the mountains and Augusta. They all knew what was meant if somebody said let's camp at them cold sassy trees. By time settlers got to comin' in, Cold Sassy was its natural name."

"Hit still sounds funny, Will. Leastways to me it does," said Lightfoot.

"Lots of other folks think that. There's talk about changin' it to something prosperous-soundin', the way Harmony Grove was changed to Commerce a few years ago. Don't you think Commerce is a awful improvement over a pretty name like Harmony Grove?"

More silence, except for birds twittering and a dog barking somewhere. I felt uncomfortable. Aunt Loma's right, I thought. Southerners can't just sit and not say anything. I said, "My granny's great-granddaddy led a wagon train here from North Ca'lina. They were the first settlers."

"Had he heired the land?"

"Maybe, I don't know. I think he had a land grant for fightin' in the Revolution."

"Where I come from, most folks jest tuck it up. Their land, I mean. Maybe thet's what yore folks done."

Time lagged again till Lightfoot asked would anybody mind if she looked around some.

"Naw, course not." Jumping down, I ran around and helped her out, like she was Cinderella stepping out of a coach. I showed her Granny's unmarked grave. "The tombstone ain't come yet," I explained, embarrassed. "Grandpa ordered one from Sears, Roebuck, but it ain't come yet." Then I took her over to the Sheffield plot. Being as Mr. Sheffield owned the cotton mill, I thought she might like to see where some of his money went. "I'm go'n show you two big fancy headstones for men who weren't dead when they were buried," I said gaily.

"They warn't dead?" She was horrified, the way I'd felt when Granny told me about it. Stopping before a huge marble tombstone carved like a scroll, I said, "See? 'Daniel Bohannan Sheffield.' He was the Sheffields' only son."

"He got buried alive?"

"Naw, course not. Ain't nobody under there. Granny said Mr. Dan married a rich Jew lady in New York and was go'n bring her home to meet the fam'ly, but Miz Sheffield wrote him not to come. Said anybody who'd marry a Yankee or a Jew was the same as dead—specially if it was a Yankee Jew. Turned out the bride's family shut the door on her, too, but I don't know if they buried her. Anyhow, Mr. and Miz Sheffield put up this tombstone. See, it don't give a date. Just says 'Died in a foreign land.'"

"He still livin'?" Lightfoot looked around like she thought Mr. Dan might be standing behind her.

"Who knows? They don't talk about him. Now let me show you the other one. See that big carved marble angel over yonder?" As we walked toward it, I told her about Mrs. Sheffield's youngest brother. "Granny said he was around my age when the Yankee army came through. Just fourteen or fifteen. The Laceys lived on a big plantation, and they sent this boy down the Savannah River one dark night in a rowboat with a trunk full of money and silver and jewels—all like that. If he made it to Savannah, he was s'posed to buy passage on a ship to England and wait out the War over there. Which he did. But when it was over, he didn't come home. Granny said after Mr. Sheffield started the mill and they could afford it, Miz Sheffield hired her a lawyer over in England, and he found out her brother had squandered everything. He was workin' as a chim'ly sweep. Wanted to come home."

"Well, I reckon Miz Sheffield bought him passage."

"Naw. She buried him. See? 'Royal Garnet Lacey, Gone But Not Forgotten.'"

I plucked a leaf from the oak tree we were standing under and tore it in little bits while Lightfoot studied the gravestone. "Maybe he did die over in England," she said finally. "If Miz Sheffield said he 'as dead, he must a-been."

"Naw, he wasn't. Granny said he kept writin' letters for years." I laughed, but Lightfoot didn't. She stood for the longest kind of time, staring from one to the other of the expensive tombstones for live men. Then running her hand over the carved angel, she said, "I shore wisht I could get one a-them angels for Pa." She looked up at me, and I noticed for the first time the lavender-blue circles under her eyes.

I felt embarrassed, her wishing for such. Finally I mumbled, "Did you ... uh, where's he buried at, Lightfoot?"

"Back home. Me and my aunt tuck him back to the hills on the train. I knowed he warn't go'n rest easy in no grave down here." With that, Lightfoot sank down on the empty grave of Mr. Royal Garnet Lacey, put her head against the angel's stomach, and cried and cried.

I didn't know what to do. I patted her shoulder and said I was sorry her pa died, but that just made her cry worse. She sobbed out that he 'as lucky to be dead; now he didn't have to work all day after coughin' all night, and didn't have to worry bout gittin' enough vittles.

"Was he ... uh, did he have the TB, Lightfoot? Like your mama?"

She didn't answer. Just sat there and cried some more. Finally she wiped her eyes on the skirt of her black dress, trying hard to get aholt of herself. When she could talk, she said softly, "I think maybe Pa did have the TB. Pneumony's what kilt him, though. Hit come on him sudden like. He 'as deader'n Hell a day later." I hadn't ever before heard a girl say Hell, but she didn't even notice she'd said it. "I wanted to git a doctor, but my aunt, she said he 'as too fur gone. Said we didn' have no money to waste on no doctor when it couldn't do no good.... Oh, Will, I wisht I'd a-stayed with my sister after the funeral. Buster axed me to. Thet's her husband. I said thankee, but I ain't a-go'n be beholden to nobody. Buster said I'd earn my keep if'n I holped him in the fields."

"Why'n't you stay, then?"

"I didn't like the way Buster looked at me when he said I could holp him in the fields."

She picked up a stick and talked on, almost like I wasn't there. "Anyways, I wanted to come back here and go to school. Amount to something. We 'as halfway back to Cold Sassy on the train when my aunt she said, 'Now, Lightfoot, with yore pa dead 'n' all, I cain't keep you no more less'n you go in the mill full time an' pay yore part. Fast as you lam thangs, you'll be a-workin' both sides of the aisle in no time.' Will, I begged her and begged her, 'Please'm, let me git one more year a-schoolin'.' But she said her chi'ren got two year apiece in school, and it ain't holped them a bit in the mill. Said if they'd a-been borned with books for brains, they'd be makin' bottom wages jest the same."

Over near Granny's grave a jaybird screeched. I stood drawing lines in the dirt with my big toe, saying nothing. Then all of a sudden Lightfoot hit Mr. Royal Garnet Lacey's marble angel hard as she could with her stick! Her eyes narrowed. "Here's somebody ain't even dead yet," she said, poking out her bottom lip, "and I bet his headstone cost more money than I or my people will ever see in our whole lives. Hit ain't fair!"

"No, it ain't, Lightfoot." I wanted to tell her about Blu Jackson dying so unfair young, but she started crying again. "Please, Lightfoot. Cryin' ain't go'n help. Hush up now."

"I don' want to hesh up. I'm a-go'n cry the r-r-rest a-my l-life...."

"Look, I'll carry you home. In the car. Come on, Lightfoot. Quit cryin' and I'll ride you home." I caught her wrist and pulled her up.

And then I kissed her.

I swear I hadn't once thought of doing such a thing, and I'm sure she hadn't, either. But before you could say doodly-squat, my arms had circled her and she had flung her arms around my neck, and I could feel her wet cheek against mine. For what seemed like ages I just held her, thinking nothing but the purest thoughts, my heart aching for her, so poor and miserable and lonesome. And then I don't know what happened, I was kissing Lightfoot! Just like Mr. McAllister kissed Miss Love. On her mouth, her cheeks, her closed eyes, her neck.... She kept saying, "No, Will, no, no, no, no...." But she didn't push me away.

My breath came in trembling gasps, and hers did, too. I felt dizzy. I was on fire. I pressed her against Mr. Royal Garnet Lacey's angel and wrapped my arms tight around her waist.

Just then God spoke out loud in the voice of Miss Alice Ann. "Will Tweedy, you ought to be ashamed!" said God. I looked up and there He stood in a pink and white poky-dot dress, pointing His plump forefinger at us.

Lightfoot put her arm across her face just like Eve in the garden when God saw her nakedness.

"You, girl, I don't know who you are," shouted God, "but I can tell you're from Mill Town. Now you just git on home. Will's a good boy from a nice fam'ly. You ain't got no right to come to town like this and corrupt him." God was indignant as all get-out. "Soon as I seen y'all ride in here, I thought to myself they ain't up to no good. Will, I just hate to think what your daddy's go'n say."

"It ain't like you see it, Miss Alice Ann! We didn't mean to—"

"I got eyes, ain't I?" God retorted. "Your trouble, Will, you ain't got no shame! Imagine, actin' like that right in sight of your poor granny's grave!"

W
HILE
I was staring at Miss Alice Ann, my mouth open like a dummy, Lightfoot disappeared. Evaporated. Just like she had at the depot that day she helped me off the train trestle. She must of run across the cemetery and gone out through the woods at the back.

Then while I had my back turned, trying to crank up the Cadillac, Miss Alice Ann disappeared, too—I reckon to go spread the word.

I felt sick.

I took the vegetables to Mr. Slocum, and when I got back home, parked the car under the barn shed and sneaked up to the loft. I wanted to think about kissing Lightfoot McLendon before I had to think about a whipping. I wanted to remember my arms tight around her. I wanted to feel her lips on mine, her hands on my back, her breath coming in trembly gasps at my ear. Closing my eyes, I groaned and sank down in the hay.

Now I knew why Miss Love couldn't stop Mr. McAllister when he was kissing her, despite how bad she hated him. She had lost her senses. Well, I'd lost mine, too, and I wanted to stay that way. I wanted to keep aholt of all the feelings that kept passing over me in waves.

But I was also scareder and more ashamed than I had ever been in my life.

There was no point in worrying about Lightfoot. Nobody would go tell her aunt on her. Even if Miss Alice Ann knew where she lived, she wouldn't think a mill girl was worth the trouble. It was my sins that were as scarlet, not Lightfoot's.

I hated it that folks would talk about me. I knew now how Miss Love must feel. Lord, what would Mama say? I wished I was dead. I also wished Grandpa was home from New York. I could explain it to him, how I didn't mean to do wrong. But how could I explain to Papa or Mama? For that matter, how could I explain a thing like that to Pink and Smiley and them? They wouldn't believe it just happened, that I didn't plan it when I turned in those cemetery gates. They wouldn't understand or care that Lightfoot was crying and I only meant to comfort her. They'd just haw and guffaw and ask how it felt and did she kiss with her mouth open. She didn't, but they'd never believe it. They'd make the whole thing dirty.

All of a sudden I couldn't stand the suspense any longer—the waiting for Miss Alice Ann to get to Mama. I decided to go tell her myself, the way Miss Love told Grandpa before he could hear it from Miss Effie Belle Tate—or me.

There's no use going into all that followed. Telling on myself saved my pride somehow, but it didn't ease the punishment. I got my whipping from Papa, and my shaming from Mama to the point I tried to duck out of sight whenever I heard her coming. But what hurt, Papa decided I couldn't drive the Cadillac for two months.

He was really mad.

After the way I'd done bad and brought shame on the family, I deserved the whipping. But two months out from under the steering wheel was six weeks too much. Compared to being punished for kissing a mill girl, being in mourning for Granny had been like a picnic up at Tallulah Falls.

It occurred to me that mine and Mary Toy's punishments never had been equal. Whenever I misbehaved, Mama told Papa and he wore me out with the razor strop. But when occasionally Mama said to whip Mary Toy, why that was something else entirely. Taking a rolled-up newspaper, he would jerk her up to her room, and from downstairs we'd hear him speak harsh. "Now, young lady, bend over that bed!" Mama would cringe, hearing the blows fall. What she didn't know was that Papa would whisper to Mary Toy to start hollering, and then commence swatting the mattress instead of her. Mary Toy told me about it one time.

If I thought about Mama, that seemed like a good joke, but if I thought about me, it made me mad. I realized Papa was strict and hard on me because a boy had to amount to something, whereas Mary Toy didn't, being a girl. But just the same it made me mad.

I didn't go anywhere the next day except up to Grandpa's to feed and water the horse and mule and Granny's chickens. But the following day there was no way out of it; I had to help at the store.

It seems like everybody I saw took up for me, even Miss Effie Belle. She lectured me good, right there in the store, but it was about mill people. "Stay away from them folks, son. They all sorry and no-count and good for nothin'. You ain't a bad boy, Will. You was just led astray."

After she went out, Uncle Lige put his arm around my shoulders and said, "Natcherly you go'n sow some wild oats, boy. We all done it. But right now you jest a mite young. Wait till you old enough to be careful and not git caught."

Later Aunt Loma came in, carrying Campbell Junior, and patted my shoulder like she was forgiving me for doing evil. "Now, Will," she whispered, "be sure and write down about you and that mill girl."

Gosh, I wouldn't of written that down then for anything!

I left for dinner early. I didn't want to walk home with Papa. But as I hurried to cross the street just before reaching the depot, the old men playing checkers on a barrelhead under the Cold Sassy tree winked and grinned at me.