Cold Sassy Tree (54 page)

Tossing and turning, I kept remembering the look on Mr. Birdsong's face as he watched our procession move off. But I also remembered our embarrassment and shame at the cemetery, and wondered how much Grandpa had really cared about all he made us do. I bet he just wanted to stir up Cold Sassy one last time. Give folks something to gossip about.

I didn't wonder why nobody in my family even questioned burying him the way he said to. If Grandpa wanted to keep his whiskey in your closet, marry three weeks after Granny died, and be buried in feed sacks in a coffin box, if you couldn't say yessir you didn't say no sir. Him saying what he did about cutting anybody out of his will who tried to interfere was entirely unnecessary.

Oh, law, we forgot to sing "Blessed Be the Tie That Binds."

The store stayed closed on Monday. Miss Love made a big black satin wreath for the door and I went down there and hung it. I meant to go on to school, but for once in my life I didn't want to see Smiley or Pink or Lee Roy or Dunse or anybody. I didn't want to have to answer dumb questions about the burial.

I wished so much for Bluford Jackson. If he were here, he would just sit with me, and not talk or ask anything. Well, that's what he was doing in his grave: not talking or asking anything. Likewise Granny and Uncle Camp and now Grandpa.

I sure didn't want to go sit around at Grandpa's house and listen to Cold Sassy pay its respects. I'd done enough and too much of that the past year.

What I ended up doing that morning, I went over to old Mr. Billy Whisnant's, next to the schoolyard, and knocked on the door. The winter hadn't been kind to his rheumatism. He was more bent than ever. "What you want, boy?" he asked, looking real suspicious when he saw who it was.

I said, "Sir, if you'll trust me to do it right, I want to cut you some stovewood. I don't mean for pay. I ... well, I just want to."

***

The next Sunday morning, Miss Love went back to the Methodist church. She wore a navy blue dress and lots of perfume. There were those who said she ought to have on black no matter what Mr. Blakeslee wanted, and they didn't think it was fittin' for her to be out in public so soon after buryin' her husband. But as everybody knew by then, Rucker Blakeslee had seen to it that nothin' about his passin' was fittin'. So what did it really matter what his widder did?

The following Wednesday she wore a red dress and lots of perfume and her brightest big-mouth smile to the ball park for Grandpa's funeral party. She and Aunt Loma were the prettiest ladies there by far. Loma was all dolled up in the flowerdy dress from New York.

Mama didn't wear black, but she didn't wear red or anything flowerdy. She wore gray.

I never saw so much food or so many smiling people. Nobody approved of the party, but knowing what the family was up against, they weren't about to make it worse for us by not coming.

Tell the truth, they wouldn't of missed it.

With the band music and all, it was like a festival. Miss Love got Mary Toy and me and Pink Predmore and the other boys to give out balloons and stick candy. She first thought of chewing gum, but Mama said nobody but common people would chew it.

I overheard Miss Alice Ann Boozer say it served Rucker right, after the way he done Miss Mattie Lou. "Married that Yankee and didn't live a year."

You ought to've heard Miss Effie Belle take up for him: "I never thought to say it, Alice Ann, but I'm glad now he married her. Miss Love kept his house nice and seems like she made him happy."

In between the crowing contest, the backwards bicycle race, and all that, you'd see folks gathered together, talking and laughing. One group I went up to, for instance, somebody was telling that Grandpa was the best knuckle-knocker in school when he was a boy. Somebody else told about him gettin' up in church and prayin', "Lord, forgive me for fittin' thet man, even though if'n I had it to do over agin I'd hit him harder." Somebody else said, "Ever hear bout the time he beat Wildcat Lindsay in a fist fight? Funniest fight you ever seen."

Mr. Pearl was telling another group about the time Rucker turned over the privy at the depot with a Yankee railroad president in there, "and the Yankee offered a fifty-dollar re-ward to anybody who'd tell him who did it. But nobody would," said Mr. Pearl. "Rucker said he needed the money and was go'n go claim the re-ward hisself. But Miss Mattie Lou wouldn't let him." Everybody died laughing about that, and then they joked about Grandpa naming Mr. Clem's hotel after hisself.

But nobody joked about him saying, when he married Miss Love three weeks after Granny died, that Miss Mattie Lou was as dead as she'd ever be. At least not in my hearing.

Mama had been scared folks would criticize and say the family didn't show proper respect, not having Grandpa embalmed and not having a church funeral, and then getting up a party. To make sure that everybody understood the circumstances, she had showed certain people his letter ordering the cheap burial, and then she let the
Cold Sassy Weekly
print Grandpa's plans for the funeral party, including, of course, that the whole town was invited.

So not only was it written up ahead of time, but it got a big write-up afterwards.

"Just as the deceased had requested," said the paper, "a good time was had by all. It's just too bad that the one who would have enjoyed it most couldn't be there."

The family gathered at Grandpa's house that night after supper for the reading of the will. The lawyer was Mr. Predmore, Pink's daddy.

My daddy was named executor.

First the document reminded us that the old Toy house and furnishings had been deeded over "to my beloved wife, Love Simpson Blakeslee" at the time of their marriage. "I also leave her one thousand dollars, as promised at the time of said marriage." He left Mama the house we were living in and a thousand dollars. Loma would get a thousand, too, "and the house on Julius Street, now rented, which I believe to be of equal value to the others." After payment of all debts and certain bequests, and after the rest of the estate was sold, including houses, farmland, and stock—but not the store—the money was to be divided, share and share alike, between Miss Love, Mama, and Aunt Loma.

Well, that would be less for Miss Love than Mama and them had feared, but a lot more than Miss Love had bargained for back when she said I do. Still and all, to me it seemed fitting, her having moved up from housekeeper to
bona fide
widow.

But wait. "In the event that I should have another child or children born or unborn at the time of my death, the estate will be divided, share and share alike, between my wife, my two grown daughters, and this other child or children, if living. Should any of these heirs precede me in death, the deceased's share will go to her (or his) offspring. If there be no offspring, born or unborn, said share will revert to the estate."

Mama and Papa and Aunt Loma didn't bat an eyelash at that. But then they didn't know what I knew. Gosh, what if Miss Love had twins!

I waited for her to speak up about the baby, but she didn't.

Now Mr. Predmore was reading about the store. Grandpa wanted it to be owned jointly by his widow and children, share and share alike. Papa was to serve as manager for as long as he wanted the job.

The first of the individual bequests was for four hundred dollars "to my grandson Hoyt Willis Tweedy for his education, provided he agrees to come into the store as an associate for a period of at least ten years after leaving college." Grandpa didn't leave Campbell Junior or Mary Toy a dime. I guess he just forgot about them.

To the First Baptist Church of Cold Sassy he left "the sum of one dollar in appreciation of its kindness in the matter of my son-in-law Campbell Williams's funeral." Mr. Predmore read that with a straight face. Boy howdy, what I'd give to be at the deacons' meeting after they heard about the dollar!

But there was a sop for the deacons: two hundred dollars "in memory of my late beloved wife, Mattie Lou Toy Blakeslee." Grandpa left the same amount to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of Cold Sassy "in honor of my beloved wife, Love Simpson Blakeslee."

The last bequest was for Loomis Toy, "the sum of fifty dollars in appreciation of his loyal service to the store and my family."

Not much was said after the reading. It's to my family's credit that when we got home, nobody spoke out loud what I'm sure we were thinking about, namely, Miss Love's share of the estate. Naturally I didn't say that most likely she was going to get half of it instead of a third. I wondered when she would tell them about the baby. It would have to be soon.

Gosh, what if sure enough the baby
was
a boy? I couldn't help thinking how in that case, if Granny Blakeslee was alive she would call it worth mentioning that Grandpa finally got what he wanted most in life after he died.

I wondered when Miss Love would leave Cold Sassy. Probably not till the baby was born and the estate settled. I wondered if she'd try to sell hers and the baby's interest in the store to my daddy. I wondered if he could afford to buy it.

I wanted to talk to Papa and them about my four hundred dollars, but it hardly seemed like the time. It really made me mad, Grandpa thinking he could buy me like I was Uncle Camp's funeral. It was all right with me if he wanted to pave the way with money for Miss Love to get welcomed back to the Methodist fold, but if I wouldn't spend my life in the store despite caring so much about him, I sure wasn't go'n do it for a bribe. Dead or alive, he meant to have his way. Well, in the matter of my future, I meant to have mine.

Miss Love came down to our house to tell the family about Grandpa's baby, and I drove her home. We sat there in the car talking, and that's when she told me she had decided not to leave Cold Sassy.

"For one thing," she said, matter of fact, "where would I go? And why should I leave the only family my son will ever have? No matter how your folks feel about me, Will, they'll do right by their baby brother. That's the kind of people they are. They'll make room for him in the family and bring him into the life of the town. He'll know people who enjoyed and respected his father. And he'll know you, Will. You can show him how to fish, play ball, work hard, drive a car—all the things a boy needs to know that I can't teach him. Oh, Will"—her voice trembled—"you're so like Rucker! Knowing you, my son will know his father."

The child and I were keeping Grandpa alive for Miss Love.

Who would keep him alive for me?

***

Grandpa had said Cold Sassy's name would be changed "over my dead body," and that is exactly what happened. A month after we buried him in the coffin box, the U.S. Post Office approved a new name, and Cold Sassy became Progressive City.

The next spring the town council voted to widen the road on each side of the railroad tracks, which meant the Cold Sassy tree had to go. It was taken down and the roots chopped up, and I think everybody in town took some home to boil for sassafras tea.

I still have a piece of that root, put away in a box with my journal, my can of tobacco tags, the newspaper write-up when I got run over by the train, a photograph of me and Miss Love and Grandpa in the Pierce, my Ag College diploma from the University—and the buckeye that Lightfoot gave me.