The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree (9 page)

All through that summer, the house was her mother’s most significant topic of conversation. It had to’ve been bought by somebody from out of town, Mrs. Lacy decided—one of Mr. Flagg’s large family of cousins, or somebody who had visited the house years before and liked it. But why hadn’t the buyer come to see the work that was being done? And why wouldn’t Mr. Moseley say a word—not a single, solitary word—about the purchaser? People had asked him, several times, and he had refused. Why? Why? Why?

All these questions were answered on the day the work was finally finished. Lizzy came home one evening bringing the key. She invited her mother to go with her across the street to see the house. This was natural enough, since Mr. Moseley had handled the Flagg estate, and Lizzy worked for him. Her mother was delighted to be let in on the process. They walked all through the house and yard, Mrs. Lacy oohing and ahhing over everything and expressing her delight at the renovations and her continuing puzzlement at who in the world could have done all
this
.

They were standing in the new kitchen, admiring the Monitor refrigerator, when Lizzy told her mother that it was
her
house, and that she herself would be moving into it that very week. And yes, that sweet, affectionate orange tabby cat sitting comfortably on the windowsill, beside the pot of African violets, was
her
cat. Both were gifts from Aunt Hetty Little, who always had cats and African violets to spare. The tabby’s name was Daffodil—Daffy, for short.

Her mother was so flabbergasted that it took a moment for the news to sink in. But when it did, she was mightily offended. There were tears and surprisingly loud recriminations, given the fact that the kitchen window was open and a Southern lady (Mrs. Lacy was a Southern lady to the core) rarely raised her voice, at least not loud enough for the neighbors to hear.

But she had a right to raise her voice over this issue, didn’t she? In Mrs. Lacy’s generation, marriage was the only reason a woman ever left her mother’s house, so she had happily embraced the notion that her spinster daughter—now past marriageable age—would never leave her, and would always be available to be
managed.
And now this! She (Mrs. Lacy) had devoted her whole life to Elizabeth, and how was she to be repaid? Why, by thanklessness and ingratitude, that’s how!

Well, Elizabeth could just sell the house—that’s what she could do. Now that it was fixed up so nice and furnished and all, and especially with that refrigerator, it would sell in a jiffy, and at a tidy profit. Or maybe it would be better to move the refrigerator across the street. Yes, that’s what they should do. Sell the house, but keep the refrigerator. And the kitchen range, too. And if it didn’t sell, Elizabeth could rent it. Why, just think of the income! They could afford to take a trip—go to Atlanta and see the sights, or add a room to Mrs. Lacy’s house. They could do great things with the income the house would bring in every month!

But Lizzy’s spine had become unexpectedly stiff. She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and pointed out that she had been employed in Mr. Moseley’s law office for fifteen years, during which time she had managed to save a tidy little nest egg, enough to move to—say—Montgomery or Mobile, where she could find a job in another law office without any difficulty at all.

So if her mother preferred that she sell the house, she would do so—and then begin looking for a new job elsewhere. Or she could stay right here in Darling and live in her own little house just across the street and look in on her mother every day to make sure that Sally-Lou was doing a good job. (Sally-Lou was the colored woman who lived in and did Mrs. Lacy’s cooking and housekeeping, allowing her mistress to live like a Southern lady.)

There had been a few more tears, of course, but that was pretty much the end of it. Mrs. Lacy saw the wisdom of Lizzy’s proposal—or pretended to, anyway. Lizzy and Sally had carried Lizzy’s clothes and things across the street, and Lizzy had settled into her new home more happily than she could ever have imagined. Even today, two years later, she was filled with a very deep joy as she walked up the porch steps.

Her home. Her very own house and garden.

And there, by the door, was the present from Grady: a Mason jar filled with water and the cutting he had promised her from one of the farms that he visited in his job as county agriculture agent. It was already beginning to put out white roots and begging to be transplanted into her garden so it could settle in and start to grow tall and strong. It was a Confederate rose.

 

 

 

 

 

❧ Last Sunday, the Darling Dahlias held our first meeting in our new clubhouse at 302 Camellia Street, the former home of our club’s founder, Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone. We had refreshments and transacted club business, including a reduction in the dues to just fifteen cents a month, so if you’ve been wanting to join, now’s your chance. Also, we unveiled our new sign, painted by Beulah Trivette, noted local artist and owner of Beulah’s Beauty Bower. The sign will be installed under the cucumber tree in front of the house sometime soon. The garden will be open during the Darling Garden Tour in September, the dates to be announced. If you’d like to add your garden to the tour, please contact Mrs. Hetty Little, who is keeping a list.

❧ Earlynne Biddle reports that the best thing that’s happened in her garden this spring is the unexpected comeback of her Butter and Eggs, which disappeared quite a few years ago and she thought was gone forever. It isn’t where she saw it last, but that’s a daffodil for you. She says that she was so glad to see it again that she didn’t ask where it had been all those years.

❧ Another nice thing that happened this spring, according to Miss Dorothy Rogers, Darling’s intrepid librarian, was an automobile trip to the family cemetery, over near Monroeville. (Ask her how many flat tires they had going there and back.) Miss Rogers came home with slips from a beautiful rose, which she says was growing up into a tree beside the cemetery gate, almost twenty feet high. It was a single plant, but it was covered with blossoms in all different shades of pink, from carmine to mauve, different colors in a single cluster. She recognized it as Seven Sisters, an old rose that is thought to have been brought from Japan to Europe in 1816. Miss Rogers, who likes to use the proper names for things, says that we should call this
Rosa cathayensis platyphylla
or
R. multiflora grevillei,
Verna Tidwell says that we’ll take Miss Rogers’ word for it.

❧ While I’m mentioning blossoms in different colors, I should like to say that I have just received a rooted cutting of a beautiful old Southern garden plant called the Confederate rose. You won’t likely find this hibiscus (that would be
Hibiscus mutabilis,
Miss Rogers) for sale, but if you’re really lucky, someone may give you a slip, which you can root in water. Here in south Alabama, the Confederate rose can grow into a small tree with several trunks, as much as ten feet tall. In late summer, you’ll see clusters of round, fat flower buds on top of each stem, white as cotton, which is why it’s sometimes called cotton rose. The flowers are single or double, about the size of a saucer. They’re white when they open, then turn pink, then red, then a deep blood-red. Confederate ladies were said to have planted this hibiscus in honor of their brave soldiers. You can surely see why.

 

❧ Mildred Kilgore led several of the Dahlias on a wildflower walk in Briar’s Swamp a few weeks ago. They took their lunches and did not get lost. But they did see some beautiful spring woodland wildflowers, including shooting star; wild sweet William; giant chickweed (sometimes called dead man’s bones); an unusual fire pink, or catch fly; white foam flower; and trout lilies—just to name a few. Spring is wildflower time in Alabama!

 

❧ The Dahlias are aiming to plant a bog garden in the wet area at the back of the Dahlia House garden. Some of the plants we are looking for include the wild blue flag, cardinal flower, great blue lobelia, false dragon-head, and golden-eyed grass. Miss Rogers will be glad to supply the Latin names (if you need them). If you’ve got any of these plants to share, stop by the library (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, noon to three p.m.) and let Miss Rogers know. She’ll be glad to send somebody to dig them up. Dahlias: please contact Bessie Bloodworth and let her know when you’re available for garden cleanup at the new clubhouse. That boggy area is going to be a challenge! (Wear old shoes. Or boots.)

 

❧ One last thing. These are tough times for everybody. The Dahlias are compiling a list of handy tips for what you can do to stretch what you have. We’re calling it our “Making Do” list, and plan to publish it in a pamphlet. Your contributions are welcome. Just write them down and leave them for Elizabeth Lacy at the
Dispatch
office.

 

 

 

 

 

Beulah Trivette discovered her talent for hair as a teenager, when she bobbed her own hair. Her friends loved it and begged her to bob theirs, which she did, to the horror of many of the mothers in Darling, who were convinced that bobbed hair was the first step on the road to perdition.

Beulah herself thought that her ability to do hair might be the first step on the road to a career. Right after high school, she took the Greyhound bus to Montgomery, where she got a job at a diner and worked her way through the Montgomery College of Cosmetology. She majored in hair and learned how to do a shampoo and head massage, cut a smooth Castle Bob (named for Mrs. Castle, the ballroom dancer who made it popular), manage a marcel iron, make pin curls and finger waves, and color hair. There was also skin care (facials), nails (manicure and pedicure), and makeup—all you needed to know, as the MCC advertised, “to make the ordinary woman pretty and the pretty woman beautiful.” Beulah (who was already pretty and aspired to being beautiful) graduated at the top of her class in cutting and styling and then came back to Darling, fired with the ambition to introduce every woman in town to the fine art of beauty.

And so she did—in part because Beulah herself was a generous soul and genuinely wanted to help women make the most of whatever the good Lord had given them, whether it was a little or a lot. She was a perky, pretty blonde with a passion for all things artistic—not just hair, but drawing, painting, sewing, and flower arranging. She loved flowers with big, floppy blooms, especially cabbage roses and dahlias and sunflowers, and crowded as many as possible into her backyard.

After a couple of years of being eagerly courted by a great many Darling males (during which time she was thought pretty “fast”), Beulah married Hank Trivette. Most people were surprised, since they’d expected her to fall for one of the rowdy crowd that hung out at the Watering Hole, going out to the parking lot every now and then to pass their bootleg bottles around. Hank was a settled young fellow without much in the way of looks or gumption and he didn’t spend much time at the Watering Hole. He couldn’t dance, either, and pretty much steered clear of the Dance Barn.

But Hank (who had a few hitherto undemonstrated sterling qualities) endowed Beulah with something she wasn’t likely to get from her other suitors: respectability and a marketing opportunity. Hank was the youngest son of the pastor at the Four Corners Methodist Church, where Beulah confessed her sins and joined on the Sunday before the wedding, wiping the slate clean and getting the marriage off to a good start. Before long, all the respectable Methodist women were coming to Beulah to get their hair shampooed and set, and then the Pentecostals joined the beauty parade, and finally even the Presbyterians. Beulah was on her way.

After the birth of Hank Jr., Hank (who knew a good thing when he saw it) bought a larger house on Dauphin Street, between Jeff Davis and Peachtree, and enclosed the screened porch across the back so Beulah could have herself a real shop. He installed a shampoo sink and haircutting chair and big wall mirror and wired the place for electricity for that new Kenmore handheld hair dryer that Beulah wanted.

That done, Beulah wallpapered the walls with big pink roses and painted the wainscoting pink. She painted the wooden floor pink, too, but pretty quickly discovered the problem with that and spattered it with gray, blue, and yellow. Then she painted a beautiful sign, decorated with a basket of pink roses, and hung it out front. Since Dauphin Street was the way most people came into town, lots of people saw the sign.

After a few months, the Beauty Bower was such a runaway success that Beulah had to put an advertisement in the
Dispatch
for somebody to help her out with shampoos and manicures. Bettina Higgens applied, demonstrated her skills on Beulah’s very own hair and nails, and got the job. She was definitely not a pretty woman herself (she was tall and her brown hair was irredeemably thin and lanky) and she didn’t have the advantage of cosmetology school. But she was a fast learner and Beulah was a good teacher, and within two weeks, they were working shoulder-to-shoulder at the now-twin shampoo sinks and haircutting stations.