Cold Sassy Tree (29 page)

"Course not, Miss Love. It ain't the custom."

"And what's Queenie's joke about that?"

The color rose to my face. Clearly Miss Love didn't understand. Despite she wasn't exactly a Yankee, she was from way north of Cold Sassy. Before I could change the subject, she said, "Queenie uses an old knife and fork at your house, too, doesn't she, Will? And always washes them and her pan and her jar last—just before the dog and cat dishes? That's the custom, isn't it?"

"Queenie doesn't care what she eats out of, Miss Love. No more'n she cares if pot licker runs off of the turnip salad and soaks her biscuits, or if the cream gravy gets all over her mashed sweet potatoes. She likes usin' a pan. It holds more'n a plate." Being an outsider, Miss Love couldn't understand that Queenie really just didn't care.
Yankee,
I thought, burning.
Yankee, Yankee....

It was a hot day, but there came a chill in the air as I finished my pie. Miss Love chopped up two big carrots and put them in her apron pocket, along with some shriveled little yellow apples out of Granny's bowl on the work table. Then she reached into Granny's old brown crock for some sugar lumps.

She tossed me one.

I wasn't a child. She couldn't make up to me with a dern sugar lump. "I'll save it for the horse," I mumbled, dropping it in a pocket of my overalls.

Miss Love took a green print sunbonnet of Granny's from a nail in the kitchen and we headed for the barn. Old T.R. sprang up from under Granny's boxwood, where he'd been cooling off, and ran ahead of us to chase Granny's dominecker hens out of the path. I didn't say a word all the way to the barn.

"Look, there he is!" Miss Love pointed to the gelding. He was cropping grass in the back pasture not far from Grandpa's mule. Mr. Beautiful raised his head and stared at us, and Miss Love squeezed my arm. "He's just so handsome, Will—that shiny black coat, and the white blaze on his forehead! And look how he holds his head!" I don't think she even noticed she had touched me, but the pit of my stomach might near flipped over.

Looking towards us, the horse sniffed the wind, started walking, then quickly picked up his gait to a fast trot. As he got near the barn, he shied at a rock in the grass, stumbled, rared up, and raced away, tail arched high. But he was soon back, nickering and snorting as he pranced sideways towards the pasture gate we were leaning on. Then he shot off again like an arrow.

Miss Love put her hands to her mouth, as if she couldn't believe him. She said softly, "That's got to be the fastest horse in Cold Sassy. Maybe the fastest in Georgia...."

"Yes'm." Pride rose up in me for being the one that had brought him to her.

Every time the gelding came near, Miss Love held out a piece of carrot. Finally he stopped, walked slowly toward her, stopped again, came closer, and, glistening with sweat, stretched his neck to get the carrot. His breathing was hard. "Come here, Mr. Beautiful, I won't hurt you. Here, baby," she murmured, holding out an apple.

"Boy howdy, I cain't hardly wait to see that fancy Texas saddle on him!" I said. She blushed, as if she thought the saddle might remind me how she'd kissed Clayton McAllister. I blushed, too, because it did remind me of that. I said quickly, "Ma'am, I hope you ain't forgot. That horse ain't broke to anything but a halter. You won't try to ride him any time soon, will you?"

"I wish I dared. But no, I'm still just making friends. Here, boy," she called, walking along the fence.

"A big horse like him, he could kill you."

She met my eyes with her gray-blue ones and the long dark lashes didn't even flutter. She said, "Mr. McAllister taught me all about training horses, Will. It's done in definite stages. I helped him train the mare that was"—she hesitated—"the mare that was to be mine after we married. The one the saddle was made for."

Yeah, I thought, and I bet you kissed Mr. McAllister between every sugar lump and apple, and hugged him every time the mare did what you wanted her to. I hated Mr. McAllister.

I wished Miss Love would touch me again.

She didn't. It was the horse she kept touching. She rubbed his ears and his neck, talking soft and holding tight to the halter. Soon as she let him go, he was off again across the pasture.

We watched him a few minutes, then walked back towards the house. We were about even with Granny's flower pit when I stopped and asked the question that had been on my mind ever since I got there. "Does Grandpa know ... I mean did anybody tell him about, uh, about the way Mr. McAllister, uh—"

There was an empty minute before she came right out with it. "Kissed me?" Her face was hidden under the bonnet, so I don't know if she blushed. But I did. "As a matter of fact, Will, somebody did tell Mr. Blakeslee."

"It wasn't me, Miss Love, I swear. Must of been Miss Effie Belle."

"Maybe she did. I don't know. But I told him first."

"You?" I couldn't believe any lady was that dumb. I said I bet he'd already heard.

She waved a honeybee away from her face. "No. This was on Saturday night after Mr. McAllister was here. And if he had heard, he'd have said so as soon as he got home. Your grandfather is a very direct man, Will."

"Yes'm, he is."

"Still, I kept thinking what if he does know. I got nervous as a witch, wondering. But all he talked about at supper was the horse. Which stall it could have, which day you might get back with it, things like that. And he asked what did I know about breaking a horse. I could see he didn't know one thing about it himself."

"When did you tell him, Miss Love? About—you know."

"At one o'clock Sunday morning. We both went to bed early, but I just tossed and turned. I was so nervous I thought I'd scream. Finally I decided my only hope was to be honest and tell him myself, before you ... I mean before Miss Effie Belle did, or somebody else."

"You called him out of bed? He don't like—"

"I just went to his door. It was open—for the breeze, you know. I stood there holding my lamp and called, 'Mr. Blakeslee?' He said, 'What you want? What's wrong?' So I told him how Mr. McAllister had barged in and was kissing me before I knew what was happening—and that Miss Effie Belle probably saw it. I said I'd pack up and leave as soon as it got light."

I kicked my bare foot at a bunch of tall grass. I had a glimmer of something I didn't like. Sounding bolder than I felt, I said, "Why'd you offer to leave, Miss Love? I thought you were hopin' if you were honest about it, he'd let you stay."

"Well, yes, Will." A wry little smile lit her face. "But I guess I thought I should at least offer to leave."

"Did you cry, ma'am?"

I think she sensed what I was driving at. Hesitating, she admitted she cried a little.

"What'd Grandpa say?"

"Nothing, for a minute. Then he told me to go to bed. 'Mr. McAllister's on the train to Texas, Miss Love, so that's the end of it. Effie Belle or no Effie Belle.' Then he raised up on his elbow and said, 'Now if'n you want to see me mad, Miss Love, jest let me git up for breakfast and you ain't made me no yeast bread like I ast you to.'"

We both laughed, ambling on towards the house. She said, "Tell the truth, I had forgotten all about making that bread. I was ... well, it had been an awful day, as you know, Will, and I was worn out. But I went to the kitchen and got at it."

"In the middle of the night?"

"Yes. The oven was still warm from supper, so I mixed the dough and set it in there to rise. About three o'clock I got up to knead it, and at five I fired up the stove. I had the bread baked and toast ready when Mr. Blakeslee came in to breakfast."

I had to admire any lady that anxious to please.

Well, in all of that talking, Miss Love hadn't mentioned me gossiping about her on the camping trip, or her being taken off of the Methodist piano stool, or how she told off Pink Predmore's mama down at the store. She hadn't spoken Aunt Loma's name, much less Saint Cecilia's. But she'd told me the one thing I needed to hear if I was to keep coming up here: that Grandpa knew about her kissing Mr. McAllister. As long as I was wondering whether he knew or didn't, I'd of been worrying about what he might do to Miss Love when and if he found out, and how she would act toward me if she thought I was the one had told him.

On the back porch, she picked up the tin dipper that floated in the well bucket and started to drink.

"Here, I'll draw you some fresh, Miss Love," I said, emptying the bucket into the wash pan. With the well right up by the porch, I only had to lean over to let the bucket down. When I heard it splash, I turned the crank to draw it up and, feeling that I was being what Aunt Loma called gallant, offered Miss Love the first cool drink.

"Why, thank you, Will." She drank from the dipper, then poured her leavings on a pot of begonias. "And thank you for being my friend."

Gosh, Miss Love sure knew how to make a boy feel like a man. Dipping up some water, I was careful to put my mouth where hers had been. I watched her over the rim of tin.

She hesitated as if trying to think of something to say, then asked, "Tell me, Will, uh, don't you think your mother will go on to New York City after all?"

"No'm. She ain't go'n go," I said as we left the porch and entered the cool hall. "She planned big on it all spring, you know. But not since Granny died."

"Are you very sure she won't change her mind? It would do her good to get away from here." Miss Love really cared about Mama, I could tell.

"Yes'm, I'm certain sure. Papa keeps tryin' to talk her into it, but she won't change her mind. She says it wouldn't be fittin'. Uh, I expect you been plenty times, ain't you, Miss Love? New York ain't all that far from Baltimore."

"I went just once. When I was a little girl." She smiled kind of wistful.

I reckon Miss Love was pure starved for company, because when we got to the front veranda, she sat down in the swing, patted the cushion beside her, and said come sit a while. "You went to New York with your daddy one time, didn't you, Will?"

"Yes'm, when I was seven, and I sure was glad to get back home. I'd heard about damnyankees all my life, and up there I was in a city just full of'm."

Miss Love really laughed.

"I been on lots of other trips with Papa," I bragged. "When I was ten, he took me to Atlanta just to ride a new street-car line to College Park and back. Another time we went to Atlanta to hear President Roosevelt. The speaking was in a place called Piedmont Park. Afterwards we took a street car to Davison-Paxon-Stokes Company, and then went to M. Rich and Brothers. You ever been in that store, Miss Love?"

"Oh, yes. They have very fashionable clothes."

"Yes'm. Well, while we stood outside lookin' at their show window, a man dressed up in a Sunday suit came out and greeted us. Then he opened the door wide, bowed to Papa with a big flourish, and said, 'Enter, sir! The store is yours!' It was Mr. Rich himself. Later I ast Papa why didn't he and Grandpa dress nice like that to go to work, and do like that. Bow, I mean, and open the door and say, 'Enter, sir, the store is yours.' Papa said, 'Cause if we did, Cold Sassy would think we were off in the head.'"

Miss Love was very entertained. "I guess you've been lots of places with your grandpa, too," she said, rubbing a chain link on the swing with her finger.

"No'm. He took me and Mary Toy to Maysville one time in the buggy to visit Aunt Fody, his youngest sister. The year he went to the Homer Celebration he took me, and since we were already halfway to Cornelia, we went on to see Aunt Clyde, his oldest sister. But Grandpa don't really like to go places. Last time he went to Atlanta was to General John B. Gordon's funeral, and that was two or three years ago. General Gordon was a Confederate general, you know."

"Well, your grandfather is so full of fun, I expect he has a grand time when he goes to New York for the store."

"I don't know'm. He ain't been since before you moved here. He feels about it like me; they got too many Yankees in New York. He said one time he'd just soon go to the bad place. That's why Papa's always the one goes on the buyin' trips."

I didn't find out till next morning that Miss Love wasn't just passing the time of day talking about New York City. She'd had an idea. An idea that just about tore our family to pieces.

W
ITH NO INKLING
of what was to come, I left there on top of the world. I just had to do something, for gosh sake. So I decided to go apologize to Aunt Loma like Grandpa told me to. Not that I was regretting those titty stories. I was just in the mood to enjoy hearing Aunt Loma fuss and fume.

Every now and again she didn't react like I thought she would—for instance, that time she got Papa to make me paint her dining room. After I finished, I caught about ten of her cats, dipped their feet in the can of gold paint, and chased them around in the empty room. Boy howdy, the floor in there looked like a dern leopard skin! I expected Aunt Loma would be furious, but she said what a darlin' idea. Thought I'd done it to please her.

Well, she wouldn't be clapping her hands about the
psssssssssssst
and pig stories, which by now would be coming at her from every direction. She'd like folks saying what a bad boy I was, and how dirty-mouthed, but it would get her goat when they asked, "Loma, did you really nurse a pig?"

Her not fussing at me yesterday at Sunday dinner didn't mean she hadn't heard. She was just too busy low-rating Miss Love to fool with me. And last night she was too upset over not getting the piano.

And now as I came up on her back porch, Aunt Loma was the maddest white woman you ever saw. Her face was red. Her blue eyes spat fire. Her fists were clenched and her voice harsh. "I'm so mad I could die, Will!" That was her greeting. Boy howdy, I thought. But it wasn't me she was mad at. She said, "Come look what Camp's done now!"

Jerking up Campbell Junior from the kitchen floor, where he sat sucking a greasy chicken bone, Aunt Loma marched ahead of me to the parlor and pointed at the mantelpiece, gleaming with a new coat of hard shiny white enamel paint. "Just look!" she exploded.

"What's wrong, Aunt Loma? I think it's a big improvement."