Cold Sassy Tree (30 page)

"Go look. You'll see."

I looked and I saw. Without wiping off the mantelpiece at all, Uncle Camp had painted around a tin matchbox and right over a cockroach, a pencil stub, and a shirt button.

Trying not to laugh, I said, "Why didn't you make him get it up before the paint dried? Ain't nothin' harder than enamel paint."

"I only just noticed it, that's why."

"It's go'n be a job to scrape it off."

"I don't want it scraped off. I want Camp to be reminded how dumb he is every time he comes in this parlor. Will, I cain't bear to think I'm married to somebody that stupid."

"He ain't that stupid," I said, trying to make her feel better.

"Then he just don't care, and that's worse."

"Maybe he did it on purpose."

"You're crazy. He wouldn't have the nerve."

"Maybe he ain't got any nerve when you get to fussin' at him, Aunt Loma. But that don't mean he couldn't do this on purpose."

Her face flushed. She knew I was calling her bossy. "You know good'n'well if I didn't keep after him, he wouldn't ever do a blessed thing."

"Yeah, but that don't mean he likes bein' pushed around. And maybe for once he's showin' it. I feel right proud of him, Aunt Loma. Maybe you ought to be, too."

"Well, aren't you smart! I guess you got that notion from Miss Love Simpson Blakeslee. I'll thank her to keep her mouth shut, especially to you."

"Ain't nobody ever said nothin' out loud bout you henpeckin' Uncle Camp, Aunt Loma. It don't take much brains to notice, though. If you treated a colored cook like you do him, she'd quit."

"Colored folks got more sense than Camp. Lord, Will, I had to show him the roach before he knew what I was mad about."

I would of laid a bet that when she got on him about it, Camp had looked down at the floor instead of at the mantelpiece. I bet he said, "I'm sorry, Loma Baby. I'm sorry."

I hated how he was and how she treated him.

"Grandpa said I had to apologize about those stories I told on you, Aunt Loma. So I'm apologizin'."

"Pa told you to?"

"Yeah, he did."

She looked real pleased. "Well, now! I never thought he'd take up for me against you, Will."

"He was mad as heck about it, tell you the truth. So I'm sorry. And soon as you finish bawlin' me out, I got to go."

She set the baby down on a plaited cotton rug by the fireplace and spoke sternly. "All right, I'll bawl you out: How dare you say I nursed a pig!" Then she giggled. "Will, you're awful. You ought to be ashamed. But my land, I haven't enjoyed anything this much since I left LaGrange College. It's almost like playin' the lead in a theatrical. Campbell Junior, come out of the fireplace! Get him, Will. He'll turn black before our eyes if he gets into that chimney sut."

I picked the fat baby up and swung him around. He squealed with pleasure. "You're your mama's little piggy, ain't you, Campbell Junior?" I held him high above my head and he squealed again. "So part of what I told wasn't no pig tale." Aunt Loma laughed. It was like we were having a party. I put Campbell Junior on my shoulder and rode him around, then tossed him up.

"Will, I've decided.... Will, are you listenin'? Put the baby down and listen to me."

"I'm listenin'." I tossed him one more time and put him back on the floor.

"I've decided you ought to be a writer, Will. Those stories you told on me, they're outlandish, but they'd be so easy to act out. Those and all the other stories you tell. Will, I want you to write plays." She said it as solemn as if she was a queen knighting me with words.

I couldn't hide how pleased I was. I grinned from ear to ear. Still and all, why couldn't Aunt Loma just be nice and compliment me and let it go at that without saying what I had to be. Long as I could remember, she'd been trying to direct me like I was one of her dad-gum Christmas pageants.

It gave me some satisfaction to say "But I'm go'n be a farmer. You know that, Aunt Loma, unless you ain't ever listened to me talk. I'm go'n go to the Ag College over at the University. Papa's aimin' to buy Grandpa Tweedy's farm, and I'm go'n farm it."

"Anybody can be a farmer," she said, flipping away my dream. "We cain't let a talent like yours go to waste, Will, and I want you to start by putting down those stories you made up about me. Do it right away, before you forget them." She blushed a little. "I don't mean I think you could sell'm. They're too—well, most editors would call them vulgar. But they'll do fine for writing practice."

If I had pos-i-
tive
-ly decided to be a writer and at that moment had picked up a pencil to get started, I'd of put it down. I just couldn't stand her telling me what to do. "I don't like to write stories," I said stubbornly. "I just like tellin' stories. But ain't nobody go'n make me do either one. Specially not you, Loma Blakeslee Williams."

Campbell Junior was crawling from her to me and back from me to her, but Aunt Loma didn't even notice him. All of a sudden she stood up and started singing, "Here comes the bride, dog bite her hide." We had sung it like that when we were children. Then she
dum-dummed
the rest of the wedding march. I didn't guess what she was doing till she made like she was adjusting a veil and mouthed I do and all, and then went
psssssssssssst.
Her eyes rolled with mock alarm and her hands quickly hid one side of her chest. Then she doubled up laughing. I was laughing, too. Campbell Junior must of thought we were a couple of hyenas.

"How in the ... world ... did you think up such a ... thing as a ...
rubber bust
!" She couldn't talk for ha-ha-ing and hee-hee-ing.

I was shocked that Aunt Loma had come right out and said
bust
in mixed company, but that just made it funnier. Between guffaws and gasps we moaned and clutched our stomachs. The poor baby sat staring at us, then dropped his chicken bone and commenced squalling. To her credit, Aunt Loma picked him up, sat down in the rocker, and unbuttoned her dress for him. I always watched close when she did that, hoping she'd be careless, but she never was. Like all the other nursing ladies in Cold Sassy, Aunt Loma would turn sideways to her audience or else cover herself with the baby, and also drape a clean diaper over herself.

I got up to go, but she told me to wait till she could put Campbell Junior down for his nap. She hummed the wedding march while she rocked him, only sometimes she had to press her lips together to keep from laughing out loud. "Is there any such a thing, Will?"

"As what?"

"As ... well, you know. If there is, I sure wish I'd heard about it in time for my weddin'!" And we both died laughing again. Except it was quiet laughing, so as not to distract the baby from nursing. In a few minutes she sat him up and he let out a loud belch.

"I really got to go, Aunt Loma."

"Oh, you can wait another minute. I got something for you." She laid Campbell Junior down on the rug by the fireplace, a clean diaper under his fat face, and he was asleep by time she came back downstairs, carrying a thick book.

"I made this before Campbell Junior was born." She flipped open the book, which had cloth-covered cardboard covers and blank pages inside. "I was go'n copy all my poems and plays in it. But as you know I never have a minute to call my own now." Her voice a little hard, she nodded towards the sleeping baby. "So I want you to have it, Will."

This was the nearest Aunt Loma had come to being nice since I was a little bitty boy, and I liked it, despite I also felt like she was trying to railroad me. When I hesitated, she held the book out to me. "You must write something in it every day." She nodded to cement her words. "Write down the stories you make up. Write poems and plays. Write down things that happen, and surprising things you see or hear about. Listen when people talk, and put their words down just like they speak. If you go'n be a writer, you got to practice, that's all there is to it. My professors preached that to me all the time at LaGrange College." Aunt Loma never missed a chance to mention LaGrange College, where she had studied elocution and expression.

"Well..." I took the book and flipped through the blank pages, then handed it back. "But I done told you, I ain't go'n be no writer. You be one."

"Fat chance," she said, bitter. "Camp won't ever be able to afford a cook. Not while he's workin' for Pa. And I cain't write without hep. I know that now. So you just do what I say, Will. Quit arguin'. Here, read this." Opening it to the first page, she forced the book into my hands again. "Look at this."

At the top of the page, in fancy printing, it said
LOMA BLAKESLEE WILLIAMS, HER BOOK
. Under that it said
PRESENTED TO HOYT WILLIS TWEEDY, JULY
1906. "Do like I say, Will. And when you get famous, don't forget to mention it was your Aunt Loma that pushed you towards your destiny."

Bossy, same old bossy, I thought. But I was touched. And all of a sudden those empty pages were like the si-rene call I'd heard when I looked up at Blind Tillie Trestle and wanted to see how it was up there. I knew I wouldn't write any dang poetry or plays. But right that minute I got the notion I'd like to keep a journal.

It's been eight years since Loma gave me that book, and not long ago I read through all I wrote down on its blank pages. That's why I can remember so much that happened to Miss Love and Grandpa, and what went on in the family and the town, and what people said and how they said it, and how I felt when it was happening. Reading my notes in the journal brings it all back.

I never knew before that Aunt Loma could be fun to be with—that, like Grandpa and me, she preferred three-legged chickens to the usual kind. What really surprised me was finding out I liked her. At least, that day I did. She was Grandpa all over again. She was hardheaded like him, wanted her own way like him, and had a sense of fun to match his. But of course she was mean and vindictive in a way Grandpa wasn't. At least that's what I thought right then.

Not till the next morning, when the matter of the trip to New York came to a head, did I suspect he had a mean streak that put Loma's in the shade.

I
WAS STILL LAUGHING
in my mind at supper that night, like if Aunt Loma was there beside me going
psssssssssssst
.

Then Mama asked about the trip to New York City. "What day is it you are leaving, Hoyt?" In her black cotton dress she looked like warmed-over despair.

"Two weeks from today, hon." As Mama cut a bite of roast beef, looking pitiful, Papa reached across the table and put his hand on her hand that held the knife. "Mary Willis, hon, come with me. It'd be ... well, like a second honeymoon."

She blushed, but looked him straight in the eye. "I wish I could, Hoyt. It sure hasn't been any honeymoon around here for a long time." She bit her lip, I guess to keep from saying anything against Grandpa or Miss Love that would upset my daddy. Then she kind of jerked, like people do at church trying to shake themselves awake. "You know I cain't go, Hoyt. It would scandalize the town."

Thinking with my mouth again, I said, "Mama, how could Cold Sassy be any more scandalized than it is already?"

Oh, for gosh sake, why did I have to say that?

But Papa took it up. "I say the same thing, Mary Willis. Please, hon, come with me, hear."

It seemed like Mama was weakening.

"Granny would want you to," I urged. "Not long before she took sick, she told me how happy she was about you gettin' this nice trip."

"Did she really say that, Will?" Quick tears came to Mama's eyes.

What Granny had also said, so wistful, was how she used to dream of going to New York with Grandpa, but he never saw why she wanted to. Granny said he always talked like it was just a long, tiring, boring time. Besides, he couldn't afford to pay her way and his, too.

"I couldn't get ready in two weeks," Mama was saying. "All those clothes I made back in the spring, they wouldn't do now. I'd need mournin' clothes. All I got for nice is two black dresses."

"That's all you need," said Papa, getting excited. "There's so many people up in New York, you could wear the same dress every day and nobody'd notice."

"Well, I'd notice and the hotel clerk."

"Listen, hon, I could buy you a readymade dress or two after we get up there. Get'm wholesale."

All of a sudden, Mama's face went from looking like nine miles of bad road to like somebody had left her a million dollars. "Oh, Hoyt, do you really think it would be all right?" she asked anxiously. "People wouldn't talk?"

"They might," he admitted, drinking the last of his buttermilk. "But Lord, Mary Willis, everybody knows what you been through lately. And it ain't like we'd be havin' a good time or anything. Still and all, there's enough to see and do up there to make goin' worthwhile. Ain't it, Will? You were so little when you and me went, though, maybe you don't remember much."

"I remember a lot, Papa."

"And Mary Toy's taken care of," he reminded Mama. "So all you got to do is get ready. Please say you'll come with me, hon."

Mama hesitated, then all of a sudden smiled and, clasping her hands together, raised them and touched her thumbs to her forehead—a way she had of showing when she was happy. "I've decided! I'm go'n go, Hoyt! I'm go'n go!"

My daddy jumped up out of his chair, came around the table with his arms outstretched, grabbed Mama out of her chair, and kissed her hard. It wasn't like Mr. McAllister kissing Miss Love, but it wasn't the usual peck, either.

As we left the table, Mama asked him, "Hoyt, what do you think about—uh, do you reckon I could ast Miss Love to make me a new black hat? I don't want you to be shamed of me."

"Sure, ast her," said Papa. "Like I keep tellin' you and Loma, she's a nice lady. I know Miss Love, see. She'd be proud to hep you get off. And it might heal things over in the fam'ly."

I joined in. "Miss Love said just today how it would do you good to take the trip."

Mama looked surprised, but was too happy to say
aw shah.

Next morning at breakfast she was downright ecstatic. "I didn't sleep a wink, Hoyt! Just laid there turnin' over and over in my mind what I'll pack and what all I got to do. My tail will be in the wind from now till we leave, I know that. First thing, I got to write Temp a postcard and be sure it's all right for Mary Toy to stay on till we get back."