Cold Sassy Tree (52 page)

Oh, law, was Mama fixing to hear how he'd loved Miss Love from the minute he laid eyes on her?

"I been shamed to tell you ... but I ne'ly ... got run out a-them hills ... last month." Then he told her bout callin' hisself to preach. With her and him fixin' to git married, it was go'n be his last peddlin' walk th'ew the mountains and he was jest sick and tarred a-sleepin' on the ground. Figgered the church folks would put a preacher up and feed him, too. "I acted a lie, Miss Mattie Lou ... and it shore did ... backfire. Fore I was hardly ... into my sermon...."

His voice trailed off.

"Hush now, Pa," said my mother, wiping his chest as best she could around the binding, which wasn't easy, with him lying on his left side to favor the broke ribs.

I sure wished Granny was here. She could always think of something to do for a sick person. But that night Mama was like Granny. "Pa, try to take some water," she'd say, lifting his head and holding a glass to his cracked, parched lips. Then she'd rub his mouth with Mentholatum, or maybe lay a wet washrag over his eyes.

"Sit down and rest, Mama," I finally told her. "I'll wash him."

Staring right at me, pulling at his whiskers kind of frantic, Grandpa said, "Miss Mattie Lou?"

"I'm Will, sir. I'm your boy...."

Granny's clock had just chimed midnight when Miss Love came back in, her eyes dark-circled, her green print dress wrinkled. "I'm afraid I dozed off, Mary Willis," she whispered. "Is he better? Has he slept any?"

My mother shook her head. "No, he cain't rest for talkin'. I cain't understand why Dr. Slaughter don't come. He said he'd come."

"He said he'd come if he could. Miss Herma is having her baby. I guess he couldn't leave her. I'll take over now, Mary Willis. You try to get some sleep. Use the bed in the front room." Miss Love had become businesslike and mechanical. "Will, you go lie down on the daybed in the hall."

"I ain't tired, Miss Love. I'll stay."

Grandpa drifted into a fitful sleep, then waked with a start about two-thirty and between gasps for breath went to raging at something or somebody, all the time pulling at his whiskers.

"We've got to get him quiet," said Miss Love. "Will, can you manage by yourself?" I nodded and reached for the wet towel. She tiptoed out, and in a minute there came to my ears—and to Grandpa's, I could tell—the sound of piano music. Miss Love played hymn after hymn. "Faith of Our Fathers," "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," "Rock of Ages," "Abide With Me." All his favorites, chording slower and slower, quieter and quieter. And Grandpa calmed down.

At daybreak the fever was still high. He was back with Granny when Dr. Slaughter arrived.

Mama had gone on home. Aunt Loma arrived to fix our breakfast and then took over the sponging so we could eat, but we all carried our plates to the sickroom. Miss Love let her eggs turn cold while she hovered over Grandpa.

Finally he spoke to her. Spoke her name. "Miss Love?" he whispered. Oh, she was so excited. "Miss Love, make ... Miss Mattie Lou ... rest some, hear.... She's been up ... all night, seein'...after me."

Miss Love looked like she'd been slapped. "I feel sick, Loma," she said, and left the room crying.

When she didn't come back and didn't come back, I said, "Aunt Loma, you think I ought to go see about her?"

"Maybe you better."

I figured she was out at the barn, and she was. The black gelding had trotted up to her, but she paid him no mind. She heard me coming and turned quick toward me. "Will! He's not—"

"No'm."

"Dr. Slaughter thinks he won't make it. He said so this morning. Will, he just can't die! Oh ... I've got to tell him something. Something I can't say with Miss Mattie Lou always in there!"

She burst out crying, then all of a sudden threw her head back and went to laughing! Laughed like a crazy woman. Like she couldn't stop. Finally I got mad and shook her. "Stop, Miss Love! Ain't nothin' funny!"

"Oh, you just don't know!" Out there in the May morning she could hardly talk for laughing. "I'll tell you, Will, so you can laugh, too. You see this second wife?" She pointed to herself. "She thought she was going to have a baby, but she wasn't sure. After she was sure, she decided to wait till her husband's birthday to tell him. But"—Miss Love stopped laughing, her voice went flat—"but now he's dying, and I can't tell him because ... dear God in heaven, Will, how can I tell your grandpa right in front of your granny that he has fathered my child! He'd hate me! He wouldn't believe it was possible. Will, he has forgotten all about me and him!"

Gosh, a baby! It was going to end up just like Mama and Aunt Loma said it would.

"I can't bear it if ... if he dies without knowing. And knowing might even make him fight to live!"

"He's already fightin' to live, Miss Love. He'll fight to his last breath."

"But if he knew this, it might make all the difference!" And she burst into tears.

I didn't know what to do. Finally I said, "Miss Love, hush up. Hear?" I sounded just like Grandpa. "Ma'am, he always says when you don't know which way to turn, do something. Don't do nothin'. Listen, ain't it the fever causin' him to be funny-turned? I mean the delirium; ain't that from the high fever?"

She nodded, holding both hands to her cheeks. "We m-manage to cool him down some, but it's n-never enough."

"What if we could cool him down quicker? If he came to himself even for a minute, you could talk to him! Why don't we put him in the bathtub? It'd soak him cool a lot quicker than all that spongin'. Wouldn't it?"

"I never heard of doing that!" She was excited, then worried. "But it might chill him too much. We'd have to ask Dr. Slaughter first."

"But don't it make sense?"

"Let me think, Will." Out there by the pasture gate, she quickly took the pins out of her tousled hair, pulled it back, twisted it into a knot at the back of her head, and pinned it tight. Even with her hair so plain and her eyelids swollen from crying, Miss Love looked beautiful to me, for she had come alive!

"I could run get Loomis," I went on, excited. "Loomis could pick Grandpa up like a rag doll, Miss Love. Not jostle his ribs or anything. Just bend over easy and lay him in the water."

Hope upon us, we ran back to the house. It scared me to death when Aunt Loma rushed to meet us at the back door. "He's had a big sweat!" she shouted. "Drenched the bed! The fever's down, Love! At least for now, and he's gone to sleep! He knew me, Love!"

"Oh, thank God!" Miss Love's eyes filled with tears. "But—oh, Will, what if I've missed my chance!"

Loma said she'd go on home and tell Sister and Brother Hoyt the good news. "You stay here, Will, just in case. Love, try to get some rest."

***

I thought Miss Love would want to sit there alone with him, but she asked me to stay. Grandpa was laying on his left side, as usual. She sat beside the bed, facing him, in the same rocking chair he had sat in to watch Granny.

Sometimes she would lay her head on the mattress and stretch out her hand just to touch him. I know she prayed; I could see her lips move. Every few minutes she'd feel of his forehead or his arm. At some point she murmured, "I'm dying to wake him up, but I don't dare. This sleep could make all the difference.... Will, honey, won't he be thrilled if it's a boy? I just know it will be a boy."

I didn't tell her, but Mama used to say Granny was always sure it would be a boy.

She got up to pace the room. "Will, what if the fever goes way up again before he wakes?"

At that moment Grandpa went to coughing. His eyes opened wide as he gasped for breath. Miss Love looked at the sputum he spat into a rag. "It's so bloody, Will," she whispered.

When the coughing subsided, Grandpa started to drift away again, but she called him back. "Rucker, look at me!"

He opened his eyes. "You ... so beautiful," he mumbled.

"How do you feel, dear?" She spoke softly.

"Well, I'm ... takin' it leisurely...." He pulled at his whiskers.

She leaned over the bed to get her face close to his. "I've got something wonderful to tell you, Rucker. Can you hear me, dear?"

Gazing at her, his face softened. He put his hand on her hair, and something like a weak grin passed over his face. "I'm Rucker.... Pleased to ... meet you, Love.... Oh, Love, I'm so sick. I jest cain't ... git ... enough ... air...."

"You're going to get well, Rucker. I'll make you get well! Don't go back to sleep yet. Please. I've got to tell you what I have for your birthday. The most wonderful thing has happened, Rucker...."

It's to my credit that I left the room. I didn't stand out there in the hall and listen, either. I went to the kitchen and drank some milk, then mixed some meal and water for Granny's chickens and went out to dump it in their pan. They ran up to me, clucking and shoving, and then here came old T.R. Sensing my joy, he jumped up on me and licked my face, and I hugged him good, pulling his ears and scratching his belly.

Church bells were beginning to ring all over town. I wondered would Papa attend preachin', now that Loma would of told them that Grandpa was better.

I thought I ought to go back in and see if he was still awake. I couldn't wait to hear what he'd say about the baby. I went in the house, tiptoed up the hall.

It looked like he was sleeping again, and Miss Love, too. She had stretched out on the bed beside him, her hand on his. The house was quiet and peaceful at last, and I was wore out.

I thought I'd just go lay down on the daybed a few minutes....

I don't know how long I slept. Miss Love's scream woke me up.

Grandpa was dead.

I
RAN
in there. Miss Love, still on the bed, was raised up on one arm, staring at him. I waited for her to say something, but she just kept staring.

I heard somebody come in the front hall. "Miss Love? Mary Willis?" It was Miss Effie Belle.

"Oh, God help me!" whispered Miss Love. "Keep her talking out there, Will. I've got to ... oh, God, just a minute more."

Miss Effie Belle had heard the scream as she was coming in from church. Her pink lip wart quivering, she said, "Rucker's passed on, ain't he, Will?"

"Yes'm."

"Well, God knows best." Her eyes misting, she touched my face with her wizened hand. "You go'n take it hardest, Will. You was his favorite in all the world."

I thought I ought to say that Miss Love was his favorite now, but what was the use?

"One time when your granddaddy was a baby, I helt him in my lap. Who'd a-thought I'd outlive him!" she said, trying hard to keep aholt of herself. "And we been next-door neighbors for I don't know how long. Lord, why couldn't it of been Bubba? I'm so tired, and Bubba just cain't seem to die." She sighed and patted my shoulder. "I'd like to go in and see him, Will."

At that moment we heard the bedroom door close, and Miss Love came up the hall. She looked like stone. Her eyes were dark-circled and her skin pale. There was no expression at all on her face as she said, "Will, you'd better hurry home and tell your family. They'll have to call Dr. Slaughter."

"Yes'm. I was just fixin' to go. Here's Miss Effie Belle to see you."

The wizened hand reached out to pat Miss Love's arm. "I'll be more'n glad to stay with you till Mary Willis and them git here."

"You're very kind. But I ... I'd like to be alone right now. I hope you understand?"

Granny's clock chimed half-past noon as I followed Miss Effie Belle out of Grandpa's house and ran home.

Papa had attended morning preachin', but he was already back home when I rushed in.

Dead
must of been written all over my face, because I didn't have to say a word except how and when.

"Run clean up and put on your suit, Will," said Papa. "Folks go'n be comin' in all day. Out of respect for your granddaddy you ought to look presentable. But make haste."

As the family hurried out to the car, Papa said we had to go by the store.

"Are you crazy, Hoyt?" asked Mama. She had cried all the time she was getting dressed, and looked it.

"There's a sealed letter in the safe," he said, taking the driver's seat. "Your daddy told me about it a month or more ago. Said if anything happened to him, I was to get the letter out and read it to the fam'ly." He motioned me to turn the crank. The engine sputtered but didn't catch.

"Cain't it wait, Brother Hoyt?" Loma screeched. "I want to see Pa!"

"No, it cain't wait. If you want to know exactly how your daddy put it, he said, 'Git thet letter fore my body's cold, and don't let nobody move me till it's read.'"

Miss Love came out of the room where Grandpa was and walked slowly up the hall to greet us. She hadn't fixed herself up or anything while I was gone. Smelling a little of turpentine, she was still in the soiled green print dress she'd worn all yesterday and all last night and all this morning. She hugged everybody, the way folks do when they don't know what to say, but she did it as if there was nothing to be said.

Mama whispered, "Can we see him?"

"Certainly. Of course," said Miss Love. Leading the way, she said Dr. Slaughter had already come and gone. "He said to convey his condolences, and tell you he was sorry not to stay. Miss Herma is having a bad labor."

I couldn't believe the change in Grandpa! He was turned on his back, his head on a single pillow, his right arm outside the fresh clean sheet that had been spread over him and the bed. His face was shaved, the mustache trimmed to a neat pencil line again, the hair combed and slicked down. Miss Love must of used some of her freckle-cover cream to fade the bruises and lighten the blackness around his eyes.

"Don't he look nat'ral," Mama whispered.

My throat swelled till I could hardly get my breath. To me he looked spiffy, and I just wanted so bad to tell him.

I saw that Papa, holding Campbell Junior, was having just as hard a time as I was. Whereas I was grieving for my grandpa who had died, Papa was mourning for the man who had given him his chance in life. I don't know why, but right then it finally dawned on me that Papa had wanted to please Grandpa out of respect and gratitude, not from kowtowing. I watched as he tried not to cry. All of a sudden, still carrying the baby, he left the room.