Losing Battles (30 page)

“Why don’t he eat, then?” asked Aunt Cleo. “If he won’t preach, why don’t he eat?”

“Sister Cleo, he didn’t come to eat either. Just make up your
mind you don’t always know what a man’s come for,” Miss Beulah advised her. “And some I’d think twice before I’d ask.”

“There was only one Beecham daughter, there was Miss Beulah alone!” cried Brother Bethune. “And Miss Beulah Beecham she will ever be. And I want her to save me back some of those chicken gizzards she’s provided such a plenty of, I want to carry ’em home for my supper—does she hear me? Miss Beulah, who ain’t going to let no one in the world go hungry as long as she can trot, took for loving husband Mr. Ralph Renfro, who is yet with us today. He’s here somewhere, trying to keep up with his children and stay alive!” Brother Bethune laughed. “Beulah and Ralph all their lives has worked right in harness together, raised a nice set of girls with a boy at each end. The girls is unclaimed as yet, but the oldest one is liable to surprise us any minute.” He paused to let Ella Fay, wherever she was, stamp her foot.

“And
that’s
making a mistake,” Miss Beulah said, running around with the platter. “One day, Brother Bethune is going off the track and he’ll stay off.”

“I’m getting downright impatient listening for him to forgive Jack and get the hard part over,” Aunt Birdie said as Brother Bethune lifted his voice and veered away into the Renfros.

“He can’t do his forgiving till Jack gets here, unless he’s willing to waste it,” said Uncle Curtis.

“Grandpa Vaughn would have done it either first, or last, if he was going to do it at all,” Aunt Nanny said. “Not just slip it in somewhere.”

Uncle Curtis said, “He wouldn’t have done it at all.”

“Papa,” said Elvie, standing at her father’s ear, “peep behind you. Here’s them.”

At the same moment, Etoyle seized her skirt and cracked it like a whip to get the dust out, and came rushing into the yard. She butted her head into Miss Beulah’s side and embraced her.

“Lady May jumped through the peephole! Jack caught her! But he couldn’t miss, she came like a basketball!” she cried.

“Oh, it’s not so. But what’s this?” And Miss Beulah was marching
toward the wagon. Judge Moody, wincing as if his bones creaked, got down and held his hand for his wife.

“Is somebody dead up here? I never did see so many,” exclaimed Mrs. Moody.

“You see exactly how many we’ve got, with three more to be counted,” Miss Beulah cried. “And if you came here expecting to find a bunch of mourners, you’re in the wrong camp.” Now she and Judge Moody stood eye to eye over the heaped-up platter she was carrying. “I bet you a pretty I can tell you who you had to thank for your invitation. What have you done with my oldest boy this time? I can tell that’s your wife,” she went on. “And I can see you’re famished, parched and famished, in another minute you’ll drop. Trot after me. Might as well shuck off your coat, Judge Moody, and don’t dawdle.”

“He’s kept his coat on before me through it all this far—he can keep it on for the rest of the time, thank you,” said Mrs. Moody.

“Vaughn! It’s time for that spare on the porch!” yelled Miss Beulah, and Vaughn came bringing the school chair. It was a heavy oak piece with a hole bored clean through its back, the seat notched, the desk-arm cut like a piecrust all around and initialed all over. As Vaughn strong-armed it over his head, the deathless amber deposits of old chewing gum were exposed underneath.

“All right, sir. That gives you a little table all to yourself,” said Miss Beulah.

“Mama, who is that? Is that the Booger?” asked a little child from the crowd as Judge Moody wedged himself in under the desk arm, and Brother Bethune caught his eye and waved at him.

“Mrs. Judge, Mr. Renfro is busy offering you his chair—slide in. And where are
your
children? How many’ve you got and what have you done with ’em?” Miss Beulah asked, coming at Mrs. Moody’s heels.

“I was never intended to have any,” said Mrs. Moody, looking out from under the brim of her hat as she squeezed in between Aunt Miss Lexie Renfro and Aunt Birdie and sat on a hide-bottomed chair.

Miss Beulah forked two crusty wings from her platter down before her. “You-all can start at the beginning and I reckon by trying you may be able to catch up,” she said. “Yonder’s my grandmother at the head of this table, she’s ninety years old today. Try not to have her object to you. She’s getting all the excitement she
needs the way it is, and still got a while to wait to blow out her candles.”

Granny’s eyes hadn’t left her plate, but Uncle Nathan, behind her, slowly raised his arm to hail the newcomers.

“Who’s that familiar-looking old man doing the talking?” asked Mrs. Moody, and just then Brother Bethune waved his hand at her.

“And so here we all are, with very few skips and some surprises.” Brother Bethune was keeping right on, in the argumentative voice of one who habitually brings comfort to others. His words ran on over Granny’s bobbing head and down her table, over the rest of the tables and the sitters on the ground, went scaling up into the leaves, lighting on the chimney with a mockingbird, skimming down to the lemonade. Every now and then his eyes went to the cake of ice, as they might have gone to a clock-face. “They have journeyed over long distances and perilous ways to get here. Won’t it be sorrowful if they don’t all get home tonight! Let us hope they do—without losing their way or swallowing too many clouds of dust or having their horses scared out from under ’em or their buggies upsetting and falling in the river.” He spread his arms. “Or meeting with the Devil in Banner Road.”

“How long will this go on?” Mrs. Moody turned and whispered over her shoulder to Judge Moody behind her.

The school chair he sat in was crowded up against the althea bush. Mr. Renfro had hitched a keg up close to his other side, and sat just behind Judge Moody’s elbow, eating off his lap. A little black and white dog came trotting up, lay at the Judge’s feet, and began licking his shoe.

“Just eat like everybody else, Maud Eva. It can’t be helped,” he said, and set his teeth into a big chicken back.

“You let the children beat you to the finish, Brother Bethune—here’s the birthday cake coming!” Miss Beulah cried. She caught Brother Bethune by his suspenders, turned him around, and pointed for him.

Coming out of the passage and around the cactus to cross the porch, and down the steps and over the yard, winding in and out among the sitters on the ground, Miss Beulah’s and Mr. Renfro’s three girls were joined in parade. Their dresses had been starched so stiff that they kept time now with their marching legs, like a set of little snare-drums. Elvie at the rear looked almost too small to
keep up. Etoyle had splashed her face clean, and along with her shoes she had added her school-band coat, emerald green. Epaulettes the size of sunflowers crowded onto her shoulders and poked her dress out in front. The cake was carried by Ella Fay at the head of them, with twelve candles alight, their flames laid back like ears. In a hush that was almost secrecy, it was set on the table in front of Granny’s eyes. For a moment nothing broke the silence except a bird shuffling about in the althea bush like somebody looking through a bureau drawer where something had been put away.

Then Granny rose to her feet, her own crackling petticoats giving way to quiet the way kindling does when the fire catches. She stood only by her own head taller than her cake with its candles and its now erect, fierce flames. With one full blow from her blue lips, breath riding out on a seashell of pink and blue flame, Granny blew the candles out.

“She’ll get her wish!” cried a chorus of voices.

“Yes sir, Mis’ Vaughn is right remarkable,” said Brother Bethune, looking at her from the drawn-back face of caution.

Granny accepted the knife Miss Beulah offered, she placed the blade and sank it in. The cake cut like cream.

“I made it in the biggest pan I had,” said Granny. “If it don’t go round, I’ll have to stir up another one.”

While the birthday cake and its companion cakes went on their rounds, all sank back in a murmuring soft as a nest. Then suddenly Jack’s dogs tore loose from their holdings and streaked through the reunion, turning over one or two sitters on the ground, their voices pealing. Shouts and cheers rose up on the edge of the crowd, then spread, and the dogs poured up the front steps and clamored on the porch.

Jack, Gloria, and the baby burst shining out of the passage.

“They set down without us,” gasped Jack.

“I see the Moodys, first thing,” Gloria said. “Their faces stick out of the crowd at me like four-leafs in a clover patch. Now see what kind of welcome you get.”

Jack, washed and curried and with his shirt buttoned together, though it was tucked into the same ragged pants, went leaping into the reunion. Miss Beulah, with her arms open, clapped him against her.

“Son, what will you bring home to your mother next?” she cried, hugging him tight.

“Bring yourself forward, Jack! Fight your way in, and take your place at the table! Here comes the bashful boy!” roared Uncle Noah Webster, as they made a path for him to Granny. Behind him walked Gloria, gleaming and carrying Lady May, who was wide-awake with both clean little feet stuck out.

Jack bent to kiss the old lady, her mouth busy with coconut. She gave him a nod. She put out her hand and found Lady May’s little washed foot and clasped it, as if to learn who else had come. Then she let them by.

“Uncle Nathan!” Jack cried. “When I see your face, I know Jack Frost is coming not far behind! I want you to know that’s a good strong sign you planted on Banner Top.”

“What did that one say?” asked Uncle Nathan in a modest voice, but just then Lady May’s little feet, like two pistols, were stuck right in his chest, and he drew back.

Other arms reached for Jack, more hands pulled him along, and he made his way down Granny’s table kissing and being kissed by the aunts, being pounded on by the uncles, with Gloria coming along behind him with a crowing Lady May.

“Jack, you got here in time for it,” Aunt Beck told him.

“Though I don’t exactly approve of Moody being here for everything,” said Aunt Birdie.

“Never mind, Jack, we know you just can’t help it,” said Aunt Beck. “I’m not blaming you. I’m just glad to see you still alive. And ready for what’s coming.”

“We are all pleased and proud to welcome the oldest son of the house back into our midst—Jack Renfro!” Brother Bethune was calling out in competition. “He has been away and dwelling among strangers for the best part of two years! Though Jack has been away from our beck and call, we are sure without needing to be told that he’s back here today the same as he ever was, and will be just as good a boy after getting home as he was before he went. Jack is just a good Renfro boy of the Banner community that we have all knowed since birth. Ain’t that right, precious friends?”

Some shouts of approval could be heard through the noise, and Brother Bethune continued in rising shouts of his own. “Jack was getting to be one of the best-known farmers of this end of the ridge! He raised all his folks’ cotton and corn, sorghum, hay and peas, peanuts, potatoes, and watermelons! And all needing him as bad as I ever saw crop needing man! He’d grind him his cane at the
right time and sell his syrup to the public!” As Jack made his way down the table, Brother Bethune’s tongue got faster and faster. “Cuts him and sells him his wood in winter, and all of it goes to Curly Stovall—the Renfros don’t even get the sawdust! Ha! Ha! Ha! Slops him a pig or two! Concerned in raising him a herd of milkers! And his daddy’s still got two left for him to start over with! Best of all, he helps his father and mother by living with ’em! And now! Now that he’s come through all his trials and troubles unscathed and is about to take up where he left off and get everybody back to as good as before—all right, then! Today, the one that gets the baby-kiss for coming the farthest is—Jack Renfro! How do you like that for a change, Brother Nathan? All right, Jack!” shouted Brother Bethune, though he could scarcely have been heard by now over the other shouts, the teasing, and the dog-barking. “You wasn’t a lick too soon!”

A baby, like something coming on wings, was shoved into Jack’s face. It was still Lady May, in Aunt Nanny’s hands.

“Haul yourself off the sugar barrel, Noah Webster—that’s Jack’s,” said Miss Beulah, and he had to bring up a stepladder for himself and wedge it in on the other side of Aunt Cleo, almost in Miss Lexie Renfro’s lap. Miss Beulah pushed Jack onto the barrel there at the foot of the table, where he and Granny could face each other, and cried, “Now, start catching up!” as she turned a dozen pieces of chicken onto a platter in front of him. “All right, Gloria,” she said. “Now you. I saved you the baby-rocker.”

Gloria lowered herself and slid in. The rocker, there below Jack’s barrel, was slick as a butter paddle and so low to the ground that her chin was barely on a level with the edge of her plate. The baby sat on her lap; only her little cockscomb could have been visible to those up and down the table.

“Did Brother Bethune forgive Jack? Or not?” Aunt Birdie was asking the other aunts.