Losing Battles (56 page)

“Now you’re paying for it,” said Aunt Birdie.

“She tried. But she just couldn’t lure me inside the school-house,” Brother Bethune went on. “I went right along with my daddy where he’s going and helped him preach. Sung the duets with him, standing on a chair. It was an outdoor life, and I don’t see nothing wrong with it
yet.”

“All right. You gave us as good today as you knew how,” Miss Beulah cried at him. “You can go if you want to.”

“And I’ll tell you what you can give me for coming. The surprise of a nice nanny goat tied to my front porch one moonlight night,” Brother Bethune replied.

“Granny, when it comes around to your next birthday, do you want to invite Brother Bethune and give him another chance?” asked Miss Beulah.

“See him in Tophet first,” said Granny.

“Granny’s going to be my next girl,” said Mr. Willy. “I lost me one girl this morning, but I believe I already found me another’n.”

“Willy Trimble, if you come a step closer—!” cried Miss Beulah. “Didn’t you feel your foot stepped on in ‘Blest Be the Tie’?”

“And take that jade of yours off somewhere and leave her,” Granny told him in dismissal. “She’s been cropping my flowers.”

Brother Bethune elected to keep Mr. Willy Trimble company. They rode off together with the gun pointing up like a mast on the wagon seat between them.

“And where do you think
you’re
going?” Granny asked inside a circle of her grandsons. They bent above her, squatted before her, patted her knee, took her by the hand, tried to kiss her face.

“Are you trying to tell me you’re leaving me too?” she asked.

“Granny, there’s stock at home waiting to be fed, and bawling, no doubt,” Uncle Curtis said gently.

“Then what are you running off for?” asked the old lady.

The great-grandchildren were already loading up the wagons and finally mended cars. “Love you a bushel and a peck, Granny. Many happy returns!” One by one her great-grandchildren began putting kisses on Granny’s face. They walked off from her carrying their own children stretched out in their arms, or hauled up over their shoulders, arms and legs dangling, little girls’ hair streaming silver. Children that had barely waked up carried children still asleep. The whistled-up dogs flowed at their heels.

“Who’re you trying to get away from?” asked Granny. “Come back here.”

“Go if you must, but you can’t get away without these!” Miss Beulah shrieked.

At some moment during the day she had found time to run out and cut the remainder of her own flowers against their departure. She was ready to load everybody home. Here was the duplication of what they’d come bringing here—milk-and-wine lilies, zinnias, phlox, tuberoses.

“Who’s running off with my posies?” asked Granny.

Now the uncles were shaking hands with each other and with Mr. Renfro, then Jack.

“Well, we brought you, Jack. We brought you back home,” said Uncle Curtis.

“And my wife and I are much obliged to one and all,” said Jack.

“I should say on the whole, Jack, we let you back in the ranks of the family pretty easy today. Didn’t make it too hard on you,” said Uncle Dolphus.

“If only he didn’t have in-the-morning to go through with!” cried Aunt Birdie.

“He’s young!” said Aunt Beck.

“Stay,” Granny said.

“And little-old Gloria! We made you really and truly one of us today,” said Aunt Birdie, kissing her good-bye. “You can always be grateful, and show it as well as you can.”

“You’re one of the family now, Gloria, tried and true. Do you know what that means? Never mind! You’re just an old married woman, same as the rest of us now. So you don’t have to answer to the outside any longer,” Aunt Beck said, putting an arm around her.

“Just put that dress away more careful when you take it off tonight. They can bury you in it, child,” said Aunt Birdie. “Put yours away like I did.”

“If it’d been my dress, it’d stayed deep down in its trunk today! If I’d get my wedding dress out and try wearing it again in front of this crowd, I’d expect you all to fall into a hard fit of laughing,” said Miss Beulah, trying to persuade Aunt Nanny down the steps.

“I’ll tell you something,” said Aunt Nanny with what looked like pride. “If my wedding dress could talk, I’d burn it.”

“Reckon Lady May’s got just one little word? One little word to say about it all before we go?” Aunt Birdie cried into the oblivious face.

“Nothing ever wakes her but the sun coming up and feeling the fresh pangs of hunger,” said Gloria.

“I never said I wanted you to go,” Granny said.

“Here’s one that’s staying till tomorrow,” said Miss Lexie, “Because I want to see the behavior. I’d like to see ’em finish what they started today.”

“And because starting with tonight you got nowhere to go,” said Miss Beulah. “Unless you happen to worship sleeping between Ella Fay and Etoyle.”

Miss Beulah stood accepting their thanks. “Fay, I was crazy about you at one time,” she told her. “Because you weren’t Lexie. And look what’s happened to you. You’re Homer’s wife.” They put their tired arms around each other.

“Miss, you must wear stockings on your arms when you work in the field,” said Aunt Cleo, pinching Ella Fay’s shoulder. “Or they’d never be white in the moonlight like that.”

“That’s one secret you guessed, Aunt Cleo,” said Etoyle.

“How old is Ella Fay getting to be?”

“She’ll be seventeen on Groundhog Day next year,” said Miss Beulah.

“Why’s she hanging back?”

“Now from what? I thought you were on your way!” cried Miss Beulah.

“Sister Beulah, let me inquire, have you ever been into the deep subject with Ella Fay?” Aunt Cleo kept on.

“Listen, will you tell us good-bye and crank up?”

“Truly I mean it. You’ve got a growing girl on your hands.”

“I’d as soon start worrying over Vaughn!” said Miss Beulah violently.

“Her
feet
are growing,” said Mr. Renfro.

“My mama never went into the deep subject with me. And you know what? I’ve always felt a little sorry for myself,” remarked Auntie Fay, waiting now up inside the chicken van.

“But I haven’t been told what the commotion is all about,” said Granny. “What the headlong rush is for.”

“Bless your heart, Granny Vaughn! Good-bye, good-bye, Jack! Brought you home by all of us working together, didn’t we? Goodbye, Beulah, sweet dreams, Mr. Renfro. Ain’t you growing faster than ever, Ella Fay?” Uncle Homer was hugging the Renfro girls. “I swear, Ella Fay, I wouldn’t be surprised if we couldn’t find a way when Tuesday dawns to let you vote.”

“Hush up! She don’t even want to,” said Miss Beulah. “My children have learned to wait for everything till it’s the right time for them to have it. Wish somebody’d taken the time and trouble to teach a few of their elders that lesson.”

“Jack’ll go on working the rest of his life to pay for that roof,” said Uncle Noah Webster with a mighty slap of congratulation on Mr. Renfro’s back. “You’ve got an acre of tin up there. It’ll take it all the rest of the night to cool off.” He gave Jack a fierce smile and wrung his hand as if he couldn’t stop. Then he smacked Gloria’s cheek with a last big kiss that smelled of watermelon. “Gloria, this has been a story on us all that never will be allowed to be forgotten,” he said. “Long after you’re an old lady without much further stretch to go, sitting back in the same rocking chair Granny’s got her little self in now, you’ll be hearing it told to Lady May and all her hovering brood. How we brought Jack Renfro back safe from the pen! How you contrived to send a court judge up Banner Top and caused him to sit at our table and pass a night with the family, wife along with him. The story of Jack making it home through thick and thin and into Granny’s arms for “her biggest and last celebration—for so I have a notion it is. Eh, Nathan?” He raised his arm high to salute the oldest brother. “I call this a reunion to remember, all!” he called through the clamoring goodnights. “Do you hear me, blessed sweethearts?” He swung over to Granny’s chair and folded his arms around her, not letting her go, begging for a kiss, not getting it.

“Benedict Arnold,” she whispered. Then as Aunt Cleo came to pull him away, Granny spoke to her too, and said, “But I’ll give you a pretty not to take him.”

“Remember, there’s a South Mississippi too!” Uncle Noah Webster called when they were both up inside the cranked car. “It
ain’t all that far on a pretty day!” He leaned out and looked back at them while he drove away. They could see the gleam of his homesick smile beneath the crossed-pistols mustache.

“Now we know that nothing in the world can change Noah Webster,” said Miss Beulah. “Even the one he’s picked.”

“Oh, Grandpa Vaughn, if only you’d lived to see!” Aunt Birdie said, hugging Jack. “Jack, listen, when you went to the pen, it’s just about what carried Grandpa off, precious!”

“Mr. Vaughn never knows when it’s bedtime. Have to go out there with a lantern and prod him again,” Granny said.

“Listen. Thunder,” said Aunt Beck. “Did I hear distant thunder?”

“I don’t believe it,” said Uncle Dolphus bluntly. “By now I’m not ready to be fooled by any more of folks’ imagination. It ain’t ever going to rain.” He shook hands with Mr. Renfro. “But your hay’s just aching to be cut. You’re about to realize you one crop in spite of yourself, Mr. Renfro.” The horn of the pickup was bleating out there; all the children were packed back inside. He hugged Miss Beulah and bent to say goodnight to his grandmother.

“Now I once thought I had a
big
family,” said Granny. “What’s happening to ’em?”

“Come see us!” came calls as the pickup started off on its freshly patched tire to Harmony. “Come before Old Man Winter’s broke loose and we all have to try to keep from going out of sight in mud!”

“Shame on ye.
Shame
on ye,” said Granny, as their dust began to rise.

“I’ve still got a craving under my breastbone for a little more of that chicken pie, Beck,” Aunt Nanny said as they parted.

“You’ll have to wait for next year.”

“Then good-bye, good-bye! Good-bye, Jack boy—kiss that baby for me. Good-bye, Beulah, and sweet dreams, Judge Moody in there! I’m too tired out from laughing to climb up in my car and go home. Help me, Jack,” Aunt Nanny gasped.

“All I need to do is start,” said Uncle Percy, holding up his new twelve-link chain he’d whittled. Then in their cloud of ghostly dust they were gone.

“Remember to look on Banner Top when you get to the road!” called Etoyle, running after them, waving. “If you want to see what’ll keep you laughing all the way to Peerless!”

“Granny will be all right in the morning,” said Aunt Beck, putting her arms around Miss Beulah. “When she thinks back on today she’ll wish she could have it to live all over again.” She smiled on Gloria. “And you don’t want to be another one any longer, not another schoolteacher, do you, Gloria? And change the world?”

“No ma’am, just my husband. I still believe I can do it, if I live long enough,” Gloria said.

Uncle Curtis hugged Granny without words. She kissed him—then saw him leave her anyway.

“I don’t know who I’ve thought about more times today than I have Grandpa. Blessed Grandpa!” said Aunt Beck, softly patting Granny’s cheek, then tiptoeing away.

“Don’t listen to him,” said Granny. “Listen to me.”

She watched the old Chevrolet hauler, loaded with so many people that it was almost dragging the ground, go down into the dust, the last one.

“Parcel of thieves! They’d take your last row of pins. They’d steal your life, if they knew how,” Granny said.

“Granny, don’t you know who dearly loves you?” Miss Beulah asked, clasping her. “Don’t you remember the hundred that’s been with you all day? Giving you pretties, striving to please you—”

“Thieves all,” said Granny.

Uncle Nathan kissed Granny on the forehead, the little vein throbbing there. He was to sleep outdoors under his tent. He declared he preferred it.

“But I don’t want to lose ye,” said Granny after him into the night.

After Uncle Nathan had gone, only Miss Lexie was left of all the day’s company.

“Would you stay with me, please?” Granny asked Miss Lexie. “My children have deserted me,”

But Miss Lexie seemed not to hear, staring at the old cactus where another and still another bloom drifted white upon the dark. “Yes, and those’ll look like wrung chickens’ necks in the morning,” she said. “No thank you.” She went inside.

“Now, many happy returns of the day, Granny Vaughn,” said Mr. Renfro, bending to her cheek, but she only let his kiss touch her little withering ear.

“Suppose something had happened to me while you gapped,” she said, and he bowed his way inside.

When nothing of them was left out there but their dust behind them, Granny still summoned them. “Thieves, murderers, come back,” she begged. “Don’t leave me!” Her voice cracked.

Jack knelt at the foot of the rocker and looked up at her face. Presently her head was brought down. Then she saw he was there. For a little while she gazed at him.

“They told me,” she said, her voice barely strong enough to reach him, “you’d gone a long time ago. Clean away. But I didn’t believe their words. I sat here like you see me—I waited. A whole day is a long wait. You’ve found Granny just where you left her. You sneaked back when nobody’s looking, forged your way around ’em. That’s a good boy.”

Jack held still under her eyes. Nobody made a sound except Lady May in her mother’s arms, who sent up a short murmur out of her dream.

Granny lifted both her little trembling hands out of her lap and took something out of her bosom. She held it before her, cupped in her hands, then carried it toward him. Her face was filled with intent that puckered it like grief, but her moving hands denied grief. Then, in the act of bending toward him, she forgot it all. Her hands broke apart to struggle toward his face, to take and hold his face there in front of her. It was the little silver snuffbox that Captain Jordan in his lifetime had come by, that had been Granny’s to keep for as long as anybody could remember, that rolled across the floor and down into the folds of the cannas.

Jack let her trembling fingers make sure they’d found him, move over his forehead, down his nose, across his lips, up his cheek, along the ridge of his brow, let them trace every hill and valley, let them wander. He still had not blinked once when her fingers seemed to forget the round boundaries belonging to flesh and stretched over empty air.