Losing Battles (59 page)

“Paying for yesterday,” said Miss Lexie.

“Rewarding herself! Getting a good start on ninety-one!” Miss Beulah corrected her.

“I got my own pants back,” said Jack, coming in. Yesterday’s shirt was tucked inside, with the starch gone but with most of the dust cracked out of it. He was steering Gloria to the table. A sober-looking Lady May trotted at their heels.

“Jack Renfro, look at you! What’s the matter with your blessed eye!” Miss Beulah shrieked.

“Mama, it’s just something that happened to it down in the road—away back yesterday, as long ago as before dinner. I can still see out of the other one.”

“That’s the one to mind out for this morning, when you rush back in,” she said, helping his plate from the hot skillet.

Lady May stood up to the table, not tall enough to see, but she could reach plates.

“Where’s Judge and Mrs. Judge? Still enjoying the company bed?” asked Jack.

“Why, Vaughn’s gone in the wagon to carry ’em to Banner Top,” said Miss Beulah. “You never saw two people in so great a
hurry. You’d think, after being forgiven in front of a hundred, after eating the most chicken, sleeping all night in the weightiest featherbed in my house—you’d think they’d feel beholden enough, those blessed Moodys, to eat as hearty a breakfast as they could swallow? Not on your life. I fried up every morsel I had left over to spread company breakfast, and they didn’t deign. They left it for you.”

Ella Fay laughed. She was all excitement and clattering feet this morning. “You ought to have seen Judge Moody hop right over your nose, Jack!”

“I didn’t hear him go hop,” said Jack, softly into Gloria’s ear. It was brightly exposed. This morning her load of hair, straight as a poker, was carried all on top of her head, close-packed as a fine loaf.

“You was dreaming! Till I took pity on you and shook water on both your faces,” said Miss Beulah, nodding to their faces, held cheek-together. “But Vaughn had to hitch the wagon and trot ’em there, they wouldn’t wait.”

“Why, there’s still plenty of time. Both me and Curly got to milk,” said Jack. “What drove ’em?”

“It’s raining, son,” said Mr. Renfro. “Getting pretty slick up there.”

“And is that the whole story?” Miss Beulah cried at him.

“Your own daddy’s another one that didn’t wait on you, Jack,” said Miss Lexie.

Miss Beulah put the biscuit pan in Mr. Renfro’s face. “All those poor souls down in Banner Cemetery must’ve thought it was Judgment Day last night. Bang! Right over their heads. I bet you succeeded in waking your own father—for long enough to disappoint him, anyway.”

“It would have taken a better job than that to wake Grandpa Vaughn,” Miss Lexie retorted. “If he was as wedded as Papa to the Sounding of the Trumpet, he was a lot more of the disposition to sleep through it. Bang, bang, bang, indeed I heard it.”

Jack said, with his cheek against Gloria’s, “I don’t remember the least bang.”

“Well, it wasn’t the bang I wanted,” said Mr. Renfro. “I forgot to cap my fuse. And right to this minute, I can’t think of a good reason for it.”

“Papa,” cried Jack, “what’s this story you’re telling me, sir?”

“Though for one thing, my fuse was a little dried, a little
caked—at the time I played it out, I was critical of it,” Mr. Renfro went on. “Results was a little beneath what I’d term my standard.”

“Who told you to try it at all?” Miss Beulah cried.

“I did nick the old cedar to a certain extent, son,” said Mr. Renfro. “You ought to find when you get there I made it a little bit easier for you to start out this morning.”

“
Sir?
” cried Jack.

“You’d
better
start worrying. Didn’t you
hear
your daddy setting off that blast in the night?” cried Miss Beulah. “What’s getting wrong with your ears, now?”

“I reckon that’s about when I dreamed I was behind the wheel of my truck,” Jack said. “Aycock didn’t show too strong an objection?”

“He was enough trouble just being there,” said Mr. Renfro. “I don’t harm a neighbor, you know. I’ve learned by my time of life you’ve got to go a little slower than you would be inclined, because wherever you put your foot down there’s a fool like Aycock that don’t know enough not to keep out of your way.”

Vaughn whirled in on them, raindrops flying. “The car’s still there and Banner Top’s still there, but their looks are ruined. You can’t see the worst till it gets good day,” he cried. He was back in his knee pants.

“I didn’t even rise up when it started to raining,” said Jack to Gloria.

“You missed the racket on the new roof?” cried Vaughn. “I give up.”

“Well, don’t sit down—you haven’t got time to eat breakfast, Vaughn Renfro. Scoot! Up, the rest of you children! You’ve got your chores to finish and then school to track for, and Vaughn’s got the teacher to tell he’s misput the bus. There’s only one new pair of shoes to be ruined, there’s a mercy.”

“Think how many’s waiting on that bus to come along and pick ’em up this first morning. Well, they’ll give up, sooner or later, and walk to school like I did,” said Miss Lexie. “Do ’em that much more good.”

“Vaughn’ll catch a whipping at the door. I’ll give him one myself when he gets back this evening, with a little extra for the hay he’s lost his daddy,” said Miss Beulah.

“If everybody hadn’t wanted the gathering and all to wait on Jack!” Vaughn cried. “I could have had the hay saved!”

“It was what you felt called on to cut and leave laying in the field, Contrary, that’s out yonder to spoil now,” said Miss Beulah. “Yes sir, school is right where you’re going. Put down that chicken bone.”

Ella Fay jumped up clattering, Etoyle and Elvie moved morosely to follow, and they all went around the table telling Uncle Nathan and Miss Lexie good-bye.

“Me and Etoyle wanted to go help Jack,” said Elvie.

“A fine way to get to be a teacher!” said Miss Beulah.

“Oh, yes, they’d like all life to be one grand reunion and never stop,” said Miss Lexie. “I’m glad it’s over. Taking it all in all, Beulah, I consider yesterday came just about up to scratch. It compares with the others. I was only afraid your little old granny might wonder where we got those Moodys. But she didn’t.”

“She took them in her stride, along with you and the rest of it,” said Miss Beulah. “And if you’re going to take any of my dewberry jelly, take it! If not, put back the spoon.”

“The reunion didn’t come up to
my
idea,” said Ella Fay. She tarried in the kitchen door in Gloria’s old teaching dress—the blue sailor with the flossy white stars on the collar and the skirt with the kick-pleats in it. “Curly Stovall was left out of the invitations, that’s why!”

Miss Beulah ran and caught up with her in the passage. “All right, New Shoes! I’m fixing to smack you hard right across those pones of yours, where you need it most,” she cried. “And for the rest of your punishment, you’re to come straight home from school today and tell me something you’ve learned.”

“Feed the stock. Lead the cows to pasture, Vaughn,” said Mr. Renfro. “You heard your mother. The reunion is over with.”

“I ain’t done anything,” said Vaughn.

“Then keep still,” said Uncle Nathan. He pointed a loaded fork at Vaughn. He ate something out of his pack for breakfast, with a little home syrup poured over it.

“Everybody is liable to get a surprise yet,” said Vaughn, as he struck off for the barn.

“Uncle Nathan, you ain’t leaving?” cried Jack, when a moment later Uncle Nathan began handing around tracts out of his pack—the one about the crazy drunkard that he carried the most of. “Are you trying to tell us you won’t stay for hog-killing time like you always do?”

“I must needs be on my way,” said Uncle Nathan. His patched sleeve still smelled of coal-oil and a little scorching from last night.

“Nathan, have you even set long enough under my roof to dry out a little?” cried Miss Beulah. “Let me feel your thatch.”

“Sister, I must needs not stop to take comfort.”

“You won’t even stop in Banner to help bury Miss Julia Mortimer?”

He shook his wet locks. “If the Lord has left me to outlast her, He must want me to go my road further than I ever gone it before,” he told her, and hoisted his pack.

“Then put a kiss on Granny’s cheek without waking her up,” she told him.

“Good-bye, good-bye, Uncle Nathan!” yelled the three girls’ voices from the barn lot, when Uncle Nathan’s footsteps were heard measuring their way through the mud. “See you next reunion!”

“There’s a chink of light out yonder now,” said Mr. Renfro.

“They can’t start till I get there!” Jack cried, jumping up. He laid a restraining hand on Gloria’s shoulder. “Honey, I wouldn’t have you get your little feet wet. Don’t you come traipsing after me. It won’t take long at Banner Top—it can’t!” He kissed the baby, who was holding a little ham bone in her lips like a penny whistle, kissed everybody, ran up the passage, shouted, “Milk for me, Vaughn!,” gave a warbling whistle, and ran splashing off with the dogs. They heard Bet thudding away with him.

Miss Beulah took off her apron.

“Now, Mother, are you ready to set down for the first time?” asked Mr. Renfro.

She cried loudly, “Set down? I’m going to Banner Top! Why, you couldn’t hold me! Stovall and Moody are about to come to grips with their two machines! If my boy’s ready to turn in the performance I think he is, it’s a mother’s place to be there and see it done right!”

“It’s raining like it almost means it,” said Mr. Renfro.

“I’m neither sugar nor salt, I won’t melt. And morning rain’s like an old man’s dance, not long to last,” Miss Beulah recited. “What I’m asking is, is anybody at this table coming with me?”

“Don’t believe I’ll venture from the house,” said Mr. Renfro in mild tones. “If you ladies will excuse me.”

“He’s got that old dynamite headache,” said Miss Beulah. “I’ll only say it one more time, Mr. Renfro, and I’m through: from
now on, you let other folks go out in the night and blow things to pieces, and you stay home. There’s too much of the Old Boy in you yet.”

“He’ll shortly blow up something else. He won’t learn, he’s a man,” said Miss Lexie.

“Yes sir, your touch is pure destruction!” Miss Beulah told him and ran to her kitchen. “I’ll consider you were drunk on lemonade,” she said when she marched back, Mr. Renfro’s hat on her head.

“I really ought not to keep Mr. Hugg waiting,” Miss Lexie said. “Especially when I’m coming to be his surprise. Jack may have to do without me watching him.”

“I’m not going to beg you, Lexie Renfro,” said Miss Beulah. “You can take your stand at our mailbox and get carried off either of two directions. Elmo Broadwee can carry you on his route and when he gets to Mr. Hugg’s he can set you down with his nickel’s worth of ice. Or you can change your mind and go the other way with the mail rider. Then you could get put down at that funeral. Couldn’t she, Gloria?”

“If she’s ready for it. And not scared of Miss Julia any longer,” Gloria said, standing up in her church dress of deep blue dotted swiss with white piqué collar and cuffs.

“Still, I missed everything yesterday,” argued Miss Lexie, rising too, and shaking crumbs on the floor for someone else to sweep up.

“Nobody’s compelled to watch my boy’s performance that don’t want to,” said Miss Beulah.

“Ask ’em who’s going to stay home with me,” said Mr. Renfro to Lady May, and Gloria handed her over. Lady May went to him as good as gold and gave him her tract, too.

On the ridge of the new roof the mockingbird sat silent, all chest, like a zinc bucket filled to the top, all song contained. What looked at first glance like a herd of strange cows come up into the yard overnight were only the tables of yesterday, stripped and naked, gleaming like hides in their sheen of rain. It was a tobacco tin in the weeds that shone like a ruby; what crouched like a possum under the althea was somebody’s lost apron. A peashooter dangled from its sling down the back of the school chair. The night-blooming cereus flowers looked like wrung chickens’ necks.
Miss Lexie, coming out onto the porch wearing a pillowcase over her hat, pointed them out.

Miss Beulah came pulling the old wool brim down squarely over her forehead and said, “Gloria Renfro, is all that hair you’ve got going to be enough to keep you dry?”

Gloria popped a blue straw sailor onto her head and snapped the elastic under her chin. “No ma’am, I’ve still got the same hat I came here in.”

There was a sudden fusillade of sounds at their backs. Vaughn was feeding the pig. They had only to turn their heads to see all the refuse of yesterday, corncobs, eggshells, chicken bones, chicken trimmings, chicken heads, and the fish heads, all jumping together in the blue wash of clabber, all going down. Rusty looked back at them, with tiny eyes. He had the old, mufflered face of winter this morning and fed sobbing with greed, champing against blasts he was never going to feel.

“That reminds me, I’ve thought of a very good way to fix Mr. Hugg, when I get back to him in a little while,” Miss Lexie said, hooking arms with the other two ladies on the slippery yard. “It’s to give him every single thing he wants. Everything Mr. Hugg asks for—give it to him.” She glared.

“All right, Lexie, go ahead,” said Miss Beulah. “Just so it don’t mean you cart him here to me.”

“He’ll get the surprise of his life, won’t he?”

“Now Vaughn!” Miss Beulah was calling over her shoulder. “After he’s gobbled that, turn the old sinner loose again. There’s still plenty he can root out, not very far away. But he did look sassy tied up there for the reunion!”