Losing Battles (9 page)

“Learn to wait,” said Gloria, pulling both baby hands down.

So the baby sat still, her lashes stiff as bird-tails; she might have been listening for her name.

“Honey, where did Banner School ever get you from?” asked Aunt Beck, leaning forward. “Has this reunion ever asked you and ever got a full reply?”

“Miss Julia Mortimer was training me to step into her shoes,” said Gloria.

“Whose shoes?” asked Aunt Cleo, and everybody groaned.

“The oldest teacher that’s living. She was giving me my start,” said Gloria.

“You meant to teach more than the single year?” exclaimed Aunt Birdie. “Never dreamed!”

“When I came, I could see my life unwinding ahead of me smooth as a ribbon,” said Gloria.

“Uh-oh!” said Aunt Cleo.

“All I had left to do was teach myself through enough more summer normals to add up to three years, and I could step right into Miss Julia’s shoes. And hold down Banner School forever-more.”

“But then she just happened to run into Jack,” said Aunt Nanny, with a strong pinch for Gloria’s arm.

“So I wonder what was everybody’s first words to Jack when he says he wants to marry his teacher?” asked Aunt Cleo.

Miss Beulah called, “I told him, ‘Jack, there’s just one thing you need for that that you’re lacking. And that’s the ring. Remember the gold ring Granny was keeping in the Bible? She might have spared it to a favorite like you, at a time like this, and where did it go?’ ”

“I reckon his mother had him there,” said Aunt Birdie.

“No she didn’t. Jack said, ‘Mama, I’m going to afford my bride her own ring, like she wants, and all I need is a little time.’ Time! He thought he had all the time he was going to need. You had to feel sorry for the child. Sorry for both of ’em.”

“Well, I see you got you one anyway,” Aunt Cleo said to Gloria. “What’d you have to do? Steal it?” She laughed, showing her tongue.

“Mind out, Sister Cleo, Gloria don’t like to tell her business,” Miss Beulah called, while Gloria laid her cheek to the baby’s. Lady May’s fast hands pulled the mother’s hairpins out, and the curls rolled forward over them both.

“Gloria taught Banner School a whole year long for that little ring, that’s what I think,” said Aunt Birdie, giggling.

“A teacher always gets a warrant she can trade with,” said Miss Lexie. “It means the same as a salary. And it just depends on the teacher—what she decides to use it for, if and when and how soon. If she don’t starve in the meantime.”

“If you used up your warrant for your ring, what’d you have left over for that wedding dress?” asked Aunt Cleo. “I only ask because I’m curious.”

“It’s homemade.”

“You just can’t see how much sewing there is to it, because of all that baby in her lap,” Aunt Nanny said.

“Just a minute! If it tore!” Gloria cautioned two little girls who had come up from either side to stare and were now holding her sleeves and the hem of her skirt between their fingers. “I rather
you stood back a distance.” Her short puff sleeves were ironed flat into peaks stuck flat together and canvas-stiff, almost as if they were intended to be little wings.

“Full, full skirt and deep, deep hem,” said Ella Fay, bumping through them on her way into the house now. “Organdy and insertion, flower-petal sleeves, and a ribbon-rose over the stomach above the sash. That’s the kind of wedding dress
I
want.”

“You could almost wear hers. I can see now there’s a lots of material going to waste in that,” said Aunt Cleo. “Despite that baby taking up the most of her lap.” She laughed. “So you was here, ready, and waiting all this time?” she asked Gloria. “Well, where’d you hold the wedding? Your church right on the road? Or do you all worship off in the woods somewhere?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t see Banner flying by on your way here, Sister Cleo,” said Uncle Curtis. “Didn’t Noah Webster show you which church was ours?”

“I keep my eyes on the driver,” she said.

“Listen, Grandpa Vaughn downed enough trees himself to raise Damascus Church. Hewed them pews out of solid cedar, and the pulpit is all one tree. And in case you’re about to tell us you still don’t remember it, you might remember the cemetery on beyond—it’s bigger than Foxtown’s got to this day.”

“How many came to the wedding? Church fill up to the back?”

“Stand up now and count!” Miss Beulah cried, clattering some pans together. “And you can add on the ones still to come today—Nathan, bless his heart, Fay and Homer Champion, Brother Bethune—”

“And Jack!” they cried.

“I’d call it a fair crowd,” said Uncle Curtis. “I seen Aycock Comfort propped in a window—that’s what room we had left for a Methodist.”

“Blessed Grandpa joined those two blushing children for life in Damascus Church on a Sunday evening in spring,” said Aunt Birdie. “If I forget everything else alive, I’ll remember that wedding, for the way I cried.”

“Oh, Grandpa Vaughn out-delivered himself! Already the strictest marrier that ever lived—and the prayer he made
alone
was the fullest you ever heard. The advice he handed down by
itself
was a mile long!” cried Uncle Noah Webster. “It would have wilted down any bride and groom but the most sturdy.”

“And Curly Stovall come down the aisle and clapped his hand on Jack’s shoulder in the middle of it, I’ve already guessed,” said Aunt Cleo.

“Sister Cleo! Curly Stovall would not dare, would not dare to walk in Damascus Church with Grandpa Vaughn standing up in his long beard and looking at him over the Bible!” Aunt Birdie cried. “And Curly ain’t even a Baptist.”

“Not even for the scene it’d make?” she asked them.

Miss Beulah marched in on her. “I just came to be told the name of the church
you
go to,” she said.

“Defeated Creek Church of the Assembly of God. One mile south of Piney.”

“Never heard of a single piece of it.” She about-faced and marched out again.

“It’s after we’re back at the house here, Sister Cleo, cooling off with Beulah’s lemonade, and seeing the sun go down, that old Curly sneaks up the road on Jack for the second time. Says Curly, ‘Eight o’clock in the morning by the strike of the courthouse clock, they’ll be calling your name in Ludlow!’ And just to be sure Jack will answer, he gets him thrown in the Ludlow jail on his wedding night!” said Uncle Noah Webster. “And don’t you know Curly enjoyed doing it?”

“Suppose
you’d
put up the bail!” Aunt Cleo said. “But what about Grandpa Vaughn—wasn’t he still awake, to scare off all comers?”

“Grandpa wasn’t going to stand in the way of justice, Sister Cleo. Only unless Curly had tried that in church, before Grandpa had married ’em.
Then
Curly’d seen what he got out of Grandpa.”

“Or even what he got out of Jack,” said gentle Aunt Beck.

“I still hold Jack Renfro wasn’t
born
that easy to take by surprise,” said Aunt Birdie in loyal tones.

“His wedding night may have been the prime occasion they could risk it,” Uncle Curtis said.

“Who’d Curly bring along to partner him this time?” Aunt Cleo asked. “He still playing with Homer Champion?”

“Oh no, he’s already declared for office against Homer!” cried Uncle Noah Webster. “Old Curly’s brought Charlie Roy Hugg, the one that’s got the Ludlow jail.”

“What’s
his
style?”

“Drunk and two pistols. Makes his wife answer the phone.”

“We got his twin in Piney.”

“Sister Cleo, this entire family had to sit where we’re all sitting now and see Jack Jordan Renfro carried limp as a sack of meal right off this porch and down those steps on his wedding night. He’s open-mouthed.”

“Just the caps of his toes dragging,” said Etoyle, smiling.

“Curly had to hold up his other arm. And partly hold up Charlie Roy Hugg before they all got on and fired off. And at Banner Store there sits Aycock on the bench like he’s waiting for a ride. Charlie Roy stops and Curly hops out of the sidecar and they fold Aycock in. Charlie Roy carried those boys away to Ludlow in a weaving motorcycle—too drunk to drive anything better.”

“If Charlie Roy Hugg hadn’t been kin to Aycock’s mother, and hadn’t had an old daddy living in Banner, I believe Jack might have come to and tended to him before they got to Ludlow, right from where he’s holding on behind him,” said Uncle Curtis.

“He may have had the most he could do just keeping Charlie Roy awake. I believe Aycock went to sleep on both of ’em in the sidecar. Twenty-one miles is a heap of distance after the sun goes down,” said Uncle Percy, whispering. “And with all the creeks up. And Mrs. Hugg give ’em a room in the jail and no pie at all with their supper.”

“That wasn’t any kind of a way to treat one of mine,” Granny said. “No, it wasn’t. Tell ’em I said so. I’m in a hurry for him back.”

“We told ’em. Maybe they’ve already sent him. Maybe he’s here in this crowd now, and you just can’t see him,” teased Aunt Cleo.

“Hush up, Sister Cleo! None of that! Take your nursing tricks away from here!” cried Miss Beulah.

Uncle Noah Webster leaned away out from his chair and caught a baseball flying in from the pasture. Prancing down the steps, he wound up and threw it back into the game. “So the next thing we knew,” he cried, coming back, straddling the chair as he sat down again, “there we all was at the trial. Cleo, I wish it had been your privilege to be with us our day in court.”

“Even if I’d known it was going on and got a free ride to
Ludlow, my first husband wouldn’t have let me sit with you all: he was still living,” said Aunt Cleo.

“Excuse me,” said Uncle Noah Webster.

“Though I love a good trial as well as the next fellow,” she said.

“We’d had to squeeze to make room for one more, down front where we was all sitting. Grandpa was holding down one end of our pew, just a little bit more bent over on his cane than before, and Beulah held down the other end, with the rest of us in between. It’s a wonder everybody could get there! It wasn’t like it was any other time of year. It was spring! The whole world was popping, needing man. Oh, it needed Jack bad! And the wedding and the trial, that made two days in a row. But everybody was there, all but Nathan—he was out of reach. The majority of Banner community was there, right behind us. Harmony had another record attendance, to make Dolphus and Birdie feel real good, and Morning Star to a man was packed in behind Curtis and Beck, and I think Percy and Nanny drew at least their side of Panther Creek. Even a few Ludlow folks was there, with nothing better to do, I reckon, than come to get a peep at a bunch of country monkeys.” Uncle Noah Webster smiled at them tenderly.

Uncle Percy downed a gourdful of water and shook his head. “From the opening tune he give on the gavel,” he said, “I commenced praying that Judge Moody might drop dead before the trial was over and the whole thing be called off out of respect. Can happen! I never witnessed it myself, but there’s such a thing in the memory of Brother Bethune—he’s there telling it while Judge Moody’s bringing us to order.

“ ‘You’re pleading innocent, I suppose,’ says he to Jack.

“ ‘Yes sir, I’m needed,’ says Jack.

“Judge Moody calls, ‘Hush that crying! Or I’ll send the whole crowd out and order the doors shut. This is a courtroom.’ That’ll give you some idea. ‘Call Marshal E. P. Stovall,’ he says.”

“Who in the world was that?” asked Aunt Cleo.

“That’s Curly. His mama named him Excell Prentiss. In he comes, parading that coffin behind him. Mr. Willy Trimble’s holding up the foot,” said Uncle Curtis.

“Wearing his Sunday harness, sporting a tie,” said Aunt Nanny. “Red tie. You could have packed Curly back in that coffin and sent him straight to meet his Maker without a thing more needed.”

“And Mr. Willy was saying down the aisle, ‘If anybody in Ludlow wants one just like it, you’re looking at the artist right now.’

“ ‘Stand that thing in the corner until it’s called for and show some respect for this court!’ Judge Moody says to Curly. I don’t know why I took heart,” said Uncle Percy in a wavering voice. “Then they carried in the safe and the Judge wants a good look at that.”

“Just as empty as before?” asked Aunt Cleo.