The Ponder Heart (5 page)

I don't blame Bonnie Dee, don't blame her for a minute. I could just beat her on the head, that's all.

And I did think one thing was the funniest joke on her in the world: Uncle Daniel didn't give her any money. Not a cent. I discovered that one day. I don't think it ever occurred to him, to give anything to Bonnie Dee. Because he
had
her. (When she said "trial," that didn't mean anything to Uncle Daniel that would alarm him. The only kind of trials he knew about were the ones across the street from the Beulah, in the Courthouse—he was fond of those.)

I passed her some money myself now and then—or I bought her something ladylike to put on her back. I couldn't just leave her the way she was! She never said more than "Thank you."

Of course, Uncle Daniel wasn't used to money, himself. With Grandpa in his grave, it was Mr. Sistrunk at the bank that gave him his allowance, three dollars a month, and he spent that mostly the first day, on children—they were the ones came out and asked him for things. Uncle Daniel was used to purely being rich, not having money. The riches were all off in the clouds somewhere—like true love is, I guess, like a castle in the sky, where he could just sit and dream about it being up there for him. But money wouldn't be safe with him a minute—it would be like giving matches to a child.

Well! How the whole town did feel it when Bonnie Dee lit out!

When we sat in here night after night and saw that pearly gray Stetson coming in view, and moving up the walk, all we could do was hope and pray Uncle Daniel was here to tell us she was back. But she wasn't. He'd peep in both windows from the porch, then go around by the back and come in through the kitchen so he could speak to Ada. He'd point out what he'd have on his plate—usually ham and steak and chicken and cornbread and sweet potatoes and fried okra and tomatoes and onion-and-egg—plus banana pie—and take his seat in the dining room and when it came go "Ughmmmmmm!" One big groan.

And I'd call everybody to supper.

Uncle Daniel would greet us at the table. "Have you seen her, son? Has a soul here seen my wife? Man alive! My wife's done left me out there by myself in the empty house! Oh, you'd know her if you came across her—she's tiny as a fairy and pretty as a doll. And smart beyond compare, boys." (That's what she told him.) "And now she's gone, clean as a whistle." There'd be a little crowd sitting close on both sides before he knew it. And he'd go into his tale.

It would be like drawing his eye-teeth not to let him go on and tell it, though it was steadily breaking his heart. Like he used to be bound and determined to give you a present, but that was a habit he'd outgrown and forgotten now. It was safer for his welfare to let him talk than let him give away, but harder on his constitution. On everybody's.

But I don't think he could bring himself to believe the story till he'd heard himself tell it again. And every night, when he'd come to the end, he'd screw his eyes up tight with fresh tears, and stand up and kiss me good night and pull his hat down off the rack. So I'd holler Narciss out of the kitchen for him—she came out looking sadder and sadder every time too—and she'd carry him on home. I knew he'd be back the next night.

Eva Sistrunk said she couldn't make up her mind whether it was good or bad for this hotel—though I don't believe she was asked. Things would look like a birthday party inside, such a fine crowd—some out-of-town people hanging onto the story and commiserating with Uncle Daniel, and the Clay people cheering him on, clapping him on the shoulder. Everybody here, young or old, knew what to say as well as he did. When he sat there at the big middle table he always headed for, all dressed up in sparkling white and his red tie shining, with his plate heaped up to overflowing and his knife and fork in hand, ready and waiting to begin his tale of woe, he'd be in good view from the highway both north and south, and it was real prosperous-looking in here—till he came to the part about the note, of course, and how Narciss lightfooted it out to the barn and handed it to him so pleased, where he was feeding his calf—and he broke down at the table and ruined it all.

But that's what he came in here for—cry. And to eat in company. He ate me out of house and home, not so much to be eating as to be consoling himself and us (we begged him to eat, not cry), but some nights, when he had a full house, I had to flit along by the back of his chair and say under my breath, "Uncle Daniel! F. H. B.!"

He'd just catch me and say, "Edna Earle! Where do you suppose she could've got to by this time? Memphis?" Memphis was about the limit Uncle Daniel could stand to think of. That's where everybody else had it in mind she went, too. That's where they'd go.

Somebody'd always be fool enough to ask Uncle Daniel how come he didn't hop in his car and drive on up to Memphis and look for Bonnie Dee, if he wanted her back that bad. Some brand-new salesman would have to say, "It can be driven in three hours and forty-five minutes."

"Believe that's just what I'll do, sir!" Uncle Daniel would say, to be nice. "Yes sir, I'll go up there in the cool of the morning, and let you know what I find, too." "Miss Elsie Fleming—I wonder where
she
is," he said now and then, too. Well, he just never can forget anybody.

But he wouldn't dream of going to Memphis, to find Bonnie Dee or Intrepid Elsie Fleming or you or anybody else. Uncle Daniel belongs in Clay, and by now he's smart enough to know it; and if he wasn't, I'd tell him.

"Never mind, Uncle Daniel," I'd come up again and say when the tears fell. "Have a Fatima." He adores to smoke those. I order off after them for him, and always keep an extra supply on hand. And I'd light him one.

I don't really think Uncle Daniel missed Bonnie Dee as much as he thought he did. He had me. He appeared at the Beulah every night of the world, sure as shooting, and every morning to boot, and of course when he came down sick out there, he hollered for Edna Earle.

I locked up the Beulah—well, it wouldn't lock, but I spoke to it and said "Burglars, stay away"—and went out to Ponder Hill in my trusty Ford to take care of him. When I got there, I missed Grandpa meeting me in the hall and telling me this had put him in a quandary.

The house is almost exactly the same size as the hotel, but it's a mile easier to run. If you know what you want done, you can just ask in the morning for how many Negroes you want that day, and Uncle Daniel hollers them in for you out of the fields, and they come just like for Grandpa. They don't know anything, but you can try telling them and see what happens. And there was always Narciss. By now she had a black smear across all her aprons, that the steering wheel made on her stomach; she sat up so close to the windshield to see how to drive. I made her get back to the stove.

I missed my city lights. I guess electricity was about the bane of Grandpa's life, next to weakness of character. Some power fellow was eternally coming out there and wanting to string it up to the house, and Grandpa'd say, "Young man, do you want to draw the lightning out here to me when I've done everything I know how to prevent it?" and throw him out. We all grew up learning to fend for ourselves. Though
you
may not be able to read in the dark, I can. But all the other children and grandchildren went away to the ends of the earth or died and left only me and Uncle Daniel—the two favorites. So we couldn't leave each other.

As a matter of fact, when I went back in that house to look after Uncle Daniel when he was sick, Pd have been lonesome myself if I hadn't liked to read and had good eyes. Pm a great reader that never has time to read.

Little old Bonnie Dee had six years of
True
Love
Story
and six years of
Movie Mirror
stacked up on the sewing machine in my room (she never hesitated to shift the furniture) and the hatrack in the hall, and down behind the pillows on the sofa. She must have read her heart out. Or at least she'd cut all the coupons out with her scissors. I saw by the holes she'd left where she'd sent off for all kinds of things—you know, wherever they showed the postman smiling in the ad. I figured she must have got back, sometime or other, twenty-four samples of world-famous perfumes; and a free booklet on how to speak and write masterly English from a Mr. Cody who looks a great deal like Professor Magee from Clay, who's been dead for years; and a free piano lesson to prove you can amaze your friends; and a set of Balzac to examine ten days free of charge, but she must have decided against it—I looked everywhere. So there were holes in the stories all the way through, but they wouldn't have lasted me long anyway. I read
The House of a Thousand Candles
for the thousandth time; and the rest of the time I cleaned house. The hotter it is, the faster I go.

Uncle Daniel was happy no matter what I was doing. He wasn't really sick: I diagnosed him. Oh, he might have had a little malaria—he took his quinine when I gave it to him. Mainly, he just didn't want to be by himself. He wanted somebody closer than three miles away when he had something to say
right then.
There's something I think's better to have than love, and if you want me to, I'll tell you what it is—that's company. That's one reason Uncle Daniel enjoyed life even in Jackson—he was surrounded there.

"Why don't you come on into town, Uncle Daniel," I said, "and stay at the Beulah with me? I need to get the windows washed there too."

"No indeed," he says. "If she comes back, she'll come back here where she left off. Pretty thing, if she'd come in the door this minute, I'd eat her up."

But, "Oh, Edna Earle, where did she go?" That's what he began and ended his day with, that was the tail to all his stories. "Where has Bonnie Dee gone?" So after I'd heard that refrain enough times, I took myself into town and climbed the stairs to Judge Tip Clanahan's office. I caught him with his feet up on the wall, trying on fishing boots. I'm afraid DeYancey was already fishing.

Well, as I opened the subject by saying when I sat down, I can't
help
being smarter than Uncle Daniel. I don't even try, myself, to make people happy the way they should be: they're so stubborn. I just try to give them what they think they want. Ask me to do you the most outlandish favor tomorrow, and I'll do it. Just don't come running to me afterwards and ask me how come.

So we compromised on a three-day ad in the Memphis
Commercial Appeal.
(Judge Tip wanted to let well enough alone.) Because it developed that Mr. Springer—my friend—had come through yesterday, and sailed right on to Silver City for the night; but had idled his engine long enough at the drugstore corner to call to DeYancey Clanahan, who was getting a haircut from Mr. Wesley Bodkin next door, to tell him
he
saw Bonnie Dee Peacock the day before in Memphis, when he was passing through. Saw her in Woolworth's. She was trying to buy something. And had her sister with her. Mr. Springer told DeYancey and Mr. Bodkin that he raised his hat and tendered a remark to her, and she put out her tongue at him. That was enough for Mr. Springer.

Looks like he would have come straight to me with that, but he said he didn't know where I was. Everybody else knew where I was. Everybody knows where everybody is, if they really want to find them. But I suppose if the door to the Beulah is ever pulled to, and Ada's not out cutting the grass, Mr. Springer will always assume that I'm dead.

Well, I mailed in the ad without saying a word to the post office, and sat back with folded hands. Judge Tip and I didn't breathe a word of what we'd done. Uncle Daniel hopes too much as it is. And he'd rather get a surprise than fly. Besides, it would have hurt his feelings more than anything else I know of to discover the entire world could pick up the morning paper and read at a glance what had happened to him, without him being the one to tell it.

Lo and behold, they printed it. I put it in the form of a poem while I was about it. It's called "Come Back to Clay."

 

Bonnie Dee Ponder, come back to Clay.
Many are tired of you being away.
O listen to me, Bonnie Dee Ponder,
Come back to Clay, or husband will wonder.
Please to no more wander.
As of even date, all is forgiven.
Also, retroactive allowance will be given.
House from top to bottom now spick and span,
Come back to Clay the minute you can.
Signed, Edna Earle Ponder.
P.S. Do not try to write a letter,
Just come, the sooner the better.

 

Judge Tip horned in on two lines, and I don't think he helped it any. But it was better then than it may sound now. I cut it out and put it in a drawer to show my grandchildren.

I don't believe for a minute that she saw it. Somebody with bright eyes, who did, went and told her. And here she came. Nine forty-five the next morning, in she walked at the front door. She looked just exactly the same—seventeen.

 

The first I knew about it, Uncle Daniel hollered from the dining room out to me in the kitchen, "Edna Earle! Edna Earle! Make haste! She's fixing to cut my throat!"

I'd been up for hours. I was having Narciss put up his peaches. But I came when he called, spoon and all. He'd jumped up on top of the dining room table where he'd been having a little buttermilk and crackers after breakfast.

I said, "Why, climb down, Uncle Daniel, it's only Bonnie Dee. I thought that was what you wanted! You'll spill your milk."

"Hallelujah!" hollers Narciss behind me. "Prayers is answered."

Here she came, Miss Bonnie Dee, sashaying around the table with her little bone razor wide open in her hand. So Uncle Daniel climbed down, good as gold, and sat back in his chair and she got the doodads and commenced to lather his face, like it was any other day. I suppose she always shaved him first thing, and in the dining room!

"
Good
evening," I says.

"Miss Edna Earle," Bonnie Dee turns and remarks to me, "
Court's
opened." There she stood with that razor cocked in her little hand, sending me about my business. "Keep hands down," she pipes to Uncle Daniel, bending down toward him just as bossy, with her little old hip stuck out behind, if you could say she had hips. And when he reached for her, she went around to his other side. I believe she'd missed him.