Watermelon Days and Firefly Nights: Heartwarming Scenes from Small Town Life (19 page)

When Joe was two years from retiring, they had begun looking around at prospective locations, wondering what it would be like to live in this area or that one, weighing the plusses and minuses of various small communities. It was two months before Joe died when the pair of them, on a weekend jaunt, had come upon Ella Louise.

“Nice place,” Bessie remembered Joe saying. “This little town might be the one. It’s got a grocery store, a library, and a pharmacy. The folks seem friendly, and it’s less than two hours from Houston. What do you think, hon?”

She’d thought the town was just right. So much so, that even though Joe was gone, she was still heading toward Ella Louise.

O
N MOVING DAY
,
Bessie’s sons, Leland and Roy, nearly killed themselves trying to move their mother’s things. Getting her antique player piano into the house proved to be almost more than they could do. Even after backing the rented U-Haul up close to the front door, the two struggled to hoist the thing up the house’s five front steps.

“Lands!” said Leland to Roy. “If I’d known this thing was so heavy, I’d have insisted she hire a mover. I’m not sure we’re gonna make it.”

“You know Mother. Anything to save a dime.” Roy stretched his lower back. “This piano’s heavy all right, but remember, we’ve still got the hide-a-bed ahead of us.”

“Reckon it’ll be as bad?”

“You know it.”

While her sons were at the new house in Ella Louise, straining themselves with the heavy stuff, Bessie was in Houston, packing up her kitchen, her hall closets, and her backyard storage building. She was also fretting about her cat, Baby. “I feel silly worrying about a cat,” she confided to her long-time neighbor, Sandy, who had come over to
help her pack. “I’ve never been one to carry on about a
pet, but ever since Joe died, Baby’s been a comfort to me. I don’t want to lose her, but they say cats don’t take to a move very well.”

“Couldn’t you just keep her inside?”

“Maybe I will for a few days, but she’s always been an inside-outside cat. Mostly outside. Last year, when we had that long spell of cold weather, I got her a litter box so she wouldn’t have to go outside. Stubborn thing refused to use it. When she wanted outside, she’d go stand by the door and meow. She’s a funny little cat. Pretty opinionated. I’m afraid she’ll run away from the new place.”

Sandy thought for a moment. “My grandmother loved cats. She had three. I remember that when I was a little girl and she and my grandpa moved, she rubbed butter on all of their feet.”

“Butter? What’s that supposed to do?” Bessie asked.

“I’m not exactly sure, but I think it has something to do with the cats concentrating so hard on licking the butter off that they forget they’ve moved. Now, for it to work, you’re supposed to rub the butter real good—lots of it—between the cat’s toes. Way I remember my grandmother telling it, by the time the cat manages to lick all the butter off, they’re supposed to have come to think of the new place as their home and not try to run away.”

“I never heard of such a thing. I guess it’s worth a try.” Bessie looked over at Baby, asleep in an heirloom crystal fruit bowl. “Wonder if Parkay margarine would work. I’ve let my pantry and refrigerator get down to almost nothing. I’m out of real butter.”

“I don’t think I’d take a chance,” said Sandy. “I’ve got butter in my fridge. I’ll run and get you a stick.”

When Leland and Roy came back with the U-Haul to get the rest of her things, Bessie, with Sandy’s help, had gotten
everything packed and ready to go. She’d also buttered Baby and closed her in her carrier. In the process, she’d gotten butter all over herself, but she was careful to clean off the evidence so that neither of her sons would know what she’d done; they would likely make fun. It didn’t take them long to haul the last of the boxes and smaller pieces of furniture into the truck.

Sandy hugged her. “I’m not going to stay and watch you leave. It’s too hard. You know that I’m here if you need me.” She tried not to cry. “Call me.”

“I will.”

“Okay, Mother,” said Leland, “this is it. Ready?”

“Why don’t you ride with me in the truck and let Leland drive your car?” said Roy. “I figured we’d get down the road about half an hour, and then we can all stop and get a bite to eat.”

“No,” said Bessie. “I want to go by myself. You boys go on. Me and Baby are going to be a few minutes behind you.”

“We can wait, Mom. Me and Roy are in no hurry.”

The boys didn’t understand. Bessie and Joe had spent their last ten years together in the house, but neither of her sons had ever lived there. They missed their dad, of course, and on this their mother’s moving day, they were both thinking of him. But as for the house? Its walls held sentimental meaning for her, but not for them. Bessie patted Roy on the back. “Son, I’m fine. Really. I just need a minute, that’s all. You boys go on. See if you can’t get my washer and dryer hooked up tonight, will you? That’d be a big help. And careful with that biggest box. It’s got your great-grandmother’s china inside.”

When Leland and Roy finally climbed into the truck, Bessie moved from the front yard to the middle of the street. The truck was a difficult vehicle to back up, so she helped by motioning Roy, who was driving, to steer a bit more to the right and then a wee bit further to the left. When he finally was backed out and headed the right way, he rolled down the window.

“You’re coming along soon, right Mom? I don’t want you driving by yourself after dark.”

“Honey, don’t worry. I’ll only be a few minutes behind you. Promise,” Bessie assured.

She stood in the street and waved as the truck chugged to the end of the block. She watched it pause at the stop sign, saw the turn signal flash, and then watched the truck make the turn. Even after it was gone from her sight, Bessie stood rooted in the street. She had to will herself to move.

She was surprised at how much she longed to delay her leaving. All day long she had been anticipating and dreading this moment—the one when she would close the door to the house, get into her car, and drive to Ella Louise. Though she was sure moving was what she wanted to do, was the right thing to do, she couldn’t believe that the time to do it was actually here.

Inside the house, she moved from room to room, noticing the worn spots in the carpet and the smudges on the walls and woodwork. Had they been there all along? She hadn’t noticed. If only she had more time to clean the carpet, the walls, and the woodwork too! Tears filled her eyes. “It’s only a house,” she told herself. “Brick and mortar and carpet and tile.”

But memories too.

In the master bedroom, Bessie leaned against a bare wall and thought of all the nights she’d slept curled against Joe’s warm back. She remembered how embarrassed she’d been when she learned that she snored. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she’d asked Joe after spending the weekend at a women’s church retreat. “Sandy and Gracie were my room
mates, and they teased me something terrible. Both of
them said I sounded like a grizzly bear in hibernation. They told
me they couldn’t sleep for all the noise I made. The sec
ond night, I saw them sneak around and stuff their ears with some cotton that Sandy dug out of her bottle of vitamin C. Honey, tell me. Do I keep
you
awake? Because if I do, I’ll start sleeping in the other bedroom.”

Joe had patted her on the knee. “No. Of course you don’t keep me awake, and no, you’re not going to sleep in the other room.”

“But the snoring?”

“It’s not so loud.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“How long have I been doing it?”

“I dunno. Couple of years? Maybe more. I kind of like it.”

“Joe! I’m serious here. Don’t give me a hard time.”

“I am being serious. The sound of your snoring is comforting to me. On the nights that you don’t snore, I have a hard time falling asleep. I’m so used to it that when you’re gone overnight, it’s too quiet. I lie awake forever before I fall asleep.”

A dear, dear man. Joe always did have a different way of looking at things.

Bessie blew her nose. Then she moved from the bedroom to the living room. She stood there for a long while, nose pressed to the sliding glass door, and gazed out at the backyard. The apple trees Joe babied all year long looked like they would yield a good crop of fruit this year.

She recalled the time when, relaxing in the hammock, she opened her eyes from her Sunday afternoon nap to see something very odd growing in the apple tree overhead. It was an . . . well, it couldn’t be, but it sure did look like an . . . an . . . an orange. An orange growing on a branch in the middle of a bunch of nearly-ripe apples. Bessie rubbed her eyes and struggled to sit up. When she saw that it really
was
an orange, she nearly tipped herself out onto the ground.

Not until she had gotten out the ladder, positioned it under the tree, and climbed to the third step did she hear Joe snickering. From his post around the corner of the house, he had eased to where he was now, at the foot of the ladder. “Whatcha doin’, dear?” he asked with feigned innocence. “Bit early to be plucking apples, don’t you think? I don’t believe they’re ripe yet.”

“Joe,” Bessie said. “Look.” She pointed to the orange, still out of her reach. “Isn’t that odd?”

“What the—?” he said. “Why, that looks like a . . . well, like an orange growing in our apple tree? Bess! We better call the county agent. Shoot! We’d best call the
National Enquirer!
”

Bessie was inclined to agree with him until she looked down and saw that he was struggling to keep a straight face. While she’d been asleep, fifty-five-year-old Joe had climbed the tree and tied the orange to a branch, for no other reason than to see what she’d do.

That Joe! He had never lost his childlike streak. Kids loved him. Bessie opened one of the kitchen drawers and found half a piece of Big Red gum. She unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth. One of the reasons kids had liked Joe so much was that he always carried gum in his pockets for them.

Joe and Bessie were the teachers of their church’s Wednesday night four-year-olds Bible class. Early on, they worked out a system. Bessie made snacks, led the children in singing songs, and prepared the craft. Joe’s job was to teach the lesson—which he did with great creativity and aplomb.

Joe did not believe that a bunch of four-year-olds could be expected to sit in little chairs and listen to a story read out of the teacher’s handbook. No way. Though he had no training in teaching children, he was of the strong opinion that kids learned best by doing, by getting their hands on stuff, by acting out whatever it was they were supposed to learn.

Which made for some messy, noisy, out-of-the-ordinary Wednesday nights.

Take, for instance, the week that the children learned about the story of David and Goliath. A bit wary of what Joe might decide to do, Bessie pointed out to him that the teacher’s packet had some very nice flannel-graph figures to use.

But Joe had something else in mind.

Before class, he taped sheets of butcher paper together to make a strip more than six feet long and three feet wide. He had never been very good with sticky stuff, and by the time he got the project all done he had used almost the whole roll of tape. After telling the children about how young David had killed Goliath with five stones (in a wee bit too much gory detail, Bessie thought), he put the paper on the floor, lay on top of it, and directed the children to draw around him with black markers. Bessie helped them, and only a few marks got on his socks and (oops!) in his gray hair. Once they’d made the tracing—of him as the giant, you see—Joe rose from the floor, rolled up their creation, and stuck it under his arm. Then he lined up the children and marched the troop of ten toward the outside door.

“Shhh!” he whispered as the children made their way
through the hallways. “Everybody on tiptoe!” The dea
con in charge of education was never all that sure about Joe’s unconventional teaching techniques. Joe had come to the
conclusion that as far as deacons go, begging for for
giveness was easier than asking for permission.

Joe led the children to the playground behind the church. “No, we’re not going to play. At least not yet. Bessie,” he said as the children watched, their eyes wide with wonder, “I’m climbing to the top of the slide. When I get up there, you hand me the tape and the paper. Okay?”