by Donis Casey
Alafair hadn’t noticed before that Buttercup the hound had followed them from home. The dog had insinuated herself among the young people and was intently snuffling around Walter’s feet. Alafair shook her head. Even the dog was beguiled. When Walter reached over and patted Alice on the knee, Alafair bridled. Alice didn’t seem to mind.
“You don’t like him much, do you?” Sally observed, as they walked out the back gate.
Alafair looked over at her, startled out of her reverie. “I guess I’m not too good at keeping my feelings hid, am I?”
Sally took her eyes off of Alafair’s face and began to scan the multitudinous buds on the pecan trees. “He seems like a pleasant enough fellow to me. Just what is it about him that riles you?”
“Shaw asked me the same thing,” Alafair said with a shrug. “Something about him seems false to me. He just likes the sound of his own voice too much, and preens like a cocky old rooster.” She hesitated, gathering her thoughts, then went on. “I’m bothered about what happened to his wife. I know Scott says that it looks like she got herself in with some bad types—and I know that she was seen at the road house the night before she ended up in Cane Creek—but still…”
Sally nodded. “Yes, that was a bad thing. Louise wasn’t a real good friend or nothing, but I knew her as well as any number of women around here, from church and all. It surprised me that she was sporting around in a road house before she got killed. She hardly ever missed a church service.” Sally paused to examine a pecan bud on a low branch. “We visited some when the barber first brought her here from Kansas City, back a few years ago. She seemed happy enough back then, I reckon. Said her family and Walter’s knew each other from way back. He had flirtatious ways, but I think she expected he would change after they married. It didn’t set well with her when he didn’t. She often prayed with the ladies in her Bible group that Walter would become a better Christian. That’s the story I heard, anyway.”
“Always a mistake,” Alafair noted, “to expect them to change for you. I didn’t know the woman as well as you, but I could tell well enough that she was unhappy. Maybe it would have helped if they had had some babies.”
“Maybe not.”
Alafair twitched out a smile and her shoulder lifted in a gesture of resignation. “Maybe not,” she agreed. “Who knows what goes on in a marriage? Was she too hard to please? One thing, though. He seems to have got over it pretty quick. I don’t care for how he likes the ladies.”
“You don’t care for how he likes Alice,” Sally stated, and Alafair looked over at her.
“No,” Alafair admitted. “I don’t. If he was turning his attention to Martha or Mary I wouldn’t worry as much. But Alice likes his brand of guff, and she’s got a will like granite if she decides she wants something.”
“What does Shaw think about this?” Sally wondered.
“Well, I haven’t mentioned to him that I think Walter has his eye on Alice, because truth be told, I haven’t seen any real evidence of it. He flirts just the same with all the pretty girls.” She paused and gazed into space for a minute before she added, “It’s just a hunch.”
“I always follow my hunches when it comes to my kids,” Sally assured her. “I’m right most of the time, too. I notice that you’re pretty good at it yourself.”
Alafair shook her head. “But I don’t know what to do, Ma. Nothing has happened that I can sink my teeth into. Did I ever tell you about that strange gal that showed up at Louise’s funeral? If I only knew what really happened to Louise Kelley, and why…”
Sally stopped walking and turned to face her daughter-in-law. “Maybe you’d better find out, sugarplum. Ask Scott about it. Alice would cool off considerable if she found out that the apple of her eye had drove his wife to despair. And if it turns out that Walter is just the wronged party, you’d feel a bunch better.”
The circular path they were following through the pecan grove turned back toward the house, and as the women rounded the furthermost tree, they caught sight of Sally’s twenty-three-year-old son, Bill McBride, along with Charlie and two or three other Tucker boys, chucking boiled eggs at a fence post. The youngsters’ aim left something to be desired, since most of the eggs lay intact on the far side of the fence. There had been a couple of bull’s-eyes, though, and yolky remains smeared the top of the post.
“Charles Tucker!” Alafair hollered. The gang froze. Charlie’s arm hung in the air, mid-windup, and the boys and their uncle stared at the women like a bunch of startled rabbits, ears pricked and noses aquiver.
“What in the name of good John are y’all boys doing?” Sally demanded. “Bill, what kind of example are you setting these lads? You’re making a mess and wasting perfectly good food. Y’all clean that up right now and get back to the house.”
It was Bill who made the first move. He straightened slowly and slipped the egg he was holding into his pocket. His mouth quivered in a heroic effort not to guffaw. One twinkling brown eye closed in a sly wink at his mother. “Hitch ’em up, boys,” he said to the nephews. “Let’s take our punishment like men. Looks like we’re caught red handed.”
Alafair and Sally resumed their walk amidst a murmer of apologies and a scurry of cleanup. As soon as they were out of earshot, they both burst into laughter.
“What a pitiful bunch of throwers,” Alafair managed. “I could have beat the lot of them with my eyes closed.”
***
Alafair was seated near the head of the table with Ruth and Cousin Liz on one side of her and Hannah on the other, and baby Grace in her lap. Shaw, Gee Dub, and Shaw’s half brother, that erstwhile troublemaker, red-haired, brown-eyed, freckle-faced Bill McBride, were across from her. Alafair could see Alice and Walter Kelley seated next to one another halfway down the table, chatting warmly. She was gratified to notice that her mother-in-law had placed herself opposite the two young people. Alafair could expect a full report later. She busied herself with peeling a hard-boiled egg, attempting to keep Grace from eating eggshells, and trying not to pay attention to Alice and Walter.
Grandpapa Peter McBride sat at the head of the table. He wasn’t the biggest of men, but he had a booming voice that served well for delivering an interminable and slightly irreverent Easter grace. His prayers edified, entertained, and whetted the appetite, and he always knew that when mischief began to break out at the children’s table, it was time to stop. Grandpapa Peter had come to the United States from Ireland in 1864, when he was sixteen years old, and he spoke with an accent that was an amazing mix of Northern Irish and Arkansan. He had brought two things with him from the old country—a set of Irish bagpipes and a love of gab, both of which had stood him in good stead with the natives of the Ozarks.
“Grandpapa,” Ruth said, “tell us again how you and Grandma met.”
Peter’s blue eyes lit up and he sat up straight in his chair, delighted at the opportunity to hold forth. Shaw and Bill laughed and groaned at once.
“Haven’t you heard that story enough, Ruthie?” Bill asked.
“Aw, it’s a good story, Uncle Bill,” Cousin Liz protested.
“Come on now, boys,” Grandpapa Peter interjected, “I reckon you can stand it just one more time.”
Shaw smiled. His stepfather loved nothing better than to entertain anyone who would listen to a story, the longer the better. And all the children in the family particularly loved the story of how their grandparents had met, even if they had heard it so many times that they could all repeat it verbatim. That was part of its charm, Shaw supposed. “Go ahead on, Papa,” he said.
“And so I will,” Grandpapa assured them. “Now listen up, lassies. When first I came to Lone Elm, I got a job at the sorghum mill on the Old Wire Road. It was there that I became best of friends with your great-uncles, Paul and Albert and George Tucker, the selfsame men who went together with me to buy that sawmill in Mulberry a few years later. ’Twas they who told me that they had had a brother, Jim, who died of the fever just the year before, leaving a young wife an
d six sprightly children. She lived in a dog-trot cabin a few miles outside of town, they said, said they, and on regular occasions some member of their family would make the trip out there to see if anything needed doing. This widowed sister-in-law, they told me, was a fine and feisty woman who was slow to take a handout and was determined to make a living and raise up her half dozen young’uns on her own. It was so fascinating that they made her seem to me, with all their stories of how Sally did this and Sally did that, that I became resolved to have a look at this fine example of womanhood. So I attached myself as big as you please to Paul Tucker the next time he told me that him and his wife were going out there.
“Oh, it was such a raggedy little cabin she lived in, boys and girls, down in the holler between two hills, but it had a fine garden and a tin roof. And when we rode up the trail, I got my first sight ever of your grandma. And what do you think she was doing?”
“Fixing the roof!” chorused his listeners.
“She was fixing the roof!” Peter exclaimed. “She was on the roof on her hands and knees, with tin shears in one hand and a hammer in the other and a mouth full of roofing nails. She had on a pair of man’s overalls and a shirt. Her little brown feet were bare as the day she was born. She had a long black braid as thick as my wrist hanging down her back. Boys and girls, Cupid’s arrow nearly knocked me clean off that horse. She was a vision.
“Now, boys and girls, my hair may be white as the driven snow today, but back then it was orange as a carrot. I was struck dumb when your grandma peered down off that roof at us, but she had all her wits about her, I’ll say. After she greeted her kinfolks, she looked at me, and do you know what she said?”
“Who set your head on fire!” chorused the listeners.
“Who set your head on fire!” Grandpapa affirmed.
***
“Looks like your grandpa is telling a story,” Walter observed to Alice. “Looks like everybody’s enjoying it, too.”
“Grandpapa does love to tell his stories,” Alice acknowledged. “Over and over and over again.”
“Mr. McBride is a fine old gentleman. And this is a fine place they have here. I knew that y’all were kin, but for a good long time, I didn’t know Miz McBride was Mr. Tucker’s mother. I always sort of figured the McBrides were your Ma’s folks.”
“Mama’s parents still live in Arkansas,” Alice told him. “Grandpapa is Daddy’s stepfather. Daddy’s born father died when Daddy was little, and Grandma married Grandpapa two years later. Uncle Bill and Uncle Howard are Grandpapa’s natural sons, but he raised up Daddy and his brothers and sisters like his own children.”
“It must be hard to step into a family like that.”
“Daddy loves Grandpapa a lot, but he told me once that he always remembers his own father in his heart.”
Alice glanced at her grandmother across the table. Sally appeared to be engrossed in conversation with one of the cousins. Alice leaned in toward Walter. “My Aunt Josie told us once that Grandma nearly expired of grief when Grandpa Jim died. Said she just worked herself to a frazzle so as to stay busy and not have to think, and never smiled or laughed once from the day Jim died until Peter came along. Josie said they all love Grandpapa for making Grandma laugh again.”
“I expect it’s wonderful to have a fine person come into your sad life and teach you to be happy again,” Walter mused.
Alice picked up a radish and crunched it thoughtfully. “I reckon you’ve had a sad life since your wife died.”
“It’s been lonesome.”
Alice languidly rearranged her napkin in her lap. “From what I hear, you’re not lacking female companionship, Mr. Kelley,” she said.
Walter’s fork paused between plate and open mouth as he glanced at her. His fork completed its trip and he chewed for a moment before he replied. “I’d be pleased if you’d call me Walter, Miss Alice,” he said, at length.
“All right, Walter. And you’re not obliged to use the ‘Miss.’”
“Thank you, Alice. As for your observation, it’s true. Since my wife passed on, several ladies have been kind enough to accompany me to the picture show or have me over to supper.”
“But you’re not looking to remarry just yet?” Alice was aware that Phoebe, seated on her left, had been listening in on her conversation for the past few minutes. As soon as Alice had asked her question, her twin-sense had picked up a thrill of alarm from her sister. Alice nearly laughed. Proper Phoebe.
Walter shrugged. “I always figured I would remarry some day. I like having a female in the house. But I haven’t yet come upon a young lady who I’d like to spend my life with.”
“But the idea doesn’t exactly repel you,” she observed.
“Well, no,” he admitted, and smiled, amused at her brass.
“And what are your requirements in the way of a female to spend your life with?”
Phoebe hastily leaned across Alice. “My husband John Lee is mighty intrigued by your automobile, Mr. Kelley,” she said. “Where did you acquire it?”
Alice did laugh, now, as Walter described to Phoebe how he had found the Ford in Muskogee. Delayed, but undaunted, she asked an uncle to pass the potatoes.
***
The meal drew to an end and people began to straggle away from the table in ones and twos, with armloads of dishes or leftovers, or a child by the hand. Alice made a show of stacking the dishes in her vicinity, but it wasn’t difficult to foist them off on a passing sister and make her escape with Walter through the crowd. They walked down a long hill behind the house and into a large hollow that was filled with nearly an acre of mature apple trees, all of which were covered with a froth of white blossoms as delicate as sea foam.
“Bless me!” Walter exclaimed. “You can see this orchard from the road, but it’s quite a sight up close like this. All this sun-struck white is like to blind me!”
“I used to like to cut across the orchard on my way home from school when it was in bloom like this,” Alice said. “I’d gather up armloads of flowering branches to take home. Mama would scold me and say that each blossom was an apple that would never get made. But she always put them in a jug on a table in the parlor.”
“Looks to me like there’s blossoms enough to spare,” Walter said.
“In the summer they make wagon loads of the tastiest little red apples. They’re tart and sweet all at once. Every restaurant and bakery and greengrocer in the county wants Grandpapa’s apples. Then in the fall, it’s the same with the pecans.”
“Your grandfather raises saddle horses, too, don’t he? Sometimes I see him gliding through town on some real fine animal, sitting back and looking like he’s managed to throw a saddle over the back of a cloud.”
“Kentucky walkers,” Alice informed him. “He used to raise work horses and mules like Daddy does, but he’s given that up. Said he just wants to enjoy breeding and training the smooth steppers now that he’s old.”
“Do any of your folks have oil wells? I saw a shale outcrop yonder as we came over the hill.”
“Daddy had some surveyor out to our place not long ago, but I never heard what came of it. Grandpapa has never mentioned oil wells that I know of. You seem to know something about oil, Walter.”
“Well, I’ve got me a couple of wells up north of town. Pretty good producers, too.”
“Why, Mr. Kelley,” Alice teased. “Are you trying to impress me with your wealth?”
Walter laughed. “I hadn’t thought to. But if I had, would that do it?”
Alice smiled and clasped her hands behind her back as they strolled among the trees. “Might,” she said. She shrugged. “Truth is, wealth is nice, but other things are more important, to my way of thinking.”
“Well, now, Miss Alice, a while ago you asked me what my requirements were in the way of someone to spend my life with. So let me ask you the same question. A charming young lady like yourself must have many admirers to choose from.”
“As far as I’ve been concerned, Walter, they can a
ll admire me from afar. I’m mighty particular where I bestow my affections.”
“I hope you are. What are the high standards you hold your potential suitors to, if it ain’t too bold to ask?”
“I’ll tell you this. I ain’t marrying a boy. I’m not starting out dirt poor on a tenant farm, like Phoebe. I’ll be looking for somebody who has got himself established, at least. A grown man who knows how to treat me like a lady.”
“You sound mighty adamant on the subject,” Walter noted with a chuckle.
“I am. And now that I’ve told you what I’m looking for in the way of a future, I’ll repeat my question to you. What are your requirements?”
Walter shook his head. “I’m not as certain of my requirements as you are. Seems like things don’t always turn out the way you hope. When I married Louise, I thought we’d make each other happy forever, but everything went wrong and I don’t exactly know why. I never did know how to satisfy her. She’s the one who wanted to leave Missouri, to get a fresh start, but once we came here, nothing changed. We had no more than got here than Louise started in on her old ways. She couldn’t stand me to be away from her for a minute. She wanted all my attention, all the time. If I as much as looked sideways at another female, young or old, she’d fly right off the handle. Why, she just couldn’t get it into her head that I never meant nothing by it. They never meant anything to me. I’m just too friendly for my own good, I guess…” He paused, and gave Alice an abashed glance. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to be going on. I’m sure you don’t want to hear this.”
