Cold Sassy Tree

by Olive Ann Burns

  "Well, I reckon Miz Sheffield bought him passage."

  "Naw. She buried him. See? 'Royal Garnet Lacey, Gone But Not Forgotten.'"

  I plucked a leaf from the oak tree we were standing under and tore it in little bits while Lightfoot studied the gravestone. "Maybe he did die over in England," she said finally. "If Miz Sheffield said he 'as dead, he must a-been."

  "Naw, he wasn't. Granny said he kept writin' letters for years." I laughed, but Lightfoot didn't. She stood for the longest kind of time, staring from one to the other of the expensive tombstones for live men. Then running her hand over the carved angel, she said, "I shore wisht I could get one a-them angels for Pa." She looked up at me, and I noticed for the first time the lavender-blue circles under her eyes.

  I felt embarrassed, her wishing for such. Finally I mumbled, "Did you ... uh, where's he buried at, Lightfoot?"

  "Back home. Me and my aunt tuck him back to the hills on the train. I knowed he warn't go'n rest easy in no grave down here." With that, Lightfoot sank down on the empty grave of Mr. Royal Garnet Lacey, put her head against the angel's stomach, and cried and cried.

  I didn't know what to do. I patted her shoulder and said I was sorry her pa died, but that just made her cry worse. She sobbed out that he 'as lucky to be dead; now he didn't have to work all day after coughin' all night, and didn't have to worry bout gittin' enough vittles.

  "Was he ... uh, did he have the TB, Lightfoot? Like your mama?"

  She didn't answer. Just sat there and cried some more. Finally she wiped her eyes on the skirt of her black dress, trying hard to get aholt of herself. When she could talk, she said softly, "I think maybe Pa did have the TB. Pneumony's what kilt him, though. Hit come on him sudden like. He 'as deader'n Hell a day later." I hadn't ever before heard a girl say Hell, but she didn't even notice she'd said it. "I wanted to git a doctor, but my aunt, she said he 'as too fur gone. Said we didn' have no money to waste on no doctor when it couldn't do no good.... Oh, Will, I wisht I'd a-stayed with my sister after the funeral. Buster axed me to. Thet's her husband. I said thankee, but I ain't a-go'n be beholden to nobody. Buster said I'd earn my keep if'n I holped him in the fields."

  "Why'n't you stay, then?"

  "I didn't like the way Buster looked at me when he said I could holp him in the fields."

  She picked up a stick and talked on, almost like I wasn't there. "Anyways, I wanted to come back here and go to school. Amount to something. We 'as halfway back to Cold Sassy on the train when my aunt she said, 'Now, Lightfoot, with yore pa dead 'n' all, I cain't keep you no more less'n you go in the mill full time an' pay yore part. Fast as you lam thangs, you'll be a-workin' both sides of the aisle in no time.' Will, I begged her and begged her, 'Please'm, let me git one more year a-schoolin'.' But she said her chi'ren got two year apiece in school, and it ain't holped them a bit in the mill. Said if they'd a-been borned with books for brains, they'd be makin' bottom wages jest the same."

  Over near Granny's grave a jaybird screeched. I stood drawing lines in the dirt with my big toe, saying nothing. Then all of a sudden Lightfoot hit Mr. Royal Garnet Lacey's marble angel hard as she could with her stick! Her eyes narrowed. "Here's somebody ain't even dead yet," she said, poking out her bottom lip, "and I bet his headstone cost more money than I or my people will ever see in our whole lives. Hit ain't fair!"

  "No, it ain't, Lightfoot." I wanted to tell her about Blu Jackson dying so unfair young, but she started crying again. "Please, Lightfoot. Cryin' ain't go'n help. Hush up now."

  "I don' want to hesh up. I'm a-go'n cry the r-r-rest a-my l-life...."

  "Look, I'll carry you home. In the car. Come on, Lightfoot. Quit cryin' and I'll ride you home." I caught her wrist and pulled her up.

  And then I kissed her.

  I swear I hadn't once thought of doing such a thing, and I'm sure she hadn't, either. But before you could say doodly-squat, my arms had circled her and she had flung her arms around my neck, and I could feel her wet cheek against mine. For what seemed like ages I just held her, thinking nothing but the purest thoughts, my heart aching for her, so poor and miserable and lonesome. And then I don't know what happened, I was kissing Lightfoot! Just like Mr. McAllister kissed Miss Love. On her mouth, her cheeks, her closed eyes, her neck.... She kept saying, "No, Will, no, no, no, no...." But she didn't push me away.

  My breath came in trembling gasps, and hers did, too. I felt dizzy. I was on fire. I pressed her against Mr. Royal Garnet Lacey's angel and wrapped my arms tight around her waist.

  Just then God spoke out loud in the voice of Miss Alice Ann. "Will Tweedy, you ought to be ashamed!" said God. I looked up and there He stood in a pink and white poky-dot dress, pointing His plump forefinger at us.

  Lightfoot put her arm across her face just like Eve in the garden when God saw her nakedness.

  "You, girl, I don't know who you are," shouted God, "but I can tell you're from Mill Town. Now you just git on home. Will's a good boy from a nice fam'ly. You ain't got no right to come to town like this and corrupt him." God was indignant as all get-out. "Soon as I seen y'all ride in here, I thought to myself they ain't up to no good. Will, I just hate to think what your daddy's go'n say."

  "It ain't like you see it, Miss Alice Ann! We didn't mean to—"

  "I got eyes, ain't I?" God retorted. "Your trouble, Will, you ain't got no shame! Imagine, actin' like that right in sight of your poor granny's grave!"

  36

  WHILE I was staring at Miss Alice Ann, my mouth open like a dummy, Lightfoot disappeared. Evaporated. Just like she had at the depot that day she helped me off the train trestle. She must of run across the cemetery and gone out through the woods at the back.

  Then while I had my back turned, trying to crank up the Cadillac, Miss Alice Ann disappeared, too—I reckon to go spread the word.

  I felt sick.

  I took the vegetables to Mr. Slocum, and when I got back home, parked the car under the barn shed and sneaked up to the loft. I wanted to think about kissing Lightfoot McLendon before I had to think about a whipping. I wanted to remember my arms tight around her. I wanted to feel her lips on mine, her hands on my back, her breath coming in trembly gasps at my ear. Closing my eyes, I groaned and sank down in the hay.

  Now I knew why Miss Love couldn't stop Mr. McAllister when he was kissing her, despite how bad she hated him. She had lost her senses. Well, I'd lost mine, too, and I wanted to stay that way. I wanted to keep aholt of all the feelings that kept passing over me in waves.

  But I was also scareder and more ashamed than I had ever been in my life.

  There was no point in worrying about Lightfoot. Nobody would go tell her aunt on her. Even if Miss Alice Ann knew where she lived, she wouldn't think a mill girl was worth the trouble. It was my sins that were as scarlet, not Lightfoot's.

  I hated it that folks would talk about me. I knew now how Miss Love must feel. Lord, what would Mama say? I wished I was dead. I also wished Grandpa was home from New York. I could explain it to him, how I didn't mean to do wrong. But how could I explain to Papa or Mama? For that matter, how could I explain a thing like that to Pink and Smiley and them? They wouldn't believe it just happened, that I didn't plan it when I turned in those cemetery gates. They wouldn't understand or care that Lightfoot was crying and I only meant to comfort her. They'd just haw and guffaw and ask how it felt and did she kiss with her mouth open. She didn't, but they'd never believe it. They'd make the whole thing dirty.

  All of a sudden I couldn't stand the suspense any longer—the waiting for Miss Alice Ann to get to Mama. I decided to go tell her myself, the way Miss Love told Grandpa before he could hear it from Miss Effie Belle Tate—or me.

  There's no use going into all that followed. Telling on myself saved my pride somehow, but it didn't ease the punishment. I got my whipping from Papa, and my shaming from Mama to the point I tried to duck out of sight whenever I heard her coming. But what hurt, Papa decided I couldn't drive the Cadillac for two months.

 
; He was really mad.

  After the way I'd done bad and brought shame on the family, I deserved the whipping. But two months out from under the steering wheel was six weeks too much. Compared to being punished for kissing a mill girl, being in mourning for Granny had been like a picnic up at Tallulah Falls.

  It occurred to me that mine and Mary Toy's punishments never had been equal. Whenever I misbehaved, Mama told Papa and he wore me out with the razor strop. But when occasionally Mama said to whip Mary Toy, why that was something else entirely. Taking a rolled-up newspaper, he would jerk her up to her room, and from downstairs we'd hear him speak harsh. "Now, young lady, bend over that bed!" Mama would cringe, hearing the blows fall. What she didn't know was that Papa would whisper to Mary Toy to start hollering, and then commence swatting the mattress instead of her. Mary Toy told me about it one time.

  If I thought about Mama, that seemed like a good joke, but if I thought about me, it made me mad. I realized Papa was strict and hard on me because a boy had to amount to something, whereas Mary Toy didn't, being a girl. But just the same it made me mad.

  I didn't go anywhere the next day except up to Grandpa's to feed and water the horse and mule and Granny's chickens. But the following day there was no way out of it; I had to help at the store.

  It seems like everybody I saw took up for me, even Miss Effie Belle. She lectured me good, right there in the store, but it was about mill people. "Stay away from them folks, son. They all sorry and no-count and good for nothin'. You ain't a bad boy, Will. You was just led astray."

  After she went out, Uncle Lige put his arm around my shoulders and said, "Natcherly you go'n sow some wild oats, boy. We all done it. But right now you jest a mite young. Wait till you old enough to be careful and not git caught."

  Later Aunt Loma came in, carrying Campbell Junior, and patted my shoulder like she was forgiving me for doing evil. "Now, Will," she whispered, "be sure and write down about you and that mill girl."

  Gosh, I wouldn't of written that down then for anything!

  I left for dinner early. I didn't want to walk home with Papa. But as I hurried to cross the street just before reaching the depot, the old men playing checkers on a barrelhead under the Cold Sassy tree winked and grinned at me.

  It's to my credit that when Smiley and them talked dirty about it and old men sniggered and spoke of wild oats, I felt even more ashamed than when I'd told Mama and then had to listen while she repeated it to Papa.

  It's not to my credit that ever since Mr. McAllister came to town, I'd had a deep-down itch to kiss somebody the way he did it and see how it felt and all. I think I had Miss Love in mind, but I knew that would never happen. If I hadn't watched Mr. McAllister, I wouldn't even know about kissing like that. I might of put my arm around Lightfoot till she stopped crying, but probably I wouldn't of kissed her at all.

  She was not a bad girl, or common, either, and I hated it that she would think I didn't respect her. She'd know I wouldn't kiss any girl from a nice town family the way I kissed her.

  ***

  When Grandpa and Miss Love left for New York City, nobody knew how long they would be gone. "Hit jest depends," Grandpa had said when Papa asked. "But I gol-gar'ntee you I ain't a-go'n stay a day more'n I have to. I can stand them Yankees jest so long fore my arm goes to hurtin'."

  They had been away for nearly two weeks ("Doin' no tellin' what," as Aunt Loma put it) when on August 13th Papa got a telegram that said: ARRIVING 11:40 A.M. AUG 16 E.R. BLAKESLEE. I tell you, on the morning of August 16th, we were all mighty excited.

  I naturally got up early to go groom Miss Love's horse and see if everything was all right up there.

  I don't know whether it was Mama's idea or Papa's, but it was decided to invite the travelers to dinner. Maybe what did it was Miss Love's postcard promises, but bygones almost seemed to be bygones as Mama and Queenie bustled about, fixing a Sunday dinner despite it was only Thursday.

  Papa ordered ice from Athens for the lemonade. Mama put out the goblets and good china and good silver, and invited Aunt Loma and Uncle Camp and also Aunt Carrie, who was back from visiting her cousin in Athens. Aunt Carrie, remember, was the one who read poetry, studied Latin and Greek, talked cultured, believed in human excrement, and put mourning dye on Mary Toy's hair for Granny's funeral.

  It really pleased me, seeing places set for Grandpa and Miss Love. She hadn't eaten at our house since before Granny took sick, and Grandpa hadn't been there for a meal since they got married. If Mama was letting Miss Love in the house, maybe she'd let her in the family, too.

  Papa came home to get the Cadillac and drive it to the depot. "I know Mr. Blakeslee won't ride in it," he said as he left the house, "but I can bring Miss Love and their grips."

  Right after he left, Mama looked up from peeling peaches and said, "Will, I just thought. Maybe you better go take the Toy Bible out of the parlor. Uh, let me think. Well, put it on my dresser upstairs."

  I did as I was told. Laying it on the dresser, I felt a wave of grief for Granny, wishing she could be here today, with us eating on the good china and all. On an impulse I turned to where her life was recorded.

  Gosh, no wonder Mama wanted me to hide that Bible! She had nearly wore out the page erasing Enoch Rucker Blakeslee married Love Honour Simpson on July 5, 1906.

  Hearing the brass horn just a-honking, we all rushed out. There was Grandpa in the front seat by Papa; he was the one honking the horn! Miss Love was in the back, squeezed in between two mountains of grips, boxes, and hatboxes and boy howdy dressed fit to kill in a new fall outfit. She was probably hotter'n heck, but by dern she sure was fashionable.

  Grandpa was so taken with the automobile he hardly noticed anybody except me. Stepping off the running board, he slapped me on the shoulder and said, "Gosh a'mighty Peter Rabbit, Will Tweedy, these here artermobiles is something else and then some!"

  "Sir? I thought you liked mules better."

  "Eve dummy can an change his mind, son. I've rode ever dang artermobile in New York City. Stanley Steamers, Fords, Holsmans, Pierces, Buicks, Caddy-lacs, all of'm. Course Miss Love had to push me into the first car. Hit was a Franklin, and I'd jest soon been caught in the compress down yonder at the cotton gin. Scared me half to death. But you can git used to anythang." Catching Miss Love's eye, he grinned at her.

  "Mr. Blakeslee held on like he thought that Franklin might fly," she said, teasing. "But next day he couldn't wait to try it again!" While everybody laughed, Mary Toy peeped out from behind Mama's skirt. "Why, Mary Toy!" said Miss Love. "You've come home!"

  "Go kiss your grandpa, sugar," said Mama.

  Grandpa bent down for the kiss, gave Mary Toy a penny and said how much she'd growed, then straightened up and slapped the hood of the Cadillac the way a horse-trader slaps the flank of a fine stallion. He said, "I done joined the dang twentieth century, folks! Gosh a'mighty, a motorcar is a marvel. A dang marvel! Hoyt, I shore am proud you got one!"

  Queenie and Mama had dinner nearly ready to be served up, but Miss Love had brought some of the boxes in with her, and nothing would do Grandpa but to open them and pass out his presents. He had done so little gift-giving in his lifetime, he was like a child who's learned a new trick.

  As Miss Love had promised, there was a black grosgrain coat for Mama, and for Loma a thin, expensive-looking white dress with big pastel flowers embroidered on it. Aunt Loma like to had a fit over that dress. While she danced around holding it up to her, Grandpa said proudly, "I got thet'n real cheap. Besides wholesale, it was marked down for end of season, which don't matter, cause what's end of season up North is jest right for August down South."

  Mama and Papa both looked like they'd swallowed a straight pin. Mama said firmly, "Pa, have you forgot we're in mournin'? Loma cain't wear a white dress."

  Miss Love defended herself. "Your pa was dead set on that dress. I figured—"

  "A good-looker like Loma ought'n to wear black all the time," Grandpa interrupted. Aunt Loma's face prettied with p
leasure at the compliment. "When you was little bitty, honey, yore ma was always makin' you flowerdy dresses."

  "I figured it would keep till next summer," Miss Love put in real quick.

  Aunt Loma's face fell a mile. "You did it on purpose, Love Simpson," she said, and burst out crying.

  "Hesh up, Loma," Grandpa ordered.

  Miss Love's face flushed. Closing her eyes for a second, she sighed, and then spoke like to a child. "Tell you what, Loma, I'll make you a big fashionable black hat with black ostrich plumes to wear this fall. Would you like that?" And Aunt Loma nodded through her tears.

  There were presents all around. Derby hats for Papa and Uncle Camp, a little fur muff for Mary Toy that had a bunch of silk violets pinned on it, a book for Aunt Carrie, a beaded purse for Queenie—and for me a linen duster and driving cap with goggles, just like Papa's!

  "Well, thet's it, folks," said Grandpa, real proud of himself. "Santy Claus is over. Now let's go eat some good Southern cookin'. Mary Willis, you ought to see what them folks in New York call fried chicken."

  Nobody asked Miss Love to, but she explained about Yankee fried chicken. "They use only a little grease, and after the chicken pieces brown, they put water in the pan and let it steam."

  "Another thang bout them Yankees," said Grandpa, heading for the dining room, "they never heard a-sweetmilk. When I ast for it, the waitress lady brought me some with sugar in it."

  Papa said Lord make us thankful for these and all our blessin's for Christ sake a-men and started slicing the ham. Everybody was talking at once—except Mama. She was suspicioning, with funny-paper balloons hovering over her head. The first one said, How come all those nice presents? The next said, Love's tryin' to buy a ticket into the fam'ly. But how'd she get him to spend so much? The third balloon explained it: He's sweet on her. They were together in that hotel in New York and now they feel guilty. They're hidin' guilt behind all that Santy Claus.