Losing Battles

by Eudora Welty

  “Under no circumstances!” exclaimed Judge Moody.

  “Judge Moody, I ain’t going to hear No!” cried Jack. “Ears Broadwee, you and Emmett get up and give Judge and Mrs. Moody your seats on my syrup stand. Show some manners! You forgotten all you know while I been gone?”

  They scrambled to their feet, strung themselves out along the foot of the bank, elbowing their way in with the cosmos.

  “Judge Moody, they wouldn’t make school buses if they couldn’t stand their share of punishment,” said Jack. “Take heart, because this is the one I used to drive myself.” He hollered, “Let ’er come!”

  “Clear the way or be run over,” came Elvie’s serious voice, and the school bus came dropping toward them, not running on its engine. It came like an owl on the glide, not quite touching the banks on either side. Scraped-up and bulging like the Ark, it slammed into the ditch, then on one bounce was elevated onto Banner Road, in perfect starting position to go to school. “I coasted!” she shrieked at Judge Moody, who sank to a seat on the stand to let her coast on past him, headed down the hill. Queenie, Pete, and Slider tore after it barking, Queenie on her way frisking wildly around a Broadwee, nipping him and then running off with his cut of watermelon.

  “Keep a hold, Elvie!” Jack was running alongside. “Begin thinking where you’ll stop.”

  “It’s a relic, that’s all it is!” called Mrs. Moody after all of them.

  “Elvie Renfro, can you stop?” called Gloria, and the bus swerved at last and gave a big crack as it put itself back in the ditch again nearly at the bottom of the hill. The signal arm flipped out and, bright as a bunch of nasturtiums, rusty water spurted from the capless radiator.

  Elvie sprang out into Jack’s arms, carrying her water bucket.

  “Oh, I always said I was going to drive one of them things before I died,” said Elvie, raised in the air. “I wisht it’d been full of all the little girls I know, that’s all.”

  “That was real sisterly, Elvie. Thank you,” said Jack. “Who give you the first push?”

  “Nobody. I pulled out the chunk and run for it,” she said. “Say, will it crank?”

  Jack had scrambled into the driver’s seat. His foot beat the floor.

  “What you fixing to do with it?” called Elvie adoringly. “Give Moody a last push?”

  “Whoa, Elvie! I’m fixing to save him!”

  She shrieked and ran for home.

  The engine turned over once and died. Stomp as he would, Jack got no more sign out of it. “One more vacation has ruined one more battery,” he said. “Every year, this old bus needs a little more encouragement to go. I feel sorry for this year’s driver.”

  “Then feel sorry for your own brother,” said Gloria.

  “Vaughn Renfro?” he yelled.

  “Instead of the most popular, the best speller gets it now,” Gloria said.

  “Well, he’s already let a seven-year-old girl get the thing away from him!” Jack cried.

  “I hate to see the next piece of help that comes out of that little road,” said Mrs. Moody.

  “You’re about to see it now,” called Aycock.

  There was a clopping and a jingling, and Etoyle came riding down the track astride the mule, bareback, loaded with trace chains. She was barefooted, sawing Bet’s ribs with her heels. When she fetched out onto the road, she bent over in a fit of laughter, and everybody could see her little flat chest ridgy as a church palm-fan, naked and quivering inside her dress.

  “What’s the word from home?” Jack greeted her over the barking.

  “ ‘Don’t let that baby fall.’ ”

  “Ain’t they been brought more up to date than that?” He took the chains, helped giggling Etoyle to the ground, then he sat up sideways on Bet and scratched her forehead. The mule wagged him up the road and onto the path up Banner Top, between fallen fence posts, through the plum bushes onto the clicking limestone. His shoulders were jolted as if by hard sobs, but when Bet turned him around at the tree they could see his face shining with pleasure.

  He dropped to the ground and went fast to work with the chains. Bet posed sideways to the road; her markings were like the brown velour swag that goes over the top of a Sunday School piano. Then he slid astride her.

  “Come on, Jack boy! Now!” shouted one of the Broadwees.

  “What’s the matter with Ren-fro?

  He’s all right!”

  the Broadwees sang.

  “Jack’s not playing basketball any longer,” Gloria broke out. “He’s got his diploma.”

  “He’s hitched that chain around that tree and the car, yes. But when the unknown quantity starts to pulling?” Judge Moody stood up.

  “That tree’s gonna give,” chanted the Broadwees, and Mrs. Moody turned and commanded them: “Suppose you just pray.”

  Jack spoke into Bet’s ear. But, drooping a long, kid-white, white-lashed eyelid, she balked.

  “You want me to swap you for a chain-saw?” cried Jack.

  There was an explosion, and he all at once sat on empty air. The trace chains flew in two as Bet shot, in a rippling cloud of pink, madly down to the road. Jack pounded down the face of the bank to head her off. The Moodys rose to the plank of the syrup stand, where they stood with uncertain footing, and the Broadwees had already scattered. Gloria hugged Lady May tightly and hid the baby’s face, while Jack ran to throw out his arms to guard them, and Bet went picking her way up the home track, as if to tell her story.

  “Did you hear that bang?” Mrs. Moody asked her husband. “It sounded almost like a blowout.”

  “The one thing it couldn’t be,” he said.

  “Yes sir,” Jack called when he returned to the car. “Mrs. Moody’s right. A blowout—that’s what Bet was objecting to. It was your spare.”

  The baby, hearing the Broadwees laugh, wailed very loud, and the Broadwees helped her by bellowing, “Boo, boo, boo!”

  “Just keep on,” Gloria addressed them. “Boo some more. I want you to show our visitors just how ill-behaved Banner can be. Do your most, Emmett, Joe, VanCleave, Wayne, T.T., and Ears Broadwee. I expect it of you.”

  “Sorry, Teacher. Sorry, we’re sorry,” they said, drooping.

  “All right, boy, when’re you going to start getting the kind of help that’ll do us some good?” Mrs. Moody asked Jack, pointing her finger at him.

  “Don’t be downhearted, Mrs. Judge! I’ve got a full reunion still to draw on!”

  “And not one is going to do you a bit more good than your little seven-year-old crybaby sister,” cried Gloria.

  He scudded down to the road. “Sweetheart!”

  “The most they ever do for you is brag on you.”

  He bent to search her face, while the baby placed a tear-covered hand against his cheek and patted it.

  “Gloria,” he said gently. “You know all the books, But about what’s at home, there’s still a little bit left for you to find out. Not all of ’em brag so foolish—here comes Papa right now.”

  “Well, I rather your papa than your mama,” called Aycock.

  Mr. Renfro had come into sight on the farm track. Elvie came with him, singing:

  “Yield

  not to temptation

  for

  yielding is

  sin,”

  as she came down the steep track. Giving one skip to either side, she kept time to the homesick, falling tune in a sweet voice like plucking strings. Little by little, like a pigeon stepping down a barn roof, Mr. Renfro stepped his way behind her, then together they made the high step out of the ditch onto the road.

  Mr. Renfro lifted his old felt hat to Mrs. Moody and Gloria, acknowledged Lady May’s stare of recognition with one of his own, then came in a Sunday manner up to the Judge.

  “Old man, are you connected to the telephone?” asked Judge Moody before he could begin. “Excuse me, but I believe I’m in a bigger hurry than you are.”

  With his drill shirt and pants Mr. Renfro had put on a mended dark blue suit coa
t, tight on his body as a boy’s or even a girl’s jacket. His shirt was still buttoned tight to his Adam’s apple, and a pinch of traveller’s joy had been freshly poked into his lapel.

  “There’s a telephone down to what’s known as Stovall’s store in Banner if anybody’s getting ready to have a fit,” he said.

  “Then you can just go back, old man,” Mrs. Moody exclaimed. “We know enough about that already.”

  “Why, this is Mr. Renfro,” he said. “I reside right up that road.” He turned to Judge Moody, who still wore the handkerchief across his lower face. “Been carrying Mrs. Moody for her Sunday ride? I hope she’s fairly well. You seen anything lately of my son?” He gave a formal scan of the road.

  “Take a peep over your head, sir,” said Elvie, giggling.

  Mr. Renfro glanced up Banner Top, then whistled.

  “Papa!” said Jack, as he came running from the well, bringing him a glass of water. “You didn’t need to be the one to come. What brought you forth?”

  “Sensed undue commotion,” said Mr. Renfro after he had drunk. “Nobody that left the house come back, and the mule come back by herself.” He pointed at Banner Top. “I don’t right exactly know how you managed it.”

  “I can’t take the full credit, sir,” Jack said, as Gloria blushed. “We all kind of managed it together.”

  “I’m glad to hear you admit it, son. You couldn’t bring something like that to pass just by trying,” Mr. Renfro said. “But I don’t see how you could hardly improve on it for showing how to go about a thing the wrong way.” He handed Jack the glass and struck out across the road and set his good foot on the bank that ran straight up.

  “Papa, it don’t need you!” Jack said, catching up with him and stopping him, giving an earnest look into his face.

  “Mr. Renfro,” Gloria said, “what the rest of us are busy doing is finding a way to bring the car down in the road again without letting Jack drive it.”

  “Well, I kind of wonder, now, which one of you’s been giving the other more trouble,” said Mr. Renfro, eyes bright, looking from Jack to Judge Moody. “It’s a good thing for everybody I come along.”

  “Papa,” said Jack, “there’s no call for you to be in a rush about it.”

  “Why, there most certainly is a call,” said Mrs. Moody.

  “The old cedar tree is your drawback,” said Mr. Renfro. “That’s plain to see from right here. Yes, and that’s a pretty stubborn old cedar. I’d like to up it out of your way for you.”

  “Oh yes, and scar the finish of my automobile!” exclaimed Mrs. Moody. “You’re not going to come chopping around my car with any old axe.”

  “Papa, that Buick got where it is by cheating its way around that tree. We got to pull it back the same way—that’s the answer.”

  “May be your answer, son. I got a more seasoned one,” said Mr. Renfro. He tilted back his head and ran his gaze up the tree. “Good people, I can tell you pretty quick what’s called for, and that is to spring it.”

  “What do you mean, spring it?” Mrs. Moody asked.

  “Well, talking won’t bring it down,” he said kindly.

  “Just a minute, mister,” Judge Moody said. “I’d better talk to you next, and quick, I think.”

  “Let’s you and me go up there,” said Mr. Renfro, giving him a sudden grin of conspiracy. “We ain’t too old for a little sortie to the top, are we? I reckon you’re about my age.”

  “Papa, Mrs. Judge would have a fit,” Jack stammered out.

  “My son thinks his dad may be a speck out of practice. But I think if you asked enough of the right people, you’d find I’m pretty well known around Banner for the results I get,” said Mr. Renfro to the Moodys.

  “I’d like to point something out!” Judge Moody was saying.

  “Mr. Renfro, we’ve got Aycock sitting in the car,” Gloria said.

  “Now I wouldn’t a-done that either,” he said instantly.

  “It’s his fault,” Mrs. Moody cried.

  “Well, now,” said Mr. Renfro. “That changes the picture. It means going a little less heavy on the charge than I was first inclined.”

  “Charge?” asked Mrs. Moody, while the Judge could be heard breathing.

  “Plain, common old dynamite, it’s the reliable,” said Mr. Renfro quietly.

  “Preposterous!” said Judge Moody. The baby, who had been growing restless, smiled as his new word came popping through the handkerchief.

  “I can just see visions of that! To be saved from falling to the bottom of nowhere by getting blown sky-high with a stick of dynamite!” said Mrs. Moody. “Honestly!”

  “I’d have to send home for the materials, that’s all. I’ve got bringers,” said Mr. Renfro. “Sunday don’t put a stop to me a minute, not when it’s a need of setting my son a little straighter.”

  Jack laid both his hands on his father’s shoulders, and Gloria spoke. “Mr. Renfro, Jack doesn’t need you to rally up your dynamite for him. All he needs is a wife’s common sense, and he’s got that right here.”

  Mr. Renfro gave her the same kind of little bow that he often gave Miss Beulah.

  “That’s right,” said Jack. “I could’ve already jumped that Buick around that tree and backed her down in a cloud of fiery dust in her own tracks, but Gloria run in too quick with her common sense.”

  “And here’s a piece of mine: I’m not going to let any old man go lighting a stick of dynamite under my car, Oscar,” said Mrs. Moody. “I warn you.”

  “Under the tree,” Mr. Renfro corrected her gently. “Well, sir, we all have to stop doing what our good ladies tells us not to, and try to make out with doing what’s left,” he said to Judge Moody, the light going out of his eyes. “If you rather get Stovall, and for what Stovall charges, I won’t be mad at you. Now what he’ll come up with is a pair of oxen. Just as set on mischief as they can be, both of ’em, as you’ll know if you can read the glints in their eyes right well. And you ain’t going to like Stovall’s work or be crazy about his behavior or his oxens’ behavior. And I’m not promising that after he’s had his go at you, you won’t all run crying back to me.” Mr. Renfro put his hat back on. “And now I must plead company. The good ladies is about to make use of some tables spread under the trees. Jack,” he turned to his son and said, “it’s dinner time.”

  “Thank you, Papa. Tell Mama to please keep holding it.”

  “Papa’s feelings is hurt,” said Elvie, patting her father’s hand.

  “Papa, Elvie let the school bus run right smack dab in the ditch,” said Etoyle, popping down off the syrup stand.

  “Why, come back to me, Elvie. Can’t you show respect for your family any better than that? That’s Vaughn’s bus.” Mr. Renfro pointed at Banner Top as though nothing unusual attached to it any longer. “Growing up there you’ll find a crop of switches. Bring me one.”

  “Papa, me and Etoyle ain’t allowed to go up there, we’re too little! That’s for sweethearts!”

  “Prance.”

  Frantically, Elvie climbed up and hopped back down. Mr. Renfro took a switch, the lightest of the three she offered, and gave her legs the least brief stinging. Then he dropped the switch, lifted his hat, sent a reserved glance all the way around him, then whistled to the baby once like a far-away train, and mounted his road. Elive passed him, speeding home to start her crying ahead of him.

  The baby, looking over her mother’s arm, peep-eyed at Judge Moody with the puff of her sleeve.

  “That infant ought to be home,” he fumed. “The help of babies and old men is getting us nowhere.”

  “Of course none of these people have any idea of how to get that car down. They’re all one family!” said Mrs. Moody.

  “Judge and Mrs. Judge, don’t be downhearted. Banner is still my realm,” Jack said.

  “It doesn’t sound like your realm to me,” said Mrs. Moody. “If you don’t have the phone or the team of oxen or any way to get visitors out of here.”

  “We got people,” said Jack
. “The best thing in the world.”

  “I don’t need anything but a single piece of machinery in good working order and a tow line,” said Judge Moody.

  “And a driver,” said Jack. “If you’d just waited and tried us about next Saturday, you’d had it all—me and my truck and a tow rope all ready for your holler.”

  “All I hope is by that time we’re not still up there teetering!” Mrs. Moody cried.

  Around the legs of both Moodys, Aycock’s bony hounds endlessly darted and shied, loudly sniffing, like ladies being unjustly accused.

  “Could we possibly get rid of these dogs?” asked Judge Moody.

  “Can I whistle ’em inside with me?” Aycock called.

  “No!” everybody cried, and Jack said, “They’d be in the driver’s seat in no time.”

  There was another explosion. Jack charged up the bank.

  “That was your right front!” he called in a moment. “A good old Firestone tire with the tread still on it. I believe they’re overheating. One way to stop ’em is let the air out of the others before they start copying!”

  “Keep your hands off—they’re safer just blowing out,” said Judge Moody. “Dear,” he said to his wife, “how much air did you have put in our tires?”

  “The maximum,” she said. “I always order the maximum when I get anything for you.”

  “The maximum air? Then just give the others time,” said Judge Moody. He looked at the car and gave a short bark of laughter.

  “Now cut it out, Oscar. You’re about to start feeling sorry for yourself. I’ll tell you one thing,” Mrs. Moody said. “If that car hasn’t fallen to its destruction before much else happens, it wasn’t intended to fall.”

  “How much longer do you think Providence is prepared to go on operating on our behalf?” the Judge asked her.

  “Keep talking like that and it’ll fall right now!” she exclaimed. “Oscar, instead of tempting Providence, you’d do better to head on down this road to that store that’s all locked up. And if you don’t see the man around, climb in through the window.”

  “And you know what somebody’d pop up and call it? Trespassing,” said Jack.