Losing Battles

by Eudora Welty

  Vaughn opened his mouth. Jack helped Mrs. Moody and the Judge up onto the spring seat beside him.

  “What word do I take Mama along with ’em?” Vaughn broke out.

  “Mama knows what to do.” Jack said. “Just keep down to a trot and don’t spill ’em. The rest of us will walk it and get there the same time as you,” he told the Moodys.

  “The school bus!” yelled Vaughn, in the minute between when his old dust faded and his new dust was still to be raised. “Look where you put the Banner School bus!”

  “You got it to keep up with for a whole year, Vaughn. You ought to’ve started sooner,” said Jack. He gave Bet a spank.

  At the last minute, Etoyle sprang and made a jump into the wagon. She dropped down into the hay behind the Moodys and smiled at them.

  “No, Mischief, you can’t hold my baby again,” Gloria said, as Etoyle held out her arms from the moving wagon. “She didn’t get up Lover’s Leap all by herself.”

  “And here we go up this funny little road,” said Mrs. Moody.

  As though he needed to wring out something, Judge Moody wrung out his handkerchief, then scraped it over his cheeks and brow and tied it on again.

  When the dust began to rise behind the wagon, Etoyle stood and waved at the only one she could still see above it, Aycock. “Sweet dreams!” she called. The smile of pure happiness on her face was the same one she’d welcomed Jack home with this morning.

  “How late is it drawing on to be?” Aycock called.

  “Don’t fret. One of my sisters’ll find her way back to pitch you a chicken leg,” said Jack.

  “Stop her. I want a can of sardines and a can of Vyenna sausages and a pick to punch it open. And the kind of pickles Miss Ora Stovall knows so well how to cure,” he called. “Those’re what I been homesick for.”

  “Save ’em for Saturday,” Jack advised.

  “Can I keep Queenie? She’ll be good, she’s the mother dog.”

  “She took off, leading those two other scampers. They’ll get home without you. But I’ll run tell your mama you’re safe and sound before she sets in to calling you,” said Jack.

  Now he and Gloria and the sleeping baby were the only ones in the road, and the sound of all wheels had faded. He set his hands in place around her waist and asked, “Ready for home?”

  They started up the track, and Jack steered them toward the well. Its smell came to meet them, like that of a teakettle that has been steaming away, out of mind, on the back of the stove all day. Under the big pine was Gloria’s satchel lying forgotten, already velvety pink. The wooden cover over the well had the heat of a platter under the Sunday hen. Through Jack’s hands the rope ran down in a long coarse stocking of red, and then he drew the bucket up on its shrieking pulley. They shared the glassful. Then Jack, looking at Gloria’s face, poured her another glassful and handed it to her.

  “You can count on one thing, Gloria,” he told her. “Before the day’s out I’m going to see that you get your good-byes said to your Miss Julia Mortimer.”

  She spilled the water and dropped the glass. “Jack!”

  “You needn’t have worried—I wasn’t going to let you get carried off by a gaggle of geese,” he said, brushing the drops off her skirt, chasing the glass. “We ain’t that bad off yet, that my wife has to be come after in time of trouble. We still got a wagon and mule to our names.”

  “Are you sending me back where I came from?” she cried.

  “I’m carrying you. I’m going with you, not letting you go anywhere by yourself, sweetheart.”

  “I don’t want to go! I’ve said my good-byes to Miss Julia!”

  “But she’s the one who was good to you. Your main encourager.”

  “Then listen! Miss Julia Mortimer didn’t encourage me to marry you, Jack!” cried Gloria.

  “What?”

  “She was against it and gave that out for her opinion.”

  The pupils of his shocked eyes nearly overflowed the blue. “Why?”

  “She said it promised too well for future trouble.”

  “She came out with the bare naked words?”

  “Trouble and hardship.”

  “Gloria, next to losing Grandpa, this is the worst news to welcome me yet,” he said.

  “And the only letter I ever did find in that mailbox for me was from her,” said Gloria.

  “What did it say? Get it out, honey,” said Jack.

  Gloria hugged the baby closer. “It said for me to come to Alliance and she’d tell me what would become of me. To my face,” she whispered. “I never went!”

  “Because how could you get there?” he said. “You couldn’t even get to Parchman to beg for me.”

  “ ‘Don’t marry in too big a hurry,’ she said.”

  “Possum, then what would she have had you do?”

  “Teach, teach, teach!” Gloria cried. “Till I dropped in harness! Like the rest of ’em!”

  He gripped her.

  “Do you blame me for keeping out of her sight?” she asked.

  “But it was so remarkable of her,” he said, staring. “She knew what would happen without even laying eyes on me. Didn’t even know me.”

  “She knew of you.”

  He held her close to him, her face spangled with its freckles and beginning tears as if dragonfly wings were laid across it. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry about it now,” he said, his cheek on hers.

  “I waited so long on today! I thought I was ready for anything, if you’d just come—reunion or no reunion. Then first Judge Moody and now Miss Julia Mortimer! I blame them both for where we find ourselves right now.”

  “You can’t blame who you love,” he said.

  “I can. I blame Miss Julia Mortimer.”

  “You can’t blame somebody after they’re dead,” he said.

  “I can.”

  As they stared at each other, he suddenly jumped her aside, for a wasp came swinging toward her temple, like a weight on a thread. He beat it off, beat the air all around her, stamped on the wasp, and brushed her carefully again, although nothing had touched her. Nothing had bothered the baby, who lay against Gloria’s bosom, open-mouthed in sleep.

  “You can’t blame anybody living,” she accused him.

  “Now I can’t blame Judge Moody. He saved—” He drew her near, stroking her forehead, pushing her dampening hair behind her ears.

  “Sending for me to tell me what she thought of our future! An old maid, and a hundred and one years old!”

  “Old people want to tell you what’s on their mind, regardless of what it is or who wants very bad to know it,” whispered Jack. He went on stroking her, as if she might have fallen and hurt herself, or the wasp had stung her after all. “And they pick the time when they want to tell it. It’s always right now—they don’t like to wait. You just got to expect it.”

  “I’ve hoped against hope she was wrong through and through!” Gloria’s tears ran down the face he was kissing.

  “Poor little old fat Possum,” he whispered. “I see now what you’ve been doing all this time without me. Thinking. Broodering.”

  “The very last time I was over the bridge, she tried to talk me out of listening to you. That’s when you were still my pupil.”

  “And when you took my side,” he asked her, stroking her forehead where it was so hot, “wouldn’t she pay regard to your common sense?”

  “Jack, she pooh-poohed it. She laughed at me.” Then every bit of her was ready to dissolve in tears. He sank to the ground along with her and the baby, and took them on his lap—onto his old torn pants, whitened and crumbling along the seams as though they’d been trimmed in crusts of bread.

  “I’d wondered why she didn’t come to our wedding,” he said. “But I see now why she couldn’t show her face.”

  “I wouldn’t have told you she laughed. Only if I hadn’t, you would have carried me straight to her wake,” she whispered.

  “Now you’ve had one to laugh at you, and I’ve had one to be sorry for me,
” said Jack.

  She sobbed.

  “Never mind, honey. I ain’t ever going to laugh at you, and you ain’t ever going to feel sorry for me. We’re safe.”

  “That’s being married,” she agreed between sobs.

  “And never mind, sweetheart, we’re a family. We’ve still got the whole reunion solid behind us.”

  “Oh, if we just had a little house to ourselves, no bigger than our reach right now,” she whispered. “And nobody could ever find us! But everybody finds us. Living or dead.”

  He cradled her flaming head against his shoulder. He held her in his arms and rocked her, baby and all, while she spent her tears. When the baby began to roll out of her failing arm, he caught her and tucked her into the pillow of the school satchel. Then he picked up Gloria and carried her the remaining few steps to that waiting bed of pinestraw.

  When the sun had moved, Jack said, “And they’re waiting dinner on us.” They stood up together and Jack lifted Lady May—the limp child whose cheek had been pressed pink by a little buckle, whose feet were bare as a beggar’s.

  A flock of birds, feathers of that blue seen only in the loneliest places, flitted across the path that started home. From behind them, a string was plucked, then another—a tune.

  “I reckon what Aycock spent his year, six months and a day missing was his guitar,” said Jack. “He’s serenading himself now. I wonder what told him he was going to need that before he got back home this time.”

  “And now, Jack,” said Gloria, when they were back on the short-cut, “the reunion sent you to get rid of Judge Moody and what you’ve done is invite him home with you. And his wife along with him. This time, they’ll kill you.”

  He smiled at her.

  “Or they’ll just have to give up and cry,” she promised him.

  “Little chicken, before you stopped, you’d cried enough for all of ’em.”

  “Those tears were saved up, Jack. I had to get that crying done before I could go any further.”

  He gave a nod, as when she mentioned her common sense to him.

  Dense mounds of blackberry bushes held their own through the sheets of dust, looking like giant iron cooking pots set the width of the home pasture. Above the trees on the last rise, the roof began to flash. They could already hear the great hum. Lady May began rubbing her eyes.

  “All I ask is you let me wash my face first,” said Gloria. “To be ready for ’em.”

  “That’s my little wife,” Jack said, tying her sash for her.

  Part 3

  The shade had circled around to the front yard. The tables appeared to have opened and bloomed. They reached in a jointed line from the bois d’arc tree all the way down the yard, almost as far as the post with the bell on it. Elvie solemnly drew apart the sacks and unveiled the ice.

  Miss Beulah ran to the old lady’s chair. “Granny, are you of a mind to let Brother Bethune use the Vaughn Bible today?” she asked.

  “Not until he shows me his right to be here at all,” said Granny. “Who went so far as to let him through the bars?”

  “Brother Bethune’s carrying a Bible of his own, Mother,” said Mr. Renfro.

  “He can pocket it,” said Miss Beulah. “I wouldn’t trust it to have everything it needs in it. Bring the Renfro Bible, Elvie, off the table in the company room. All right, Curtis, Dolphus—one two three!”

  Rocker and all, Granny Vaughn was lifted high and carried through the crowd. Little clouds of fragrance seemed to go with her. The day had brought out the smell of her black dress, a smell of black, of her trunk and its brass lock, and there was a little vinegary smell that lasted longer, from the washing of the handworked lacy collar that went raying around her neck.

  Elvie came back out of the house, the Renfro Bible the only thing showing above her prancing legs. As she dumped it into Brother Bethune’s lap, its lid banged, heavy as a table top, and let out a smell loaded as a kitchen cabinet’s. Brother Bethune rose with it sprawled in his own arms and first led the company, then trailed them, as in long spreading scatters through the solid shade of the house and the floating shade of the trees they moved toward the tables, with Miss Beulah calling and pointing them out where to go, or taking them by the shoulders and steering them there.

  Granny, transported to the head of the top table and given some dahlias to hold, sat with head cocked. Brother Bethune and his stand were wedged into the tree roots by her side, in between her and Grandpa’s chair. A tub of lemonade was fitted in too, next to the stand, so strong-scented that it drew tears.

  “Table looks almost too pretty to be molested!” Uncle Noah Webster hollered from the foot, sitting high on the sugar barrel. Granny’s table was seated round with her grandchildren—the Beechams and their wives, and Mr. Renfro and his sisters. Beyond the tables, the overflow sat on the ground at the cloths and quilts spread in surrounding diamonds, and the edges of the crowd reached back up into the wagons.

  Uncle Nathan remained standing at Granny’s back, his hand on her chair, a fixture there from now on. He had hair streaked with white, tangled and falling to his shoulders. His old coat and pants had been patched again on top of last year’s patches and, though neat, had been put on rough-dry. He gave off a steam that spoke of the river and now and then of tar. His face was brown and wrinkled as the meat of a Stuart pecan.

  “You a bachelor?” asked Aunt Cleo.

  “And the oldest Beecham boy,” said Miss Beulah, stepping up beside him. “Nathan never fails us. If only we could keep him!”

  Aunt Nanny still held a baby boy on her lap, and only stopped tickling him and gave him up when Brother Bethune made a sign. He threw open the Bible and flung back his hand, as if to show he could start on any page it wanted him to. Without a glance downward, he smiled.

  “Well, look at me!” said Brother Bethune. “I’m proud I made it. The way it is lately, every year that’s rolled around, there’d be a Bethune to go. For a while it looked like this year it was going to be me. But as precious friends will remember with me, the Lord took two others instead. Lowered Sister Viola in her grave in Banner Cemetery and they was fixing to cover her. My oldest brother Mitchell says, ‘Hand me the shovel, Earl Comfort, I want to just shovel a little dirt on her coffin, it’s the last thing I’ll ever get to do for her.’ And he did and the next minute the shovel flew and dirt flew and Mitchell was down kicking on the ground! It was Sister all over again! I throwed my weight on him, that’s what I did for Sister, but I couldn’t help but see his face was already going black. Oh, I held a fast grip on him. But he threshed right ahead. Until he’s gone like Sister, and gone before she’s even covered.” He crowed. “And listen, then they couldn’t get me up! And I couldn’t get myself up! Well, Mitchell he made two and I all but made three—three Bethunes to go in one year and pretty near all in one day. There you are now, match that.”

  “I wish Brother Bethune would reserve some of that story for use in the pulpit,” came the voice of Aunt Birdie. “It’s not all that much, and those not in the family can get tired of it.”

  “And so,” Brother Bethune continued in a key a notch higher, “this beautiful old home, this happy family, the bounty of God’s blessings and all His wonderful gifts to Man is making our hearts glad this evening. Now if you was to ask me what exactly in the Book it looks like to me this minute”—he snapped over a page in the Bible which cracked like a whip and flourished the smell of honeysuckle—“I’d answer you quick: Belshazzar’s Feast. Miss Beulah may have even out-provided it! And I bet it’s as good as it looks.”

  Miss Beulah edged near enough to warn him: “Grandpa Vaughn made himself wait. He got the blessing said and the history every bit delivered and the lesson of it through our heads before he even looked at the table.”

  “It’s Belshazzar’s Feast without no Handwriting on the Wall to mar it,” Brother Bethune went smoothly on, “and no angel, so far, to come and take the glory and credit away.”

  “Is he coming to Jack fairly soon?” whispe
red Aunt Birdie among the Menes and Tekels of Brother Bethune. “And forgive him quick and get it over?”

  “Birdie, Jack hasn’t reached the table yet. Everything in its time,” said Uncle Curtis.

  “Though I hope Ralph Renfro’s not planning on acting like Belshazzar’s daddy—that’s Nebuchadnezzar going out to eat grass,” Brother Bethune said slyly. “I’d like you to show me enough grass around here would satisfy a rabbit, Ralph, unless you count what’s took over your cotton. Lord, you sure need a rain.” He got his laugh from the men. “All right, then! Bow your heads and hush your babies, I’m fixing to ask the blessing.”

  When Brother Bethune addressed the Lord, he threw his voice as far as the top of the bois d’arc tree over Granny’s head. It was this big tree that at this hour had taken command of the yard. Its look was this: if disaster ever wants to strike around here, let it try it on this tree. The top had spread almost as wide as the roof, which it had shaded blue as a distant mountain. Its hard, pronged branches could never be well concealed by leaves so constantly stirring, shimmering without a breath of air. Brother Bethune had leaned his gun against the trunk.

  “Know another who draws his prayers out to too great length,” said Granny when Brother Bethune had finished. “I’m putting a stop to it.”

  Then quickly Miss Beulah, with Ella Fay and Elvie to help her, began garlanding movements around behind them, offering them more to eat before they started, and telling them right and left the only good way to eat it.

  “And keep your eyes peeled for Jack!” Miss Beulah cried over their heads while they were reaching. “Sometimes taking the first juicy bite is all that’s needed to bring him.”

  “Those children’s just like little pigs—what one won’t eat, the other will. Look at ’em go!” said Aunt Nanny behind her drumstick.

  “We are fortunate to have Granny Vaughn still with us today and in her right mind. Her living grandchildren and great-grandchildren are making her happy and going to fill her lap with presents as soon as I let ’em at her. First I’ll look out over your heads and tell you who I don’t see,” began Brother Bethune.