Losing Battles

by Eudora Welty

  “I still wonder what he needed it for. You-all are clear off the highway or even a good gravel road,” said Aunt Cleo. “What did he have that was so much to haul? I haven’t seen it yet.”

  “It was his dream to provide,” said Aunt Beck, though her eye was still on Brother Bethune, who had announced he was preaching on the subject “Be Humble.” “And then to get hauled away like that himself!”

  “And wouldn’t it have done a perfect job of carrying a load of us to church and not let our shoes get nasty? And all winter long, from where we lived in mud, he could’ve been picking us up and carrying us to see him play basketball for Banner! Tore away like he was, he couldn’t even be on the team!”

  “Don’t, Birdie, you’re making us feel so sorry for him,” pleaded Aunt Beck, looking back and forth between Jack and Brother Bethune.

  “And more than that, it would’ve carried us to the courthouse faster and in a lot more style than we had, when it came time for his trial,” Aunt Birdie said to the Moodys. “We could’ve passed the whole string of ’em going, and let ’em eat our dust coming home too, after we got our hearts broken in Ludlow.”

  “But what was his hurry for?” asked Aunt Cleo. “It wasn’t to go and be tried!”

  “He’s courting! Of course, he got married before he got the truck finished,” said Aunt Nanny. “It was a race with Nature, and Nature run ahead of all the hammering he could do.”

  “Shining at the end of the rainbow was Gloria Short,” said Aunt Beck ardently.

  “Where? Where was that?” asked Aunt Cleo.

  “Where? Right here in this house,” said Miss Beulah repressively. “Not twenty feet from where she sits now. She was in our company room, when she wasn’t out in the kitchen with me, ironing her blouses.”

  “The new schoolteacher, soft, green, and untried,” Uncle Noah Webster reminded her, smiling.

  “Jack didn’t think he ought to ask her to marry him if he couldn’t even invite her to go riding on Sunday in something besides the school bus,” said Aunt Nanny.

  “Gloria’s so much of a one to like nice things and nice ways and sitting up out of the dust to ride where you’re going,” said Aunt Birdie. “Two on horseback’s not much her style. You’d never suppose that where she got to be Lady Clara Vere de Vere was in the Ludlow Orphan Asylum.”

  “Well, as school drew to a close, things got to growing mighty serious,” said Uncle Noah Webster. “Jack was prepared to hand over a decent billy goat to Curly for what Curly’s still got of the truck. It was trade-as-you-go right straight along, need I say!”

  “And what was still Curly’s?” asked Aunt Cleo.

  “A whole heap of the engine,” said Aunt Birdie, quick, like a good guesser.

  “Be humble!” shouted Brother Bethune.

  “That’s right, Birdie,” said Uncle Noah Webster. “Where the running parts was supposed to be, it still looked like a mule had taken a healthy bite right out of the middle. What Curly held onto till the last thing was the engine.”

  “Then it sounds to me like somebody went out of their way to trade Jack something that was looks only,” said Aunt Cleo, and she gave a laugh. “Well, I’d say the fault was Jack’s for not getting the engine part first.”

  “Jack thinks the other fellow is as honest and true as he is!” cried Miss Beulah furiously, still patrolling. “Even the hogs in this world! Keep going, Brother Bethune!” she cried. “Some people have still got the grace to listen.”

  “Curly mounted that engine on the post out in front of the store like a curiosity,” Uncle Curtis said.

  “And it was a freak to look at!” cried Aunt Nanny to Mrs. Moody. “You ever see one? It looks like some crawler you tie on the other end of your fishing line. Every time you tried to go in Curly’s store to so much as wish for something, you had to duck for that engine.”

  “I hate to think that’s what makes ’em go,” said Aunt Beck.

  “Why didn’t Jack just swipe it?” Auntie Fay asked.

  “Too honest. Too honest and too busy! When Jack wasn’t driving the school bus and getting his cotton up and fighting General Green in the corn and tending to the last of his education, he was courting strong,” said Aunt Birdie.

  “Never anybody but the same schoolteacher?” Aunt Cleo asked.

  “R-r-ruff!” Aunt Nanny growled. She grabbed Lady May over onto her lap, and growled at her like a wildcat and shook her. “That’s right, Cleo.”

  “Well, Curly Stovall had Jack in a cleft stick with that engine.”

  “You’re evermore right. Till finally he broke down and promised Curly the livest of his calves!” cried Uncle Noah Webster.

  “Just for that dirty engine, a pretty little nuzzling calf with a white face,” Miss Beulah said to Mrs. Moody, as she passed. “Ain’t men fools?”

  “Jack by that time was dying to get married,” said Aunt Nanny, looking at him eat, and taking another bite with him.

  “Do you wonder what Curly Stovall could still find to ask for, after he’d taken Jack’s calf and staked it out along with his billy goat?” asked Aunt Birdie. “All right, he said the one thing Jack needed to do now so as to carry that engine home was talk the new teacher, Miss Gloria Short, into taking Miss Ora’s seat in the boat and go floating with Curly on Sunday evening as far as Deepening Bend and watch him catch his supper!”

  “Not a bad fight resulted,” said Brother Bethune, aside.

  “And there was no call for them to go to battle,” said Gloria. “I’d already made my mind up what I thought of both of them, and was ready to put it in plain words if they’d only asked me.”

  All the uncles broke out in delighted laughter.

  “That battle come close to taking the cake,” said Uncle Curtis.

  “Seldom seen one like it,” said Uncle Dolphus.

  “The last real good and worthwhile battle that’s been fought for a worthwhile cause in the store,” said Uncle Percy, “the last one before Jack was drug from us.”

  “Jack tied Curly up in the same old knots and trussed him in the same style?” Aunt Cleo asked.

  “Well, this was the time that Jack got beat,” said Uncle Curtis. “But it did us all so much good, because what it left us with, after Jack got hauled to the pen, was a peaceful feeling of having something to wait for. There’ll be another Saturday,’ says Jack, while we wrench on his good right arm and sink it back in the socket for him.” He patted Jack’s busy shoulder and turned and told Judge Moody, “Well, that’s the Saturday we’re waiting for now.”

  “And now Curly Stovall’s got the whole shootingmatch back again?” Aunt Cleo said, laughing.

  “That’s right! Ain’t it, Jack? Oh, I’m glad to see him go after that third melon with such appetite, but you’d think he hadn’t had a bite of dinner at all,” said Aunt Birdie.

  “Yes’m, I suppose if Curly could finish the work it takes, he’d even start coming to church in that truck on Sunday. The hypocrite!” said Aunt Beck to Brother Bethune.

  From Brother Bethune’s side, Miss Beulah said, “Finish it? He wouldn’t know which end to start. He can’t even untie a knot in a little bit of clothesline, he can’t get a store safe to stay locked.”

  “The truck is finished.” Gloria stood up, appearing to them suddenly out of the low rocker. “We have seen it—Jack, Mrs. Moody, Lady May and me, Aycock, and all the churchgoing Methodists. Judge Moody came close to seeing it, but he missed it. It’s going to pull the Moodys’ car to the road, if it can.”

  “Jack’s truck? It’s riding?” shouted Uncle Noah Webster. “What kind of bad news is this you’re bringing on a spotless fine day?”

  “Foot! I can’t believe Stovall had sense enough to know what it needed without Jack standing there to tell him,” cried Miss Beulah.

  “Must be something wrong with it. Surely now!” The uncles were all exclaiming to one another.

  “Of course, nobody can promise you how far he’ll get with it,” said Mr. Renfro to Judge Moody. He had br
ought himself another glass of lemonade and sat down again close beside the Judge to watch him eat—Judge Moody was still no further along than chicken. “I’m just sorry to hear he’s cranked it.”

  Uncle Noah Webster was shouting with delight into Judge Moody’s face. “But now we’ve got something! Now we’ve got a war on that’s like old times! Jack and Curly buttin’ head-on again! And you in the middle! And old Aycock sitting holding his breath for everybody. Good old days has come back to Banner, Judge Moody! For a while I thought there wasn’t much left for me to get homesick for.”

  “Poor old car,” said Judge Moody to his wife.

  “If nobody has any better idea tomorrow than they have today of what the word rescue even means!” said Mrs. Moody. “The very first fellow that came along today was sporting a chicken van, but would he stop? He sailed right by our signals of distress and went out of sight.”

  “He ain’t too popular here at the reunion, either,” said Miss Beulah grimly.

  “Homer’s got his own ideas,” said Mr. Renfro, looking with interest at Judge Moody, who was still struggling with Miss Beulah’s pickled peach. “I’ll tell you how Homer’s inclined, give you a little story. Now he used to make his syrup in my cane mill. The last time, he had Noah Webster to pull in the cane, while he’s in the middle feeding it, and I was there to do the boiling, and our mule was grinding it. So Jack come along to get some skimmings, and somehow, someway, Jack put a scare in that mule. It was Bet with her blinders on. Bet commenced running away as fast as she could go,” he said, smiling when the Judge looked up at him with a frown. “She had to go in a circle, it was the best she could do at the time, tied to the long arm of a cane mill. And old Homer’s caught in the middle, ducking. Every time Bet come around, Homer tried to beat that pole and scramble out of the pit, and she wouldn’t let him. His head would peek up, he’d start his foot, and here she come again, with the dogs giving very best encouragement. But as to Homer Champion, the family knows it, the world knows it, and Bet knows it—he just wasn’t born to get out of a cane mill surrounded by a runaway mule. He’s born to duck.”

  “I knew I ought to stopped Bet for him, Auntie Fay, but I just couldn’t bring myself to get in a hurry about it,” said Jack, a bite on the way to his lips.

  “That was Homer’s last batch,” said Mr. Renfro. “And about the last batch our mule had anything to do with. It was the last. You couldn’t persuade her to make any molasses for you today, Judge Moody. Although that was the smoothest-tasting that Bet ever made. Her last batch was her best, made for Homer.”

  “Oh, we’ve been at the mercy of that mule today too,” said Mrs. Moody. “Only Providence got that truck ready for us.”

  “Stovall tied a string to the truck, didn’t he? Said he’d make you wait till tomorrow to do business, didn’t he?” challenged Miss Beulah. “And between ’em all, Judge and Mrs. Judge, they’ve left you high and dry with no place else to go, haven’t they? I can tell by the downtrodden looks on both your faces.”

  “Give us some more, Brother Bethune! Don’t let us think you’re falling by the wayside!” The call floated up from the company.

  “Don’t you stop too soon, sir,” said Aunt Beck.

  “Well, let me welcome a surprise visitor to our midst!” Brother Bethune called. “Judge Oscar Moody, of our county seat of Ludlow! Let’s all see him stand and take a bow! I know he’s as happy as I am to see where he’s found himself today. And the lady setting in front of him is none other than his good wife and helpmeet. Stand up, Mrs. Judge! I wasn’t fixing to get me a wife till I finished hunting, and still without a wife to this day,” he turned around and said to his gun.

  “Why did we stand up?” Judge Moody asked his wife.

  “I normally stand up when it’s asked of me,” she said. “Now, we can sit down.” She sat.

  But Brother Bethune became suddenly stern, as though he had had to pull the chair out from under Judge Moody. “Now sir! Now that you’re here in our midst, Judge Moody, what you reckon we better do with you? I’m going to tell you.” While they all, at last, hushed and waited, he waited with them. Then he addressed the Judge in the flat tones of inspiration. “We’re going to forgive you.”

  “Forgive him?” cried Jack, with a leap to his feet, and Etoyle, turning loose from her swinging rope, performed, in the emerald coat, the jump she’d practiced for and alighted on his back. He staggered forward. All the faces, filled to bursting with the occasion, turned from the Judge to Jack, and back and forth.

  “Brother Bethune! Brother Bethune! I wonder did you listen good to what you just finished saying?” Jack cried, though the reunion was already humming with fresh pleasure. “What’s my family going to think of you?” Etoyle with a shout bounced to the ground and steadied his leg.

  “Watch out, Oscar. You’re blushing,” said Mrs. Moody.

  The color rose to his very forehead, as though he had prepared himself for the guilty part. “Forgive me? For what?” he asked.

  “Don’t try and forgive us for walking in on you. We were invited,” Mrs. Moody warned everybody.

  “That’s plain hospitality,” said Uncle Noah Webster, slapping Aunt Cleo on the back. “That ain’t no guarantee you ain’t going to be forgiven when you get there.”

  “No sign you are, either,” Jack protested. “Brother Bethune! It seems to me like your memory comes and goes at a mighty fast trot today.”

  Judge Moody looked at his wife.

  “Well, after all, you put my car where it is and then made me come off and leave it,” she said.

  “I’ll forgive you for that,” Aunt Birdie offered.

  “A little forgiveness never hurt anybody,” Mrs. Moody said.

  “You think it’s fitting and proper for them to make a clown of me?” Judge Moody asked her.

  “I’ll forgive you for bringing your wife,” cried Aunt Nanny.

  “That’ll do, that’s a plenty,” cried Uncle Noah Webster, and the others began letting out cries and calk more and more hilarious at the sight of the Judge’s face and of Jack’s face, right together.

  “Why is it necessary to forgive me?” Judge Moody demanded.

  “That’s what I want to know! Judge Moody, I got the same low opinion of it you got!” said Jack.

  “Judge Moody, you do like the majority begs and be forgiven,” Brother Bethune said with a spread of his great long arms. “Be forgiven for sweet forgiveness’ sake, Judge Moody dear. Forgiveness would suit us all better than anything in this lonesome old world.”

  “And make this a perfect birthday for Granny!” said Uncle Percy, putting all his might into his voice.

  “Oh, what’s been let loose?” cried Miss Beulah. “It’s the second time today I’ve had to ask this bunch of people that!”

  “Well, I’m not going along with ’em, Mama,” said Jack. “Not this time.”

  “What’s a reunion for!” bellowed Uncle Noah Webster, while Aunt Birdie, charmed clear out of herself, threw open her arms and cried to the Judge, “I forgive you for livin’!”

  Judge Moody again looked at his wife.

  “That’s about the limit,” she told him, and he swung around from them all. “Cut it out, Oscar. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself,” she called, for he’d started away from his school chair, stumbling over some bright green bois d’arc fruits that rolled on the ground the size of heads. “Come on back here. You’re not going to leave me sitting by myself! And you have nowhere to go.”

  “Come on back, Judge Moody,” cried Brother Bethune in a voice of sweet invitation. “Don’t you want to come back and hear yourself be forgiven?”

  “No sir. I do not,” said Judge Moody.

  “Look! Jack’s dog is bringing him back!” came laughing cries.

  “I don’t know why, but I never could teach that dog good sense!” cried Jack, as Sid ran with authority at Judge Moody’s heels, driving him back, and as the Judge sank down again into the school chair, some hand rewarded the dog’s jaws w
ith birthday cake.

  “What does this mean?” Judge Moody asked Jack.

  “My family can’t bring ’emselves to say it, Judge,” Jack told him. “And not much wonder. They’re trying to forgive you for sending me to the pen.” He stared around him. “Judge Moody, I just don’t hardly know what my poor family’s thinking about.”

  “I’ll forgive you for pronouncing judgment on Jack Renfro!” cried Aunt Birdie, and she gave a clap of the hands, while Jack groaned.

  “No!” said Judge Moody. “I wasn’t feeling my way along that road to come to this—”

  “He’s where he is now because he’s lost,” said Mrs. Moody. “But can you show me a man anywhere that’s got the fortitude to admit that for himself? No.”

  “I forgive you for being lost,” said Aunt Beck.

  “—and I don’t want your forgiveness for being a fair judge at a trial. I don’t deserve that.”

  “Judge Moody, me and you feel the same way about it!” cried Jack.

  “Look at the boy, Judge Moody. Jack Renfro might just as well have been a boy was never heard of around here for the treatment he got from you in Ludlow. I don’t believe his mother will ever get over it,” said Uncle Curtis. “You need some pretty tall forgiving for that.”

  Miss Beulah marched up to Judge Moody with the cake plate and its crumbling remains held up in front of her chest to offer. “Don’t tell me, sir, you have nothing to be forgiven for, I’m his mother.”

  “But the fact remains that whatever judgment I passed on this boy I’d be very apt to pass again, if the same case came to court,” said Judge Moody.

  “I knew it!” said Uncle Dolphus.

  Brother Bethune was coming around the table and now he walked close to Judge Moody and linked arms with him. “I even forgive you myself for calling me ‘old man,’ but don’t try it again very soon,” he said. “Come with me—march one step further and you can take a bow,” he coaxed the Judge. “I’m going to let you meet her. Mis’ Vaughn, here’s who’s come forty-five miles to wish you happy birthday.”