Fair and Tender Ladies

by Lee Smith

  First off I will start at the begining wich was last week when me and Beulah went to town for Court Day, I was thinking of you often on that day for I seed yor auntie who I have been mad at. Anyway me and Beulah set out walking in the morning afore full ligt, and it was a considerable chill in the air it being November, and when we got down to Home Creek Mister John Conaway spyed us walking and said, Girls, if you will wait for a minit, Ill hitch up the wagon and give you a ride to town, because I am going down ther for Court Day myself. Wich we did, and this is how we went in style and got ther early, we was bouncing up and down on the wagon seat and giggling. I have never seed such foolish girls, said Mister Conaway. I do not know what got into us Molly that we set to giggling so. Migt be that Beulah and me had not got off together away from them younguns afore. Migt be that Mister Conaway has a big goiter and a funny way of talking, he says girrels for an instance instead of girls. We got so tickled we like to have died! I rember I looked over at Beulah just as we was coming into Majestic and I thogt Law, she looks just like a girl, and then I thogt, Well I gess so, you crazy thing, she is a girl, but things has been so hard on her, I had like to have forgot it.

  Then when we come by Mister and Mrs. Browns house I thogt of you Molly, and all the fun we had in the summer, I miss you so. Beulah and me rode in the wagon over Daves Creek where you and me used to look for gold. I hope the nuns will be nice to you, and yor momma will get well.

  I have not said that Beulah and me was acting so silly because we was going to get storeboghten dresses wich we had not ether one had. Now this is because my uncle Revel has come back to town and is holping us, he come when he heerd the news about Babe, and he has stayed on in town where he has took a room over the drugstore. He had come up the holler one week prior, to bring Momma some things, and he toled us at that time to come into town on Court Day, that he wuld be trading mules and he wuld have some cash monney to buy us new dresses.

  Now Revel, that is silly, Momma said. It will turn ther heads.

  No Maude, I want to buy them dresses, Revel said, You see that they come into town on Court Day, and his horse rared up and he whistled to his dog Charly and took off down the holler leaving Momma on the porch with her mouth open.

  So we had come. And since we was early we went by the Branhams house first to see Ethel, she was so suprised she like to have drapped ther baby. Lord lord, Ethel said. She bade us come on in the kitchen wher she was fixing to cook some breakfast for Mister and Mrs. Branham. We culdnt hardly get over all the dishes they had, and the silver. Ethel give us some coffee and sat down with the baby whilst Beulah made the biskit for her, Beulah makes the best biskit in the world, and we got in a good visit before Mister Branham come in to eat and Ethel took his wife her breakfast on a tray. She dosent hardly get up atall according to Ethel, she drinks her medisine out of a little bottle and seems real sad. I said, It looks pretty good to me getting to lay around like that. But Ethel says it is not. Ethel says Mrs. Branham is all the time crying.

  Ethel has not changed a bit from living in town, she is still as funny and honnest as the day is long and the fancy life has not turned a hair on her head.

  Mister Branham ate 7 biskits and allowed as how he wuld give us a ride to the courthouse, he said it was the leastest he culd do for such good biskits. So we hugged Ethel, and give her a kiss, and went on.

  Now I had never been to Court Day, Mollie, and it is something belive you me! Folks milling all around everwhere, and horses and wagons, everbody selling everthing, you never have saw the like. And it is so cold that everbodys breths is making clouds in the chilly air. The lawyers is coming in by then, Mister Pobst and Mister Chilhowie that is famous in the courtroom for dressing fit to kill and making everbody cry, and the courthouse clock is chiming, and so I reckon they started. We went on around to the jockey lot in the courthouse yard, and sure enogh ther was our uncle Revel, trading to beat the band.

  See, he had gone out to St. Louis and bought him some mules, and these mules had come in on the train last week wich had caused considerable intrest and consternation in town, and now he was fixing to sell them. Revel had him a red shirt and a black hat and a big cigar in his mouth. He grinned like he was tickled to death to see us.

  You girls just sit down here a minit, he said, and he set us down on some old wood boxes he had ther. And hang on a minit he said, and you migt learn something. So we did.

  That jockey lot was full of horses and mules winnying and hawing, and men looking at ther teeth. Ther breths was steaming in the frosty air. Me and Beulah sat on our hands to keep them warm. Revel sold two mules for cash monney and traded one for a horse he swore was a stumpsucker and not even worth a mule, he winked at us as he said it but the man didnt see him wink. A bigboned mule will more than apt to be lazy, Revel said to another man who said, These mules is too little, and A mule with hair sticking up on his head has not got any sense, he toled somebody else. You never heerd so much about a mule in all yor life! Me and Beulah was getting real tickled agin at how Revel was out-sharping everbody, when all of a sudden who come walking along, but yor auntie Mrs. Brown! All dressed up and walking along like she was at a fair insted of at the dirty jockey lot.

  Why girls! she said, For heavens sake, what are you doing down here, it is so nice to see you, and Beulah how is that baby? Mrs. Browns cheeks was all red from the cold and she had on a little fur hat, she looked the prettest I ever saw her.

  John Arthur is fine mam, thank you kindly, Beulah said, and I said, Revel is going to buy us some dresses.

  Oh he is, is he, Mrs. Brown said real peart and Revel grinned at all of us.

  Now this here is what I call a standard mule, Louisa, he said to Mrs. Brown. The best mules are out of Nebrasker where they breed the jacks to great big old Perchion horses, draft mules is what they call them, but our folks down here dont want any such of a large animal. They druther have a little easy mule like these which is cheaper and plenty of mule for the plow.

  Do tell! Mrs. Brown said, and then we was all of us laghing, Revel too. I plum forgot I was mad at Mrs. Brown for sending Silvaney off, I gess I will always be mad about that but it is true I have missed Mrs. Brown, I had forgot how pretty she is also. Oh Molly, you are so lucky to have her for yor auntie, and to go to school! Then Mrs. Brown went on home and me and Beulah went to Sharps Mercantile with the monney that Revel gave us, and tryed on nearabout ever dress in the store until old man Sharp got real mean with us and finely we picked.

  Oh Molly, I wish you culd see my dress it is so beutiful! It is green with puff sleeves and a round white coller, Beulahs dress is green too with buttons up the front and a kick pleat, Beulah says green will set off our red hair, she read this in a magazine.

  Well well well looky here now! said old man Sharp, Lord have mercy, look out! he said when he seed us, and he got his old lady and her sister outen the back of the store to see how pretty we look. Beulah counted the monney. I was looking in the mirrer and trying to see, but it is dark in the back of that store and the mirrer is wavy. Old man Sharp put our old dresses in a poke for us to carry and Mrs. Sharp gave us a fried apple pie apiece and hugged us and cryed. I dont know why she was crying, she migt of been a little bit crazy it seems to me now.

  Then we stepped back out the door. The town had got so full of people by then that you culdnt hardly walk. And the street just choked with wagons and cars, and people selling everthing outen the back of ther wagons. We boght a fascinator scarf for Momma from a blackheaded lady that looked like a gipsy, she was forren for sure. And when we was walking back around the square to the courthouse, everbody was smiling at us, all the men and the boys, and some several of them whistled. I felt crazy like I was drunk.

  Now who is that? I thoght to myself as we turned the corner and waited in front of the pharmacy to cross the street. And Molly, it was us! Us in the winder looking like movie stars, me too. It was such a suprise I like to have got run over crossing the street.

  But this is not all ether, and y
ou will not belive what happend next.

  We were going on back to the jockey lot to show Revel our dresses and see culd we find a ride home, when all of a sudden we hear a great shout, BEULAH! and it is Curtis Bostick, running after us hollering. Now Beulah has not set eyes on him for close on a year, since his momma had put her foot down.

  BEULAH, BEULAH, Curtis Bostick hollered, pushing everbody out of his way. Beulah stopped and turned as white as a sheet. She held onto my arm till it hurt. Then Curtis Bostick had got up to us, and he grabbed Beulah around the waist and started kissing her rigt in the street!

  Leave me alone now Curtis, said Beulah who was twisting her head all around, Let me go or Ill scream she said, but she was smiling.

  Scream all you want honey, said Curtis Bostick, and then she stopped twisting and he kissed her on the mouth and everbody on the sidewalk set up a cheer. Molly, I thoght I wuld die, of coarse.

  But then the crowd parted open like the Red Sea and here come Curtis Bosticks momma, mad as a wet hen. She is a spiteful little sharp-featured woman. Curtis! she said. You Curtis! You leave that hore alone! And she comenced to hitting both of them around the head with her pocketbook.

  Well the day has past when Curtis wuld not speak up for himself, belive you me! He flung her pocketbook down in the mud and helt her back with one hand, and helt onto Beulah with the othern. Momma, he said, I aim to take Beulah and her sister on up to Sugar Fork now, and get my baby, and then we will be coming back home direckly.

  You will not come to my house, his mother said. I forbid it, and Curtis said, All rigt then, and splunged off in the crowd pulling Beulah and me along with him and leaving his momma with her pocketbook down in the mud and her hat fallen off and her hair coming down from her hairpins. Curtis said he had been thinking and thinking about Beulah and the baby he knowed he had got, and the minute he saw her agin, it come to him plain as day what he had to do.

  So Beulah is getting maried! Curtis has took her and baby John Arthur back down into town where he has rented that little house by the lumberyard wich is where he works, and he and his momma do not even speak. So Beulah is gone, and little John Arthur, and now it is only me and Momma and Garnie and the twins up here, and sometimes I get so lonesome, I feel like it is a million people gone. I keep thinking I see Silvaney but it is never her, it is only ligt in the trees, and so often I think I hear her talking but no one is ther, it is only the wind. It is getting cold here now and I am the one has to chop the wood, Garnie is no good for chopping wood or anything else except mealymouthing.

  Momma and me can not keep up with nothing, we are living from hand to mouth on the kindness of Revel if the truth be known, and Victor has written to Momma and said he can not come home to help out as he has joined the Army, he said he did not know and he is sorry, and said to sell, wich she will not. It is John Arthurs land, she says, its all he ever had, and I will not even consider such a thing. Little John Arthur grows like a weed and Beulah is so happy, she has made some blue curtins and the Branhams that Ethel works for have given them a whole set of dishes, with roses on them, to start off with. It is a happy ending at last, like the Prince has come. And if you want to know where you put yor tonge Molly, I know this now, from looking at him and Beulah. It is, in each others mouths, if you can belive it.

  And so I remane forever yor devoted,

  IVY ROWE.

  Oh Molly, Molly,

  I can not stand it. I can not belive the nuns will throw this letter away before you read it, I can not belive yor Father has said this, nor can I stand to think that any of you all blame us for what has happend. I do not know what to say. I think so much of Mister Brown and how he said She was a Phantom of delight, when first she gleamed upon my sight, and how he broght her those flowers up from the creek, I can see it so clear in my mind.

  So I can not belive he tryed to hang himself on the wilier tree by Daves Branch but evryone says it is so. And that Revel come along and cut him down and took him home and saved his life, so they say, Revel who was the cause of it all.

  Oh now Mister Brown will surely have to kill Revel Rowe. They said it up and down the hollers, he aint got a choice in the world. But Mister Brown wuld not kill a flea, I said, and I was rigt. He wuld not touch a hair on Mrs. Browns head nether, no matter whose baby she is carrying.

  They said Revel stood out in the snow for a day and a half after she toled him to go away, and hollered Louisa, you know who you love, but in the end of coarse he done what she said and went away after all but he hollered out that he wuld never love a nother and that he wuld do anything she said, anything in the world for her.

  Then leave, Revel, just leave me now, she said from the door with her hair loose around her sholders and her face all wild.

  Lord, they have talked it all over town, Ethel said. It was a reglar scandal. They said Mister Brown layed up in the bed and cryed, and wuld not eat a thing but boiled custard, and poor little Mrs. Brown had to do all the packing herself, and her pregnant. The Methodist preacher and his wife came out from town to help her pack.

  When Revel left her finely he come up here to tell us goodbye, he said he wuld have to go away from this county now and try to find him a nother life, or else die, he wasnt sure wich. And him and Momma helt each other tigt and cryed and Revel said, Ah Maude, if only. Then Momma run out in the snow after his horse when he left but she did not ketch him. Do you know Molly, I halfway belive that Momma was a little bit sweet on Revel her self! And I belive I am too, and if you think that is awful, then you dont understand a thing. As Mister Brown him self has said, Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below and saints above. He has said too, Tis better to have loved and lost then never to have loved atall but I do not belive this, do you?

  Revel is a man born to love women, it is plain to see, and if I was Mister Brown I wuld not even feel bad that Mrs. Brown loved him. I wuld try not to take it too personal. And when I grow up and become a writter, I will write of such a love and I will write of a man like my uncle Revel who can come like a storm in the nigt and knock a born lady off her feet.

  I am hoping to heer from you Molly I am hoping they will give you this letter and that you will sneak and write to me for I am so sad about all of this and in spite of all I will remane forever your devoted best frend,

  IVY ROWE.

  My dear Daddy,

  I reckon this to be the lastest letter I will ever write you in this world. And it migt be the last letter I will ever write ether. For I feel we have come to the end of all things. We are picking up and moving on, Momma says we have got to, I gess she is rigt but it pains me so, for all I have loved is here. Daddy Daddy I hate to leave you most of all. When I think of you laying up ther in yor little gravehouse it hurts me almost past baring it, laying ther by yorself all winter under the snow.

  Now it is Febuary. It is the thaw. It has been a slow little gray rain for going on three days sollid. We are packing up all we own wich will not take long. Oh Daddy Daddy this letter is so sad it does not make sense I will bring it up and put it in yor gravehouse when we go to berry Danny, that will be this morning come full ligt. Oh Daddy this little gray rain blurs the edges of everthing, it is like all the world is nought but shadders and soft edges. I want to tell you what all has happend. Well you know that Babe got murdered and Silvaney got sent away, Victor is in the Army, Ethel is working in town where Beulah and Curtis Bostick is to be maried. See how many people this is, gone!

  And I have lost my Molly, and Mister Brown and Mrs. Brown, as surely as if they was relly dead. They are dead to me now. Revel has gone away for ever too, it is the most unselfish of anything he has ever done he toled Momma. But Mrs. Brown toled him he wuld leave her if he loved her, so he done it. Revel says he will never love anybody else, nor settle down, nor be happy.

  Granny Rowe is setting up by Danny now, she has set up all nigt by him, her and Tenessee. When Danny died, Garnie went out and rung the bell. Then he prayed and prayed over Danny but Momma said, Cut it
out, Garnie Rowe! I dont know what Jesus ever had to do with usuns anyway. Then Garnie said he wuld pray for Momma too wich made her mad as fire. Garnie is a real case Daddy, and dont none of us know how he got this way.

  But little Johnny is the one will miss Danny so much, it will be like me and Silvaney, when they took her away it was like they had took a chunk of my hart. I dont think Johnny understands yet what all has happend. Momma says that me and him and Garnie will go to school, the regular schoolhouse in Majestic not what used to be Mrs. Browns schoolhouse at Daves Branch, we will live in Majestic where Mommas frend Geneva Hunt has inherrited a big house, and Momma and Geneva will take in borders. Lots of folks have come in ther now with the lumber business, its a boom town Momma says. So we will go.

  But Daddy I dont know as I will like it ther. May be I am like you, and need the pure high air, and a mountain to lay my eyes aginst. We will not sell this place, you can rest assured of that, Momma says she wuld die first. We will only leave it for a while. It is the chance of a lifetime, Momma says.

  So I am writting you this letter Daddy, to say goodbye. We will be back before you know it! Oh Daddy Daddy when I think of all them that are dead and gone, and of all that has happend, I dont want nothing else to hapen to me, ever. I do not even want to be in love any more, nor write of love, as it is scarry. Too many things can happen in this world. It dont seem like no time since me and Victor and Silvaney and everbody was playing hide and go seek after supper, and putting lightning bugs in a mason jar, and playing Party, or since you was showing us how to make a froghouse in the yard. When I am quite it seems that I can still heer the notes of yor guitar on the air, and how you used to lagh and tell so many storeys before you got little and dreamy and took to laying up beside the fire. I think I can still see Whitebear Whittington laying under the tree. I can hear the awful sound of that ringing bell for sure. The neghbor people will be coming up the holler now, to berry yor boy Danny. It makes me so sad because Danny never was rigt he had no more chance in the world than a snowball in hell Granny said. He went throgh his life on a slant. I gess we will have to walk on up ther now in the rain, it is not a hard rain relly but more of a drizzle, it makes everthing look like its covered with dimonds. You ougt to see Tenessee she is wearing a great big hat, who knows where she got it ether.