Fair and Tender Ladies

by Lee Smith

  What is it? I said.

  Where is your beegums, mam? he said most polite. I’ve got you a swarm up here in a sack.

  Just a minute, I said.

  He stood right there while I made my way, pulling LuIda who cried and cried. He had somehow spooked her. I was out of breath when we got to the top.

  You must be Honey Breeding, I said. My husband’s been looking for you.

  He might be sorry he found me. Honey Breeding was looking hard at me. Now I was right at the top of the steps, but he never moved. He stood in my way with his arms folded across his chest.

  I came up on a level with him. He is not a big man, Silvaney, not near as big as Oakley. He is skinny, wirey, with pale thick curly gold hair on his head and thick gold eyebrows that nearabout grow together, and hair all over him like spun gold on his folded forearms. I thought about Rapunzel spinning gold. I thought about the Brownies in the McGuffey Reader. For Honey Breeding did not seem quite real. He seemed more like a woods creature fetched up somehow from the forest, created out of fancy, on a whim. Honey Breeding seemed like a man that I had made up in the cool dark springhouse, like a man I had immaginned until he came true. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, grinning at me. His hair held all the sun. His teeth were real white. Animal teeth. I remembered Oakley saying, A bee man don’t have no home. His eyes were pale blue. He was grinning at me. I could not breathe.

  Let me pass, I said, but I couldn’t help smiling.

  Why yes mam, Honey Breeding said like a gentleman.

  LuIda chose this very moment to cry even harder, clinging onto my legs. Children—sometimes it’s hard to figure what gets into them. Mostly, LuIda is real even tempered.

  Honey Breeding stood back a little, and bowed like a man in a play.

  Now let me tell you what happened.

  When I passed close by him, it was like a current jumped from him to me—or me to him and back, maybe. I don’t know. Or it was like we both had it in us, and it just leaped out when we met, out of both of us—it arched between us through the leafy air. Oh lord, I think I thought. LuIda pulled on my legs then and I slipped on the rocks and nearly fell. Oakley and the boys carried all these rocks, for the steps and the springhouse.

  Honey Breeding caught my elbow. Careful now, he said. His voice ran all through me like a song.

  And then I was up on hard level ground again, and he stood staring. LuIda cried. I stared back, I lost myself down in his eyes, I don’t believe I have ever seen eyes so light in a full grown man. They are like cateyes. Granny used to have a cat with eyes like that.

  The beegums are in the orchard back of the house, I said finally. But it didn’t matter what I said.

  All right, I think he said. He was looking at me. LuIda was crying. I picked her up all of a sudden and ran for the house, I could hear him laughing behind me, a nice laugh, a big laugh, like he had all the time in the world. I ran in the house and tore around doing first one thing and then another.

  What has got into you? Martha asked me. Even Martha noticed. But I couldn’t say.

  Then directly he came by the house carrying his sack, and went up in the orchard among the blossoms. It is the best time in the world to start a beegum, Oakley had said. Early summer. The orchard was a sea of pale pink flowers, and Honey Breeding walked right through them like he owned it, swinging his sack. He was whistling. He could whistle like a bird!

  That is the bee man, I told Martha. We watched him out the back door.

  Honey Breeding laid down his sack in the high grass next to the beegums. Then he looked all around the orchard. He looked up at the house and nodded, as if he just knew we were watching him! This made me mad as fire. He took the head off one of the beegums and set it down on the ground. Then he untied the neck of his sack and reached down in there and came up with a big piece of dripping honeycomb and placed it down in the beegum, on those cross sticks. Then he put the head back on the beegum and licked his fingers. By then, some bees had got out of the sack. They were flying circles around and around his head. But Honey Breeding didn’t wear a hat. He didn’t have no gloves. He licked his hands again and looked back at the house, somehow he just knew we were watching. Then he grabbled around down in the bag for a little bit and came up with the Queen I reckon, or leastways with some bees he set right in the hole. He let the other ones go. They went buzzing around and around the beegum, around Honey Breeding. He grinned up the hill at us—at the house, at the window. He waved. He knew I was in there watching.

  I’ll be back, he called. You tell him. I’ll be back.

  By the next morning, those bees had all crawled in the beegum hive and settled. Oakley was tickled to death. But Danny Ray got stung real bad, three places, because he went down there when they were still swarming. We told him not to but he went anyway. I put soda on his bee stings, then tobacco, to take the fire out.

  Did he say when he was coming back? Oakley asked, and I said, No. But he said he would. He just said he’d be here, I said.

  And as for me, I was in a fever. First I’d have a cold sweat, and then I’d have a hot flash. I got to thinking, This must be the change of life. It must be. And I went about my days like I was walking through a dream, like the days were all happening under water, and I was swimming through them. It reminded me of when Daddy used to take us swimming down in the Levisa River, Silvaney, you remember. You could open your eyes under water and see the big fish. I thought about getting Oakley to take me and the kids down there like we used to, but it was too early in the year I decided, and besides—I was afraid I’d miss him.

  I didn’t even leave the house, for fear I’d miss him.

  Which I did not.

  It was the following Sunday that he came. Oakley had gone off to church taking Bill and Danny Ray with him. I myself had got out of going because I had to stay home and cook. All of Oakley’s folks were coming up Sugar Fork for dinner after church, so I was cooking a ham and Martha was devilling eggs. By then it was flat out summer, getting hot. I was sitting out in the breezeway wearing nought but a shift, I had ironed my dress to put on when it got closer to the time for church to let out, and why not? Nobody up here but women and children. I sat in the breezeway rocking in my shift. I leaned back and closed my eyes. I was real tired. I’d been up since daylight, making potato salad.

  Thinking about me? he said.

  It was like he took shape in my mind. I sat bolt upright.

  Lord, no, I said. What are you doing over here today? At first I was mad as could be, but then I found I was grinning at him. He stood there real easy, smiling, with one hand on the rail.

  Come on and go with me this time, he said. It ain’t far.

  All right, I said. I stood up and hollered to Martha that I would be back directly, and left. Just like that. As easy as pie. I walked off down the path in my shift without thinking a thing about it, following Honey Breeding.

  It was full June, the prettiest day.

  How are you called? he said once, and I said, Ivy.

  Well Ivy, he said, We are going right down here by the creek, I seen some bees last time as I was leaving. You all are lucky, he said. This time it is going to be real easy.

  We followed close by Sugar Fork, near where Granny and me had sat, and then when the path started down the holler and the creek went on, we went along by the creek. We went with it until it widened out into a little pool. Now I guess this pool has been here all along, but I can’t swear it. It seems to me like I would know any pool along this creek, but I’ll swear, I had never seen this one before.

  Sit down, Honey said, pointing at a big flat rock in the sun by the pool, and I did.

  Take your hair down, he said next, and I reached up and pulled out the pins. I have been wanting to cut my hair but Oakley won’t have it, he says it’s against his religion for a woman to cut her hair. Sometimes I sneak and trim it, but not so as he can tell. Anyway it is real long now and for the first time, that day on the rock, I was glad. I sat on the bi
g warm rock with my hair falling all down around my shoulders. He had not looked at me yet. He had him a tub, a sack, some other things. The light came up from the creek and dazzled in my eyes, I could not see. It was dead on noon.

  Bees love water, Honey said.

  He took some corncobs soaked in honey out of the tub and put them on another rock, and then came and sat down next to me. We were waiting. While we waited, he fooled with my hair and my neck. I could not breathe. He never kissed me. But the funny thing is, it was like I had known him. For ever, for always, years and years and years.

  We were old hat, him and me.

  First one bee came to light on the corncob, then another, then another, more, until the corncobs were thick with bees, bees lighting, flying up, flying down, buzzing, buzzing. It made me dizzy.

  Wait now, Honey said. He got up and they scattered, buzzing like crazy, and he followed them into the woods, not too far. I could hear him in the underbrush. Then I didn’t hear him, and I figured he had found the bee tree. And sure enough, out he came after a while, with his swarming sack and the bees all around his head.

  Stay back, he said. Let me go first.

  I stood up like I was still in a dream. I had to shake my head to clear it. The sun off the water was blinding. I couldn’t tell if I had been there for minutes or hours. I didn’t care. I knew that Oakley’s whole family was coming for Sunday dinner but I didn’t care, I couldn’t think about it. I followed him back up the hill, not thinking about it, not caring, I followed him past the house where Martha stood in the breezeway holding Maudy, staring out at us. What was she thinking? What does she know? Martha’s eyes are big and dark, like her mother’s. Maudy waved to us, she loves to wave. I followed Honey Breeding around the side of the house and LuIda came down off the porch and followed us too, through the orchard, dragging her blanket that she carries everyplace. I believe it used to be Beulah’s. The orchard smelled so sweet. You stay back, he said. We sat in the grass and I leaned back on my elbows and looked up. It was like a ceiling of swaying frothy pink blooms, like a moving ocean of foam. LuIda lay curled up on her blanket. She sang a little song. I watched while Honey settled the second swarm in the second hive. He worked fast, yet he never seemed to hurry. And he never wasted a move, that I could see. Above us was pink flowers, blue sky, sun. It was getting real hot, even there in the orchard. Maybe I slept for a minute. It was like I was in a dream.

  Ivy, he said. Wake up. I’m going.

  I looked up and he stood there right in front of me. He held out his hand and I took it. He pulled me up. We stood there real close to each other but not touching. We are exactly the same size. It’s like he is me, some way, or I am him. All he did was look at me, nobody has ever looked at me like that before, or will again. I know this. Nobody.

  I thought I would pass out, finally I had to look down. When I looked up, he was gone. Just like that, without a trace. I picked up LuIda and her blanket and walked back to the house thinking, I must make a picture. I must be a mess. With my hair straggling wild all down my back and grass stains on my shift.

  Right before I got to the house, a bee stung me through my shift. It hurt like blazes.

  I got in just before they all drove up. I could hear them down by the creek slamming the car doors, laughing and talking. Then I could hear them getting closer as they walked up the hill to the house. I was pinning up my hair when they got here.

  Sweet heavy Edith Fox sat down in a chair and stretched out her legs, which are bad to swell. She started fanning herself. Hello there Ivy, she said. I have brung you some fried peach pies for dinner. Dreama, give her the pies. You look all thin and wore out, Edith told me.

  Dreama handed me the paper sack and I took it on back to the kitchen and put the pies out on a plate. They looked real good. All of a sudden I was starving to death! I went ahead and took one and ate it in three bites with Dreama watching.

  It ain’t fair, Dreama said. You can eat all you want and you don’t gain.

  That is because I work all the time instead of living with Mama and Papa who do everything for me, I thought, but did not say it. For all of a sudden, I felt real sorry for Dreama, who is so pale and fat and hasn’t got any eyebrows to speak of. Dreama will never feel as I felt this afternoon. Whether it is wrong or right she will never know it, never. She will be fat and bitter, and she will go to her grave this way. Dreama was married once, when she was real young, but he went off to the war and came back a different man. He shut her up in the wardrobe three or four times when he didn’t like his dinner, and then he beat her with a mule harness and she ran home where she’s been ever since. Oakley and Ray Junior went over there and liked to killed her husband. He left this county then and has been gone ever since. His name was Hubbard Looney. He has been a long time gone. Since then, Dreama has had some boyfriends, but she’s too picky. This one’s too lazy, that one’s too fat, this one’s got a gimpy leg. Now that she is well past 40, all the lines in Dreama’s face go down. She gets harder and harder to please. The truth is, nobody can hold a candle up to Oakley or to Ray Senior, as far as Dreama is concerned. She doesn’t really want a man. If you want a man, you can always get one, Geneva used to say. I believe this is true. They can tell when you want them, or when you don’t. But Dreama still thinks she does. She was talking about a man from Saltville who is over here with the power company, that she had met at church.

  Do you reckon I would run into him if I went into town myself to pay the light bill? Dreama asked, for they have got electricity now down on Home Creek, and I said, Well, I don’t know. But then she said that his adam’s apple sticks way out, which she hates in a man. She is so picky. I ate another peach pie. I put the ham and the potato salad and the devilled eggs out on the table. Every time I took a step, my bee sting hurt like crazy. But I didn’t want to doctor it or tell anybody. I wanted to keep it a secret. Martha had already made the cornbread. I sent Billy down to the springhouse to get some more butter, and when he came back with it, I went out in the breezeway.

  You all come on, I said.

  Oakley always says the blessing at the table. But when his daddy is here, his daddy says the blessing and we all hold hands. That is how they do it down on Home Creek. So I held Oakley’s hand on one side, his daddy’s on the other. Oakley’s daddy asked for rain, and peace in our time, and a good tobacco crop, and for Delphi Rolette, who has been real sick, to get better. Then he told God to say hey to Ray Junior in heaven, which he always says. Then he said, Make us ever mindful Lord of the needs and desires of others, in thy holy name we pray, amen, which is how he always ends a blessing. Ray Fox could have made a preacher. So could Oakley, of course. But I couldn’t keep my eyes shut during the blessing. I couldn’t stop thinking about Honey Breeding and how he had looked at me. As soon as Ray Senior was through, I raised up my head and helped everybody’s plates and started eating like I was starved.

  This is a mighty good ham, honey, Ray Fox Senior said, and I jumped a mile in my chair at the mention of his name.

  Thank you sir, I said.

  What all did you put on it? Edith asked, and I answered that I boiled it first, yesterday, then I put brown sugar and cider on it to bake it. I could hear my own voice talking but I didn’t feel like it was me.

  Well it sure is good, Edith said.

  Thank you, Edith, I said. I kept thinking about Honey Breeding and how he stared. I could feel my bee sting swelling up beneath my skirt. It was starting to hurt real bad. The boys said they were through and could they go down the holler and play cowboys and Indians, and I said yes. I got up and got the jam cake from where I was keeping it down in the cold corner, away from the stove. Why, looky here! said Ray Senior. Those boys left too soon.

  They can’t sit still, I said. They’ll get some when they come back. They will be back directly.

  I don’t like that Susie Ratliff, Dreama was saying about a woman at church. She is too stuck up.

  I was rubbing my bee sting which was hurting. Then I look
ed up and found Oakley staring at me, with his calm brown eyes. You look kind of hot, Ivy, he said, or something.

  I am okay, I said.

  I was over at Maureen Gray’s when she had a hot flash and shook like a leaf, Edith said. Can you pass me another peach pie? I ate another pie too. Oakley was watching me. I pulled up my dress and felt of the bee sting underneath the table, nobody could see me. Did I tell you what Bethy Rolette said to me when we were going in the door? Dreama asked her mother and her mother said, No. Well I can’t believe I didn’t tell you, Dreama said. Then she said, Bethy came right up behind me and said, Oh Dreama, you look so good from the back! Now, do you think I ought to be mad or not? Everybody was laughing, even Martha. Then Oakley was telling his daddy about the beehives. Maudy started crying in her bed. I stood up to go and get her. For a minute I just stood there though, and looked around the table. It was something like a hot flash, I think, though I did not shake like a leaf. Everything leaped up at me—Oakley’s sweet face, his daddy’s big wrinkled hands that never come clean, the shine off Edith’s glasses, Dreama’s wide white cheeks, Martha’s dark pure eyes. Martha’s black hair curls around her face, but Dreama and Edith both pull their hair straight back in tight little knots, it is their religion. I looked hard at everybody. Behind the table, out the open door, lay the orchard. I felt of my bee sting, secret under my skirt. I went to get Maudy. I just don’t know what will happen.

  Your sister,

  IVY.

  July 21

  Dear Oakley,

  I am writing you this note to say that I have gone off on a little walk today. I will be back this evening. Do not worry about me as I remain your loving wife,

  IVY.

  August 14, 1940