Angels

by Reba White Williams

  Most hot afternoons after they’ve finished their chores, the children from around here come to play in the water—Byrds, and black children, and white children—black hair, brown, blonde, towheads, and carrot tops; curly heads and silky ones; pigtails and buzz-cuts; and all ages, up to maybe twelve, and babies toted by their brothers and sisters. Mostly we walk or ride bikes to the river, but the Atkins children come on a mule, and once in a while, somebody’s daddy or big brother drops off kids in a truck. We make a lot of noise, laughing and splashing and yelling, but there’s nobody near to complain. Aunt Polly says it’s a place children can use their “outdoor voices.”

  That day there were maybe twenty young’uns playing in the river, and they all ran up to greet Coleman. I thought she might be shy of all those strangers, but not a bit of it. She smiled a great big smile and said, “Oh I just love those clean children! Ain’t they the purtiest things you ever saw?”

  Aunt Polly wouldn’t have liked how she talked, but I didn’t say a word. I decided early on I wouldn’t be a bossy boots just ‘cause I’m older than Coleman. Miss Ida and Aunt Polly can tell her what to do and how to mind her manners and how to talk right. (I get fussed at all the time about speakin’ lazy, and losin’ my g’s, and I know how tiresome hearing it over and over can be.) Anyway, she’ll have to listen to plenty from everybody else about how to talk and act. I’m just goin’ to love her, and enjoy her.

  The children swarmed over Coleman like bees on a mimosa tree, pettin’ her, and strokin’ her hair, and tellin’ her about the river and the fish that swim in it and the critters that live in the woods and in the swamp across the river. Freddy Byrd—he’s ten and in the fifth grade and wants to work in a zoo when he grows up—sat with her on a big rock in the middle of the river, and they talked and talked. I sat nearby, but I knew most of what he was tellin’ her, and after a while I only half-listened. A breeze rippled the water and stirred the trees, and the sun warmed my back. The leaves rustled and bees hummed and buzzed. A red dragonfly rested on my knee, and I was so happy I thought I would bust. I thanked the Lord for this wonderful day.

  I half-heard Freddy warning Coleman about snakes, and describing the possums and ‘coons and squirrels and deer and rabbits folks around here depend on for food. He said there were bobcats and foxes and coyotes and maybe wolves nearby, and lots of birds all around us. He stole her heart making bird calls, so that a cardinal and a chickadee and a catbird all flew down to visit with him.

  “Are there any great big birds here? I saw big birds in the sky in New Orleans,” Coleman said.

  “Prob’ly buzzards—they’re everywhere. You’ll see ‘em here, too. But there’s others—there’s pelicans and ospreys—they’re big. And a huge woodpecker—they call it the Lord God bird.”

  I broke in. “Freddy, you know that’s a tall tale about that Lord God bird. That bird’s like the dinosaurs—long gone.”

  He glared at me and shook his head. “Nobody knows that for sure. They used to think all the red wolves were extinct, and now there’s a bunch of ‘em right here in North Carolina. I think that big ol’ woodpecker lives in the swamp. Nobody can prove it ain’t there.”

  “Why do they call it the Lord God bird?” Coleman asked.

  “Because it’s so big and so beautiful, they want to thank Him for makin’ that bird,” Freddy said. “I believe it’s really ‘the Lord God’s bird.’”

  I didn’t think that was right—I thought people said “Lord God” ‘cause they were so surprised when they saw it. Kind of like people say “good God” or “good Lord,” which Aunt Polly says is takin’ the Lord’s name in vain. I like Freddy’s explanation better, though.

  “I tell you what: I got a new bird book last Christmas. I’ll bring you my old one, and I’ll show you the pictures, and you can draw the birds, and keep a list of those you see, and put everything in a scrapbook. Pretty soon you’ll know all the birds,” Freddy told Coleman.

  Coleman jumped off the rock and bounced up and down in the water, makin’ big splashes. “Oh yes, let’s us do that!” she shouted.

  It was the first time I heard her makin’ noise, and I was glad to hear it. She was a sight to see: a real live child with water sparkling on her skin, and that buttercup hair shining. I hate for her to act growny. Aunt Polly told Miss Ida Coleman has an “old soul.” I don’t know what that means, but I want her to laugh and have fun. It makes me feel bad to see her actin’ like a little ol’ lady.

  Freddy came over the next day and brought the bird book and a scrapbook he’d bought for her with his pocket money. Those two started right in on their nature studying, and he took her out for a bird walk, showing her where and how the birds live and what they eat—berries, seeds, bugs, whatever. From that day on, Coleman was a friend to every feathery and furry critter in North Carolina, and Freddy adopted her as his little sister. He’s going to take her on bird walks whenever he can.

  I liked seeing her make a friend. She’ll be glad of friends when she goes to school. Some of the big boys are mean as snappin’ turtles, and I reckon Coleman will be the smallest child in school. She might not have an easy time of it. I’ll take care of her the best I can, and the Lord is surely watchin’ over her, but it’s always good to have friends.

  Polly

  June is busy for us, because it’s the wedding month. We’ve been able to keep body and soul together all these years because Ida is such a good cook, and wedding cakes are one of her specialties. But she can cook anything, and people come from miles around for her baking, and to pick up party meals to serve company. June is her busiest month, and after June, December. When the New Year’s feasting is over, there’s a long spell when no one is much interested in food—or new clothes, for that matter—and we hunker down and wait it out. But Easter is good, and May is better, and June is best of all.

  Most days in June—except Sundays, of course—Ida gets up at four and cooks all day, and Dinah helps her. The house is full of the sugary aroma of cakes and cookies baking—chocolate, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, lemon; the saltier smell of frying and roasting chicken and ham; the yeasty aroma of rolls; and the buttery scent of biscuits and corn bread. I stay hungry breathing in the mouthwatering smells that drift through the house.

  Dinah’s helped in the kitchen ever since she could walk, even when she had to stand on a chair to reach the counter or the sink. She can measure and sift and grease pans and wash dishes and beat egg whites—whatever Ida needs her to do. Ida couldn’t get along without her. Coleman offered to help, too. Ida and Dinah have their own ways of doing things, and they don’t need her in the kitchen, but they welcomed her taking over the garden chores—weeding and pulling green onions, picking lettuce and new peas, and shelling beans and such. They make much of everything she does, and she beams. You can tell kind words were in short supply with that Gloria.

  Between April and June I’m busy making Easter dresses, graduation dresses, prom dresses, wedding dresses, bridesmaids’ dresses, and mother-of-the-bride dresses. The rest of the year, I do alterations and hems, and make whatever people want—baby clothes, Christmas party dresses, back-to-school clothes, curtains, and slipcovers. I do need help, and when Coleman had been with us a week, I started teaching her to sew. In a few years, that child will sew as well as I can.

  We settled down as peaceful as peas in a pod, then Coleman took another of her notions. This time, it was about a dog. Dogs are always wandering around the place, but we don’t pay them much heed. They’re yard dogs—yellow or brown, bony and short-haired. They’re not strays or homeless; they live around here, and their owners feed them table scraps. But nobody pens them up, and they come and go as they please. Coleman wanted to make pets of them, but we can’t afford to feed them—our scraps go to the chickens and a pig when we’re lucky enough to have one—and truth to tell, yard dogs aren’t interested in being pets. They’re not exactly unfriendly, but they have their own lives to live, and they make no bones about it.

  Then a s
crawny yellow bitch had a litter under the back porch, and we didn’t know a thing about it till three little balls of brownish fluff waddled out. Coleman was entranced. But their mama growled if anybody got too near. (Coleman named her Nana after the Peter Pan dog—I can’t imagine how she knows about Peter Pan. Did that Gloria read to her? Seems unlikely.)

  Three days later, two of the puppies had disappeared, and Nana looked miserable. She didn’t even protest when Coleman picked up the remaining puppy. Coleman cuddled the little dog—she named him Peter—and fretted over the missing puppies. I was trying to decide what to tell her—any number of predators could have grabbed them—when Dinah spoke up.

  “I ‘spect the owl got ‘em,” she said.

  Coleman frowned. “What owl? Why?”

  “The big horny owl that lives by the river,” Dinah said. “He probably ate ‘em.”

  “Dinah means the great horned owl,” I said. “I’ll show you its picture in the bird book. Dinah might be right. That owl could easily take a small dog. I’ve known a horned owl to take a cat bigger than one of those puppies.”

  Coleman scowled. “That’s horrible, eatin’ puppies. I never heard of such a thing. That ol’ owl ain’t a-goin’ to get this one; I’m keepin’ him safe inside. He’ll sleep with me and Dinah.” She stuck out her chin, and her cheeks flushed. I fear the look on her face means she’s made up her mind, and nothing will change it. Like about the Methodist Church.

  “Not ain’t, isn’t,” I said, but before I could tell her we didn’t allow dogs in the house, let alone in our beds, Ida beat me to it. Ida never raises her voice, but she laid down the law: no dogs in the house. Coleman didn’t talk back, but I could see she was determined that Peter would live, and live with her. We were in for it again.

  We reasoned with her for hours. We told her Nana would be worried if Coleman took her puppy, but Coleman just smiled, because after Nana moped around a while, she’d wandered off. It seemed she’d had enough of full-time motherhood. She came back ever so often to nurse the puppy, but she didn’t stay long, and we had to supplement her milk with table scraps, despite what we’d told Coleman about our inability to feed a dog. We explained that the puppy would grow up big and ugly like Nana. Coleman knew better: Peter would grow up beautiful. And truth to tell, Nana must have been acquainted with the Guthrie’s poodle, because after Coleman washed and brushed the puppy, his fur was honey-colored, and not short and coarse like Nana’s, but soft and wavy. I couldn’t resist petting and cuddling him, he felt so good.

  We said Peter would be dirty and have fleas. Coleman said she’d wash him, and she’d ask the Herb Lady for a flea potion and special soap; she’d pay for them by working in the Herb Lady’s garden. (Rena lives far out in the country, and how Coleman would get there and back was a mystery, but never mind that.) When we told her Peter would be unhappy indoors, Coleman declared he’d be a lot unhappier if the owl got him.

  Finally, we offered the unanswerable excuse: as we’d said from the beginning, we can’t afford to feed him.

  Coleman looked serious. I felt sure she understood, and she was going to give in. I was relieved: we really can’t afford to feed a dog.

  “I’ve been studyin’ how to make us some money,” she said. “We’ll have us a roadside stand and sell corn and tomatoes and peaches and berries and such, and Miss Ida’s cakes and all. I’ve figured out just how to do it. There’ll be plenty of money for food for Peter, and more besides.”

  Ida and I exchanged glances. Where had this child come from? There hasn’t been a “go-getter” like Coleman in our family in living memory. A roadside stand? We couldn’t possibly have a roadside stand. Who would build it? Run it? And is it really appropriate for two old ladies and two little girls to do something like this? What would people think?

  Dinah

  Soon as Coleman said “roadside stand” I wondered why we hadn’t thought of it before now. Everybody goin’ to the beach has to drive through Slocumb Corners. People say the fruit and vegetables for sale at the beach aren’t real fresh, and the prices are as high as a cat’s back. Ours would be right out of the garden, and cheaper. Lots of folks passin’ by would stop at our stand, and those who came to pick up Miss Ida’s cakes and fried chicken and ham biscuits, and the ladies who have fittings with Aunt Polly—they’d all buy from us. I saw how it would be a big success.

  Good an idea as it was, I don’t think Miss Ida and Aunt Polly would have let us do it, but while we were discussin’ it, Aunt Mary Louise stopped by, and as soon as she came through the door, Coleman told her all about the stand. Aunt Mary Louise said it was a real good idea, and the Byrds would help; they’d bring things to sell, and work at the stand.

  Now, Aunt Mary Louise’s mama was Miss Ida’s nurse when Miss Ida was a baby, and Miss Ida and Aunt Mary Louise slept in the same crib, and grew up side by side, and they’ve always been best friends, so Miss Ida sets a lot of store by what Aunt Mary Louise thinks. She still looked worried, though, and I believe she was wondering how we’d get it built, and how we’d pay for lumber and nails and all. But before you could say boo to a goose, some of the big Byrd boys had built that stand, and we were in business. They’d also made and set up two wooden picnic tables and benches in the shade near the stand. They’d even painted a green sign with gold letters: Slocumb Corners Produce and Baked Goods.

  One of Aunt Mary Louise’s connections—nobody can keep straight who’s a niece and who’s a cousin in the Byrd family, so when we don’t know ‘zackly what the relationship is, we say “connection”—Sarah Ann, was out of college for the summer and waitressin’ at the beach. Sarah Ann hated waitressin’—she’s too brainy to want to spend her time serving hamburgers and clearing tables—so Aunt Mary Louise called her home and Sarah Ann took over the stand—pricing, pasting labels on the canned food, asking friends and relatives what they had to sell, foraging all over Slocumb County. She had everything organized lickety-split. I do believe Sarah Ann could organize the entire state of North Carolina, and people say she’s goin’ to get even better at it ‘cause Sarah Ann is going to business school and get her MBA after she graduates from East Carolina. Goodness knows what she’ll organize then. (Maybe she’ll go to Washington and help the Congress. Aunt Polly says they need all the help they can get.)

  We’ll sell lots of vegetables and fruit. Everybody has too many tomatoes or squash or butter beans or whatever when they’re in season, and we can’t can or freeze ‘em fast enough before some spoil. We can’t give ‘em away either, because everybody else has too many, too.

  We decided to sell home-canned food to make life easy for the beach people: spaghetti sauce and soup mix and chili, and jars of strawberry preserves and cucumber pickles and pickled peaches. The Herb Lady brought over candles—there’s lots of power failures at the beach—and lotions for sunburn and skeeter bites. Sarah Ann’s beekeeping sister brought little glass pots of honey, and a Byrd cousin who’d learned grass-weaving in Charleston brought a bunch of baskets she’d made.

  For the opening, Miss Ida and I made cookies and cakes and fruit pies and cupcakes and sandwiches. We made lemonade, too, and iced tea. We didn’t have a grand opening; we just filled the stand and waited. Every car full of hot, thirsty people stoppin’ to buy spring onions and lettuce and peas and new potatoes had to have some of that lemonade or tea, and cookies to go with it, and some to take with ‘em. Lots of folks bought sandwiches and cake and drinks and had a picnic at one of the shady tables.

  Coleman’s face was one big smile at the end of the day, and so was mine. I asked her how she thought up the produce stand, and she said she saw ‘em by the road on the way up from New Orleans, and she’d wondered why there weren’t any around here. And when she learned how Miss Ida and everybody in Slocumb Corners could cook and make delicious preserves and such, seemed like travelers would want ‘em, too. But the big reason she thought of it was she’d prayed to the Lord to show her the way to help save Peter from the owl, and He’d put the stand in
her mind.

  Nobody said anything more about Peter, and he moved in. Miss Ida fixed a bed for him in the kitchen, but he howled all night and nobody could sleep, and after that, he slept in the bed with Coleman and me. Sometimes in the night, I reach out to pet him; his tummy is warm and round and fat, and his fur is so soft, he feels better to hold and to snuggle up to than the cuddliest stuffed animal. He’s good company, and he never lets Coleman out of his sight if he can help it. He doesn’t bark except to announce a visitor, and we all like that. He earns his keep. Every day and night I thank the Lord for bringin’ Coleman home, and for how she’s made our lives so much better, and for the produce stand, and for Peter.

  JULY

  Polly

  Mary Louise is picking up Dinah and Coleman to take them to see Granny Byrd. Granny’s first name is Corinne, but she’s very old—over a hundred, it’s said, but I don’t think anyone knows for sure—and everyone calls her Granny. She looks every day of her age; she’s shrunken and as wrinkled as a walnut. But her black eyes sparkle, reflecting her love of life and others, and she has more curiosity than a houseful of cats. She lives with her great-niece Eloise Byrd, a retired nurse in her sixties and vigorous enough to take on a dozen centenarians, but I think Granny Byrd keeps her hopping. Granny’s cottage is near Mary Louise’s house, so Mary Louise can look in often, and Granny’s front garden is the prettiest in the county—full of old-fashioned flowers like pinks and larkspur and snapdragons in the summertime, and daffodils and tulips in the spring.

  You don’t pay a call on the old lady these days; you respond to a summons. I suspect she wants to get a look at Coleman. She knows Dinah, of course, but she’s never showed much interest in her. She probably asked Dinah along to be polite, but I have a feeling Granny and Coleman will hit it off. I wish I’d been invited. I’d like to listen to those two chatting.