THE HOMEPLACE

by Gilbert, Morris

  “Amen to that!” several said.

  Sister Myrtle smiled. “These are some of the heartiest amens I’ve ever heard to one of the sweetest and shortest sermons I’ve ever heard.” Then she laughed out loud and began a praise of thanksgiving to the Lord as she dropped cherries in each of the children’s sodas.

  PART FOUR

  The Revenge

  C H A P T E R 20

  Fall had come and with it the cool, sharp breezes of September. As Lanie stood in front of the window, she thought she could almost feel the change in the earth. A gray squirrel ran along a limb of the pecan tree at the side of the house. He moved like one who had serious business but stopped abruptly when Lanie raised the window and leaned outside and said, “Hello, Frisky.”

  The squirrel seemed astonished. He popped up into a sitting position and folded his paws, looking at that instant like a monk folding his hands in prayer. His bright black eyes stayed open, however, and his nose twitched furiously. He began to chatter angrily before he finally disappeared behind the bulk of the tree.

  Lanie smiled at the squirrel’s antics, then closed the window and turned to put on the faded dress that she had finished ironing. She held it for a moment, and a brief touch of sadness came over her, for it was the last dress her mother had made. She held it up to her cheek and thought of the day her mother gave it to her. “It’ll be too big for you now, but you’ll grow into it, daughter.”

  With a swift motion she lifted the dress, slipped her arms into it, and tried to work it down. She had not worn the dress for a year. Now she realized that it was much too small. She tugged at it, but it stuck to her like skin on a grape.

  “If I took a deep breath, I’d bust out every seam,” she said aloud. She turned to look in the mirror, and it was obvious that the dress would not do. She had been conscious of a swelling bosom and the broadening of her hips, but the sight of herself about to pop out of the dress startled her.

  “Where is that little girl who wore this dress?” she said. Even as she said it, the idea for putting the experience into a poem came to her. She stood still for a moment, her eyes half-closed and unseeing, as the lines seemed to march out and arrange themselves. Sometimes a poem came to her like this, born whole and complete, needing only a little change. She reached down and with great difficulty pulled the dress up over her head. She looked at it woefully. “I guess Maeva will get this one. She’d still fit in it, I bet.”

  She returned the dress to its hanger, then pulled out her green dress. She had made it herself, and she was not the seamstress her mother was. “Well, it’s big enough at least, even if it’s not pretty.”

  She was troubled, somehow, by the realization that she had crossed a line without really being aware of it. She remembered crossing the state line from Arkansas into Oklahoma without having noticed. It had been a shock to be told she was in Oklahoma. She remembered how her mother had once told stories of her childhood. Now the little girl that became her mother was gone, and so was the woman. “Everything changes, I guess,” she whispered.

  She heard the sound of steps on the porch. She looked out the window and saw Annie mounting the steps with difficulty. Lanie ran downstairs, almost stumbling over Cap’n Brown, who meowed at her and then followed. She ran to the door and opened it. “Annie, come on in.”

  “I brought you some pears and some flour sacks.”

  “Oh, we can use those pears! They’re the best in the country. Come on in.”

  She led Annie into the kitchen and made much of the pears and held up the patterned flour sacks. “You can never get enough flour sacks, Annie. I’ll be making Cody and Davis shirts out of these. I can’t sew like Mama did though.”

  Annie sat herself down carefully in one of the kitchen chairs and smiled briefly as Lanie kept the conversation going. Annie finally asked, “How’s Cody doin’ with them toilet seats he was a makin’?”

  A disappointed note touched Lanie’s voice. “Well, we did real well with them at first, but only rich people can afford them, and you know there aren’t many rich people in Fairhope.”

  “That’s a fact. It’s too bad.”

  “Yes, a lot of people started making their own, and then a man over at Pine View started making them. A cabinet maker. He can make them real cheap, and he’s started selling them to stores. So I guess you could say he put us out of business.”

  “I reckon that didn’t help any in payin’ that note,” Annie said. Her eyes were bright, and she smacked her lips as she sipped the sassafras tea. “Are you gonna make it all right this month?”

  “I don’t know. Last month we were short thirty-two dollars, but it was all right. The angel came and left it in a jar on the front porch.”

  Annie grinned. She had snuff at the corners of her mouth and a black-gum snuff stick in her mouth. She shifted the brush around and grinned. “You still believin’ in angels?”

  “We call him the Angel of Fairhope. He’s left money three times, and I think he’s the one that left the earrings that I showed you for my birthday.”

  Annie cackled now, her laugh sounding harsh. “Well, now, if you ever see him, you tell him to stop by old Annie’s house. I could use a few dollars myself.”

  Still chuckling, Annie turned to Corliss, who was asleep on a pallet on the floor. She went to the child and bent over painfully. She stroked the toddler’s silky hair and said, “This here is the angel.”

  “Yes, she is.” Lanie stared at Annie’s withered hand on the fresh baby hair of Corliss. There was a poem on this, and she made a note to write it sometime. “We’ll be going to church tonight. It’s prayer meeting. Why don’t you come and go with us?”

  “I reckon I’m past all that.”

  “Nobody ever gets past that.” Lanie wiped her hands on her apron, checked the stew that was simmering on top of the stove, and stirred it. “Annie, have you ever been saved?”

  “Saved? Saved from what?”

  “You know, saved by the Lord.”

  “I don’t reckon so.” Annie returned to her sassafras tea and swirled it around. She stared into the cup long and hard, as if it contained her future—or more likely her past. She said quietly, “I had a hard time, Lanie. I had a husband and two babies. My husband died in a mine accident in West Virginia. The boy, he died of diphtheria. Our daughter, her name was Heddie, after my mama. She took up with a bad man. He got her with a baby, and she died during childbirth.”

  “What about the baby?”

  “It was a boy, and the man she was livin’ with, he took him away and moved somewhere up north. I never did know where. Since then I guess I’ve been all by myself. No family and no God. No nothin’.”

  Lanie went over to Annie, her heart touched by the story. Putting her arm around the old woman, she hugged her firmly and said, “You do have a family, Annie. Remember that. All of us Freemans are your family, and I want you to find Jesus.”

  “He ain’t interested in me, child. Not after the way I lived.”

  “Yes, He is, and I’m going to pray that you find Him like I have.” She kept her arm around the old woman and prayed silently for her. Annie was looking at her with an odd expression, but she smiled. “You might tell that angel to stop by my place if he ain’t got nothin’ better to do.”

  “Hey, Lanie, got to talk to you.”

  Ralph Delaughter, the mayor’s son, caught up to Lanie on the street. “What is it, Ralph?”

  “I got an invite for you.”

  “An invite? To do what?”

  “There’s gonna be a dance over at Cedar Grove next week. You know that new bridge they just built over the Buffalo River? They finally finished it. They’re gonna have a big christening.”

  Lanie smiled. “I didn’t know you christened bridges. I thought you only christened ships.”

  “Well, whatever. There’s gonna be free food and speeches. It’s almost election time, you know. All the politicians will be there. There’ll be barbecue and soft drinks. Lots of good stuff.”
<
br />   “Oh, I don’t really think I could go, Ralph.”

  “Shoot yes you can go!” Ralph grinned and winked at her. “You need to get out and have some fun. All you do is work.”

  This was so true that Lanie made a face. She liked Ralph, although she didn’t know him very well. He continued to persuade her until she finally said, “All right, Ralph.”

  “Good! I’ll get my dad’s car. I’ll pick you up at five o’clock. We’ll have a great time.”

  At home, Maeva greeted Lanie with an announcement. “Charlie Young asked me to go to that dance on the bridge.”

  “You’re too young to go to that dance. Besides, Charlie is wild.”

  Maeva’s face clouded over, and her voice rose. “I’ll bet you’re goin’!”

  “That’s different. I’m going with Ralph Delaughter.”

  “Well, Ralph ain’t no angel from what I’ve heard.”

  The argument proceeded for the rest of the evening. At bedtime, Lanie gave up. “All right. You can go, but you’ll have to go with Ralph and me.”

  Maeva gave Lanie a hug. “We’ll have us a good old time. And if we get tired of Ralph and Charlie, we’ll find somebody better at the dance.”

  Lanie laughed. “You’re awful, Maeva!”

  “No I ain’t. I just got good sense. If you bite into an apple and find out it’s bad, you don’t eat the whole apple.” She danced around the room and turned to face Lanie with a wicked grin on her lips. “We may find some better apples than them two old boys!”

  C H A P T E R 21

  After dinner, Louise Langley took Owen Merritt into the larger of the Langley’s two parlors to listen to the latest recordings on the new electric record player. They listened to a new song called “Stardust,” which Owen liked very much, and then “Honeysuckle Rose” by Fats Waller. When the record ran down, Owen said, “You know, black people are really great singers.”

  Louise stared at him. “You mean that was a black man singing?”

  “Sure. Fats Waller is one of the leaders in jazz music. Most of it comes out of New Orleans. You didn’t know?”

  Louise frowned. “No,” she said, “but I don’t care for it.” She rose from the horsehair couch, opened a drawer, and put the record in it. Owen suspected that that was the last of that record for the Langley household. “Here’s one I really like,” Louise said. Her pale blue organdy dress showed off her lissome figure. As she bent over to put the record on, Owen said, “Is it one we can dance to?”

  “No, I think this is the listening kind. It’s called ‘Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine.’” She returned to Owen’s side and sat closer than she would have if her parents had been in the room. He took her hand, and she smiled at him as they listened to the song. When it was over, she said, “You want to dance?”

  “Sure, but not any of that Charleston stuff. Something nice and slow for an old man.”

  “You’re not an old man.” Louise put her hand on his cheek. “You’re just the right age for a doctor. Young enough to be energetic and old enough to have some authority.” She walked to the record player and selected a new album. “This one ought to be good to dance to.”

  The music started, and Owen put his arm around her and then took her hand. “‘You Were Meant for Me.’ I like it.”

  “It is nice, isn’t it?”

  The two moved across the carpet. “I’m going to a dance this Saturday,” Owen said.

  “A dance? I haven’t heard of any dances.”

  “The government finally finished that bridge over the Buffalo River down by Cedar Grove. They named it after some politician who probably didn’t have anything to do with the bridge. The election’s coming up, so there’ll be flag-waving speeches. But they’re going to have a dance and all kinds of music and singing—and free food.”

  “Oh, that’ll just be the country people with their fiddles and banjos.”

  “Hey now, I kind of like mountain music.”

  “They’ll just be square dancing.”

  Owen smiled. “I take it you don’t want to go.”

  “Not really. It’s not my kind of thing. Owen, you can’t imagine how I miss going into the big hotels with the big bands in Chicago.”

  “Well, I think I’ll take it in.” Mischief danced in Owen’s eyes. “As a matter of fact, Mamie Dorr has promised to teach me about square dancing.”

  “Mamie Dorr? Don’t tell me you’d go with that awful woman!”

  “Mamie’s not so bad.”

  “She’ll chase anything that wears pants!” Louise said. “I forbid you to go with her!”

  Owen laughed. Louise amused him at times. He liked her, but he could not deny that she had a strong independent streak. She was accustomed to having her own way and usually he gave in, but not tonight. “Well, there’s only one woman who can forbid me to go to a dance.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “My mother. But she wouldn’t mind. As a matter of fact, she’d probably enjoy going herself.”

  “I doubt your mother would like square dancing.”

  “You’re wrong about that. She’s quite a gal. She was even a flapper for a time, although she was a bit old for it.”

  The song ended, and Louise turned the record player off.

  “No more music or dancing?” Owen asked, lifting one eyebrow. “Is this your way of sending me home?”

  Louise appeared to be thinking hard, and then she smiled. “You know, that dance might be fun. I used to go listen to the mountain music on the courthouse square when I was a little girl. Haven’t done that in a long time. Yes, I think I will go with you.”

  “Good! Better wear something warm. It’ll be kind of chilly. I’ll be going now. You’ve been so nice to me to have me over for dinner, sparing me some of Dr. Givens’ nightly interrogations.”

  Owen moved closer and put his arms around her. She turned to him and lifted her face. Bending his head, Owen kissed her, and she returned his kiss. She was a beautiful woman, and her fragrance and softness stirred him. He broke away first. “That’s all the affection you get tonight. You can hope for more on Saturday if you’re a good girl.”

  Louise struck him in the chest with her fist. “You are a beast!” she cried. “See if you get any more kisses out of me!”

  “It has been a good evening. I’ll look forward to Saturday.”

  She walked with him to the door, handed him his coat, and when he settled his hat, she squeezed his arm. “It was fun. I’ll look forward to Saturday too.”

  After the door closed, she walked to the small parlor where her mother sat reading a book.

  “Owen’s gone home?”

  “Yes.” Sitting next to her mother, Louise said, “I didn’t know doctors could be so much fun. Owen is, though.”

  Martha examined Louise more closely. “Are you serious about Owen?”

  “I might be. He’s nice.”

  “He’ll never be rich,” Martha warned. “Small-town doctors work hard and usually don’t get paid much—especially in these times.”

  Louise ran her hand through her hair. “He could have a profitable practice if he went to a big city like Chicago.”

  “You may be right.” Martha examined her daughter’s expression.

  “Is he thinking of marriage?”

  Louise smiled and then laughed out loud. “Not now, but I think I could persuade him.”

  Martha chuckled. “You sound like a hunter going out after a deer.”

  “It’s not like that.” Louise shrugged. “Anyway, I’ve got to go to this horrible dance out on some bridge over the Buffalo on Saturday night.

  It’ll be awful!”

  “Why are you going then?”

  “Because he said he’ll take Mamie Dorr if I don’t go.”

  “Mamie Dorr! Why, that woman’s notorious!”

  “I think he was teasing me. And anyway, it might be fun.” She yawned and stood. “Good-night, mother.”

  “Good-night.” Martha watched
her daughter leave and felt a sense of satisfaction. Owen might be a very good thing. Owen might become a successful doctor in a big city.

  “I really don’t think I should go to the dance.”

  Maeva looked up at Lanie with a startled expression. “Not go to the dance? Why, you’ve got to go! We’ve worked like slaves on these dresses!”

  “I know, but Corliss has a fever. I hate to go off and leave her.”

  Davis said, “Don’t worry about it, sis. Cody and I can take care of Corliss.” He was holding Corliss on his lap and put his cheek next to hers. “She doesn’t feel too hot. Probably cutting another tooth.”

  Cody grinned at Lanie. “Yeah, sis, you look great! I’d dance with you myself if I was gonna be there.”

  Lanie saw that Maeva looked disappointed. The two of them had worked frantically to finish their dresses. They found some leftover material in their mother’s cedar chest and traded some ginseng roots to the general store for the rest of the material. Although neither of the girls could sew as well as their mother, together they rose to the challenge. Maeva’s dark-green skirt fell halfway between her knees and ankles and was topped by a frilly white blouse. The outfit accented her trim form. “You do look so nice, Maeva,” Lanie said.

  “So do you. I think your dress is prettier than mine.”

  Lanie’s one-piece dress, made of soft wool, was a rich wine color decorated with white embroidery. She had cut down a wool jacket of her mother’s to fit, and both girls also found silk stockings and low-quarter shoes among their mother’s things.

  “Hey, here comes somebody!” Davis said. He raced to the window and peered out. “It’s Ralph in that fancy car of his dad’s . . . and there’s Charlie right behind him in that old Ford of his.”

  “I’ll get the door!” Cody yelled. He ran out and they heard him say, “Hey, you two guys look great. If you drop dead, we won’t have to do anything to you ’cept stick a lily in your hands.”