“Well, thanks,” Lou said.
“That’s what happened to us our first night here,” I said. “But the next day I fixed it.”
Lou looked at the bed and patted the post. I expected her to make some smart remark. But of course she didn’t. She was a woman on her honeymoon. I told her the story of the bed crashing down on our first night while we dusted the room and put on fresh sheets and pillow cases.
“You think old man Pendergast left it that way on purpose?” Lou said.
“The bed was ready to collapse,” I said.
“What a dirty old man,” Lou said.
“You should have seen the figures he liked to carve with his pocketknife,” I said.
I was waiting for Lou to tell me why she had decided to marry Garland after all. I knowed she wanted to tell me. Out the window I could see Hank pointing out to Garland and Carolyn the boundaries of the pasture where it run up the mountainside. At a distance Carolyn looked like a full-grown woman. Her figure had filled out since I had left home in early fall. She took Hank’s arm as they walked around the barn. Carolyn was laughing at something Hank or Garland had said.
“Was you surprised to hear I was marrying?” Lou said.
“I was, a little,” I said.
“You know I always loved Garland,” Lou said.
“I know you did,” I said. I was going to let her tell me in her own good time. I was not going to hurry her with questions.
“I finally decided that it didn’t matter about that girl over at Pleasant Hill,” Lou said.
“Really?” I said, and plumped a pillow with a fresh case on it. “He said he had give her up,” Lou said.
“He said she never meant anything to him.”
“Didn’t she have a baby?” I said.
“She had a baby, but Garland said it didn’t belong to him,” Lou said. I thought there must be a grin on her face, but there wasn’t. When Lou talked about Garland she always got serious.
“I just want you to be happy,” I said.
“I don’t think Mama was too happy I got married,” Lou said.
“Mama always worries,” I said.
“Older women don’t believe in romance,” Lou said.
“Mama is just afraid for you,” I said.
IT WAS THE first time Lou and me had ever cooked together. We had sawed wood together and we had hoed corn together and pulled fodder. But it was always Mama or Rosie that was busy in the kitchen at home. It felt good to have Lou in my kitchen.
“Now you just set down while I fix supper,” Lou said.
“I will not,” I said.
“You’ve been on your feet long enough,” Lou said.
“How would you know?” I said and we both busted out laughing.
I was so glad I had bought the sugar and coffee, for my cupboard was bare, and there was only what was left of the canned stuff in the basement. But there was the ham Mama had sent, and that would give us a feast for two or three days. I put the ham in a pan and basted it with brown sugar and molasses. It was just like Mama to send a ham. I bet she had sent the best piece of meat left in the smokehouse.
“You could put a little mustard or vinegar in that sauce,” Lou said.
“I want this ham to be all sweet,” I said. After sliding the ham in the oven I got more wood from the back porch for the stove. Garland and Hank and Carolyn was standing out by the bee-gums, watching something above the trees. I shaded my eyes and seen a wedge of geese going over. They sounded like a pack of beagles running after a rabbit. The geese was high enough to go right over the ridge. They was flying south, and by dark they would be far out of the mountains.
“Who has done the work at home since I left?” I said.
“Most of the outside work has fell to me,” Lou said.
“I figured that would happen,” I said.
“We sure have missed you, Julie,” Lou said.
“Missed my wood chopping and hog killing,” I said.
“Missed your complaining,” Lou said, and we both laughed.
“Who is going to do the work now we’re both gone?” I said.
“Mama and Rosie will have to take turns,” Lou said. “And Carolyn is going to have to learn to do her share.”
“Why did Mama want Carolyn to come with you?” I said as I mixed batter for cornbread.
“It was not so much Mama wanting her to come as Carolyn begging to come,” Lou said.
“She wants to see new places,” I said.
“That girl is so spoiled I could smack her sometimes,” Lou said.
“We have all spoiled her,” I said, “after Masenier died.”
“I wouldn’t have minded some spoiling myself,” Lou said.
“Maybe it won’t hurt her,” I said. “She just turned fourteen.”
“What does a fourteen-year-old girl know?” Lou said.
“About as much as a seventeen-year-old girl,” I said. We both laughed. I opened a can of green beans into a pan and placed them on the stove. I wished I had got some sweet taters to bake, but I hadn’t.
“Was you scared when you got married?” Lou said. “I mean on your wedding night.”
“I guess everybody’s a little scared at first,” I said. But I couldn’t look at her as I said it. Lou and me had talked about marriage before I was married, but in a general way. I was embarrassed to talk, now that I was married and going to have a baby. I would not have thought I would feel that way, like I would be violating a confidence.
“I’m a little scared of being hurt,” Lou said.
“No need to be afraid of being hurt,” I said. I still couldn’t look at her. Lou was older than me, and here she was asking me questions. “At least in that way,” I added.
“What way?” she said. I looked at her and we both laughed.
“If you get hurt it will be your feelings that are hurt,” I said. I started setting the table and Lou got the silverware from the drawer and begun to lay it in place. I was glad I had polished what was left of Mr. Pendergast’s silver a few days before.
“I just hope I can make Garland happy,” Lou said.
“You will,” I said.
“I would hate to think he will be disappointed,” Lou said.
“You have married him,” I said. “That should make him happy.”
“You know what I mean,” Lou said.
“I know he’s mighty lucky to have you,” I said. “After the way he’s acted.”
“That has all been forgive,” Lou said. “I told him I would forget.”
“He’s a lucky man,” I said.
The coffee was boiling and I set it off to the side of the stove. The smell of coffee and the baking ham filled the kitchen. It reminded me of Mama’s kitchen.
“I wish Rosie was here to bake one of her coconut cakes,” I said. I had only two eggs, and I certainly didn’t have a coconut.
“Rosie sent you a cake,” Lou said. “I forgot all about it.”
“Where is it?” I said. I looked in the box where the ham had been. There was only jars of jam and jelly.
“It must still be in the wagon,” Lou said. She run out the back door and around the house and come back in with a box tied up with string. I untied the string and looked inside. It was a beautiful coconut cake, the kind that Rosie always made. But the bouncing of the wagon had made the top layer shift and slide over.
“Dear lord!” Lou said when she saw it. “Rosie would be mortified.”
“Rosie will never know,” I said. With a pie server I lifted the edge of the top layer and scooted it back on the cake. The icing was broke and flakes of coconut had fell off in the box. I took a knife and smoothed the icing around the sides like a mason would a joint of mortar and then sprinkled the spilled coconut over the repaired seam.
“That’ll be as good as new,” I said.
Carolyn come to the back door and looked in the kitchen. “Where is the milk bucket?” she said.
“Right here on the counter,” I said.
; “Hank is going to teach me to milk,” Carolyn said.
“Don’t you ruin your Sunday frock,” Lou said. Carolyn was wearing one of her pink dresses with lace and ribbons on it. And her shoes looked new.
“Don’t treat me like a baby,” Carolyn said.
“Don’t you act like a baby,” Lou said.
“We just don’t want you to get your dress dirty,” I said.
Carolyn did not slam the door as she went out, but she banged the bucket on the door post loud enough so you knowed it wasn’t no accident. It was her way of showing her resentment.
“That girl has some growing up to do,” Lou said.
“She’ll grow up,” I said. “She better.”
“But grow up to what?” Lou said. And we both laughed again. I felt a little light-headed with all the smell of coffee and ham and bread baking, and all the talk with Lou. I wasn’t used to much conversation with another woman, and I hadn’t seen any of my family since I got married.
“YOU KNOW, I never could see Mama and Papa together,” Lou said.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“You know what I mean,” Lou said, “as man and woman.”
“What else could they be?” I said. But I was just pretending not to understand her. I knowed what she was saying. It was something I had thought about before. I could not imagine Mama and Papa together in bed. It just seemed impossible. It was silly to think that, since they had all us girls. But I just couldn’t think about them in bed naked and loving.
“If they wasn’t together as man and woman, how do you explain us?” I said with a giggle. That got us to laughing again.
Before we set down at the table for supper, I got some candles I’d found in the bedroom closet and put them right at the center of the table. The candles give the kitchen a glow warm as a ripe peach.
“How romantic,” Carolyn said when we was all seated.
“It’s a romantic occasion,” I said, and looked at Lou and Garland. Their eyes was bright in the candlelight and Garland took Lou’s hand. “Nothing is more romantic than the day you’re married,” I said.
We all held hands around the table while Hank said the blessing. “Lord, give Lou and Garland a long and happy life together,” Hank prayed. “And bless their union with children. And give them work worthy of their talents, and give them the bounty of your love.”
“Amen,” we all said.
“When I get married I want to ride on the train somewhere far away,” Carolyn said. Carolyn read novels and magazines when she could get them, and the way she talked showed the things she had been reading. “Maybe to the Rocky Mountains, or even to California,” she said.
“I’m sure you will, honey,” Lou said, “if you’re lucky.” Lou looked at Garland and they smiled at each other.
Hank sliced the ham with our sharpest butcher knife and passed the plate of slices around. Everything looked gold and mellow in the candlelight.
“We’re celebrating Julie and Hank’s baby also,” Lou said.
“I don’t want no baby,” Carolyn said, “till I’m at least forty years old.”
“Forty is too old to have a baby,” Lou said. “It is not,” Carolyn said.
“Is it, Hank?”
“There are women that have babies at forty, and even forty-five,” Hank said.
“But it’s more risky,” I said, “the older you are.” I felt so warm and at ease to have some of my folks around me, to have Lou with me. Hank had been feeling too low to be good company for the past few weeks.
“It’s not romantic to have babies when you’re young,” Carolyn said.
“How would you know?” Lou said.
“Ain’t that right?” Carolyn said to Garland. All eyes turned to Garland, and in the candlelight his face went red. I felt my own face get hot. I don’t know if Carolyn intended to speak to Garland because his girlfriend at Pleasant Hill had had a baby or not. Maybe what she said just slipped out. Everybody looked away from Garland to pretend there was no special meaning to Carolyn’s words. I got up to pour the coffee and cut everybody a slice of Rosie’s cake.
“WHERE ARE YOU all planning to live?” I said to Garland when I set down again.
“We’re going to rent Cyrus Willard’s old house,” Lou said. Garland wasn’t much of a talker and I could see that Lou was going to answer for him most of the time.
“That’s a mighty pretty place out on the ridge,” Hank said.
“You can see Mount Pisgah from Cyrus’s place,” I said.
“I’ve heard there’s snakes in that old house,” Carolyn said. She helped herself to a second piece of cake.
“Where did you hear such talk?” Lou said.
“I heard it from Wilma Willard,” Carolyn said. “I heard that when her grandpa was old and sick and living there by hisself a snake fell through a crack in the ceiling onto his bed and he had to lay still all night till it crawled away.”
“You never heard such a tale from Wilma,” I said. “Papa used to tell that tale about one of the Edneys a long time ago.”
“Wilma swore it was the truth,” Carolyn said.
“A snake could get into any house,” Hank said. “Snakes like to crawl up into attics where it’s warm. I’ve heard of people finding fifty rattlesnakes in an attic in October or November.”
“I’m glad we got off on a romantic subject,” Lou said. “You all are as bad as Papa to tell snake stories at bedtime.”
“Speaking of bedtime,” I said. “I know you all has had a long trip today. And you’ll have an even longer trip tomorrow. Whenever you want to go to bed, the room is ready upstairs.” I didn’t want Lou and Garland to feel embarrassed when they went off to bed.
“It’s too early to go to bed,” Carolyn said.
“When does Mama make you go to bed?” I said to Carolyn.
“She has to go to bed by nine,” Lou said.
“That was last year, when I was little,” Carolyn said.
“That was last week, when you was little,” Lou said.
“You can sleep in the room with the single bed upstairs,” I said to Carolyn. I got up and started clearing the table.
“I’m going to help you wash the dishes,” Lou said.
“No you’re not,” I said. “You’re going on to bed, and Carolyn is going to help me clean up.”
“I can help with the dishes,” Hank said.
“If them is my orders I might as well go on to bed,” Lou said.
“Them is your orders,” I said.
“Come on, Garland,” Lou said. “Julie wants to get us out of her way.”
“I reckon we might as well,” Garland said.
“Let’s have a short prayer,” Hank said. We stood there in the kitchen and held hands in a circle while Hank prayed. “We are thankful for the fellowship of our family, and our family in Christ,” he said. “We are thankful for the promise of salvation and for the watchful eye over our lives. We are thankful for your love and for human love. Guide us as we go ahead in our lives, and help us to accept the gift of life and your blessings.” It was good to see Hank in a better mood.
“Good night,” I said and hugged Lou, and then hugged Garland.
“Good night,” Lou said as they started toward the stairs, holding hands.
“Let’s you and me start cleaning up,” I said to Carolyn as soon as they was gone.
“Can’t we wait till morning?” Carolyn said.
“You should always clean up a kitchen before going to bed,” I said.
“I can help,” Hank said.
“We will all help,” I said. I gathered up the knives and forks and spoons and plates and cups and made as much noise as I could scraping the plates into the slop bucket and putting leftovers in the bread safe. I made even more noise going out for water to boil in the kettle.
When the water was boiling, we formed a line. I plunged the dirty bowls and dishes into the pan of hot soapy water and scrubbed them with a rag. Then I passed a suds-covered plate to Hank, wh
o rinsed it by pouring water from the dipper over it into the second dishpan. Hank handed the dripping plate to Carolyn, who rubbed it with a towel and set it on the counter. As she waited for a plate to be handed to her, Carolyn stood with one hand on her hip, like she was bored. I ground the spoons and knives and forks on the bottom of the dishpan, making them rumble and rattle.
“I don’t see why we have to do everything right now,” Carolyn said.
“Everything will be clean and fresh in the morning,” Hank said and glanced up at the ceiling. Then he looked at me and grinned. It had been weeks since I had seen him grin.
“It’s hard to sleep knowing you have a kitchen full of dirty dishes,” I said.
“That wouldn’t keep me from sleeping,” Carolyn said.
“It’s hard to rest if you ain’t done your work,” I said.
“When I get married I’m going to have a servant to wash dishes,” Carolyn said.
“In that case you won’t need to worry,” I said and giggled.
We washed every single cup and saucer, bowl and fork and spoon. I took a wet rag and wiped the table and counter. “Would you sweep the floor?” I said to Carolyn.
“You can sweep the floor and I will mop,” Hank said.
“I never heard of mopping the floor in the middle of the night,” Carolyn said.
“You will sleep better, knowing the floor’s clean,” I said. I took a damp cloth and wiped off the shelves in the kitchen.
“You never used to work in the kitchen at home,” Carolyn said.
“Didn’t need to,” I said. “Rosie and Mama done it all.”
When we was done and the kitchen was sparkling, there was nothing to do but go into the living room. There was still a fire in the fireplace and Hank throwed on some more sticks.
“What we need now is popcorn,” I said.
“Too bad there’s no popcorn in the house,” Hank said. The wind had rose and rattled in the eaves and at the windows.
“Mama sent a bunch of popcorn,” Carolyn said.
“She did?” I said. “Where is it?”
“In a jar, in the box,” Carolyn said.
I run to look in the box in the kitchen and sure enough, one of the jars I figured was jam or preserves was filled with popcorn. “Mama thinks of everything,” I said.
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