My Old True Love

by Sheila Kay Adams

  It was not even daylight when Roxyann come running into the yard that Sunday morning. She said her mommie had sent her to fetch me. Rosalie was sick and her daddy was not home. I went with a heavy heart, scared sick thinking that awful squatting thing had somehow found its way back down the path to my biggest boy.

  Mary met me at the door and her face was all pinched up. I went off the end of the porch meaning to find Larkin Stanton if I had to hunt all blessed day. That was not to be the case. I found him right off, as he had gone no further than the spring.

  I didn’t see him at first as the pearly light of that summer dawn had not found its way in under them big trees that stuck out over the water. I had turned to leave when he called out to me. “Amma?”

  “Lord have mercy, you done about scared me to death.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you. You’ve got that chin stuck out and I know better than to mess with you now.” He squatted beside me and smiled.

  I looked at the sheen of dew on his clothes and his hair was wet with it. “What are you doing?”

  “Just been out here woolgathering.” He scooped a handful of water and wet his face. His eyes was red and he looked so tired.

  “How long you been out here?”

  His mouth give a little quirk. “Awhile.”

  I looked at him a long time without saying nothing.

  Of a sudden he give me a big grin. “You aiming to paint a picture of me?”

  Though he was trying awfully hard to be sweet, I did not even try to take the sharp edges off my voice. I was not going to put up with the foolishness I’d let roll over my head before. “Mary sent Roxyann for me before daylight. Rosalie is sick, Larkin, and you’d laid out all night.” I know my chin was way out and I let her stay there.

  His face got all worried and on the inside I give a big sigh of relief. Maybe me and God did not have so big a fight on our hands as I’d been getting my pigs set for. We headed back toward the house and he never said a word. And I never neither. I left him going in the house and I went on home. This was a preaching Sunday and I had my own herd to get ready.

  PREACHER DANIEL WAS ALREADY in the chair behind the altar by the time we got there. All that running about before daylight had caused me to run late, and my bunch was as grumpy and sulled up as a bunch of possums. Hack Jr. and Luke was setting at the back when we went in, but Larkin and Roxyann was up next to the front and had saved us a seat. I asked Roxy where her mommie was and she whispered she’d stayed at home with Rosalee. I hushed then because the preacher stood up and smoothed back his thinning hair and walked to the altar. He laid his worn Bible gently on the stand, and looked out at us and everybody seemed to set up a little straighter and leaned toward him. He managed to keep my mind from wandering, which in my estimation made him a very fine preacher.

  “Welcome, brothers and sisters!” His big strong voice boomed out into the room, and he motioned his hand toward the open windows. “It is a glorious day God has provided us with to come together to worship in his holy name. Amen?”

  A bunch of people hollered “amen” back at him.

  “Then I say let’s raise our voices up to Him in song. Just like David told us to do. Let’s sing ‘Ninety-fifth.’ “ He held his Bible up and raised it above his head. He laughed delightedly. “And like the song says, ‘When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies, I bid farewell to every fear, and wipe my weeping eyes!’”

  The congregation broke into full-voiced singing of the old hymn.

  When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies

  I bid farewell to ev’ry fear and wipe my weeping eyes.

  Would earth against my soul engage, and fiery darts be hurl’d,

  Then I can smile at Satan’s rage and face a frowning world.

  Let cares like a wild deluge come, let storms of sorrow fall,

  So I but safely reach my home, my God, my heav’n, my all.

  There I shall bathe my weary soul in seas of heav’nly rest,

  And not a wave of trouble roll across my peaceful breast.

  Preacher Daniel had a look of pure-D rapture on his face and he rared back and hollered, “So I but safely reach my home, my God, my heaven, my all! Hallaleuer! Glory be to His blessed, blessed name! Amen! And amen!” He took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow and then his mouth. “As I was riding here yesterday I was a worried man. I usually am led by strong conviction. I know what I’ll be preaching on before I ever get on that old horse tied out yonder!

  The Lord puts them thoughts in my heart and the words come pouring out like He wants ’em to.”

  Preacher Daniel looked down at us and his face wore a wreath of sorrow. “But not a word come into my heart yesterday, ner last night, ner even this morning as I was coming here. But when I heard that song, that old wonderful song, I knowed what God wanted me to talk about here today. Listen to hit again: ‘So I but safely reach my home . . .’ No sweeter thought, brothers and sisters, than to know I’m going home one of these days. I’m going home!” He quit talking and looked back and forth at us all. “Do you know whether you’re going home one of these glorious days? Can ye say, in the darkest part of the night, to yeself, ‘Yessir! One of these days me and old Preacher Dan’l will stroll arm in arm over heaven together’?”

  Throughout the room several folks closed their eyes and started rocking back and forth, and a few of them went to shouting.

  “Some of ye can say, ‘Yes, Preacher! I will see ye up yonder!’” He pointed his finger toward the ceiling, then set in to pointing at different people in the crowd. “Sister Ethel! I know, praise the Lord, that me and you will celebrate one of these days around the throne! And you, Brother Carl!” The preacher began to laugh. “Ever single time that door back yonder opens, Brother Carl is pawing the ground to git in. And them little babies, if they went right now, in the blink of an eye, why they’d be rocking in the arms of angels!” He wiped his face and opened his Bible up. “Some of ye knows what hit takes to git into heaven, praise God. You’ve lived it! Amen! But there’s them amongst you that ain’t guaranteed your place in Glory. Hit’s them that God wants me to talk to today.” He lowered his eyes and began to read, “Luke, chapter fifteen, verse seven. ‘I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety-nine just persons, which need no repentance.’” He looked at us and his countenance was sad. “Them’s Jesus’ words folks. More joy over one sinner that seeks redemption than ninety-nine folks that needs none.”

  “Bless him, Lord!” screamed out Ethel from right behind me. I swear that scared me so much that my hind end come plumb off that bench.

  “That’s a big old word, ain’t it? Redemption. But that’s what hit’s all about, friends. Redemption. What did the prodigal son receive from his daddy? Even after he’d took his daddy’s gold and squandered it? Even after he’d broke his old daddy’s heart? When he come back dragging his tail end behind him, what did his father do? He forgive him. Took him in his old arms and loved him. He give him redemption. And that’s what God does fer us. When we beg, and I mean beg.” He pointed his finger at Carl. “Ain’t that right, Brother Carl?”

  “That’s right, Preacher.” Carl answered.

  “Amen! And amen!” the preacher shouted. “And when we beg long enough and hard enough, long enough to where”—he laughed and patted his knees—“till they’s scabs and calluses on these old kneecaps, then we receive redemption. And we’re forgived of all the sins, all the pain of this old life is lifted off us, and we are pure again. Pure as any of these little babes laying in their mommies’ arms. All them black spots that sin marks our souls with are gone!”

  He smiled. “The Lord’s moving in this little church today!” He gazed out at the congregation and paused. “I feel it so strong I want to sing about it. Let’s all sing the old song ‘Redemption.’”

  Come all ye young people of ev’ry relation, come listen a while and to you I will tell

  H
ow I was first called to seek for salvation, redemption in Jesus, who saved me from hell.

  I was not yet sixteen when Jesus first call’d me, to think of my soul and the state I was in;

  I saw myself standing a distance from Jesus, between me and him was a mountain of sin.

  The devil perceived that I was convinced, he strove to persuade me that I was too young, That I would get weary before my ascension, and wish that I had not so early begun.

  Sometimes he’d persuade me that Jesus was partial, when he was setting poor sinners free

  That I was forsaken and quite reprobated, and there was no mercy at all for poor me.

  The preacher looked out at us and waved his Bible. “It’s all right here. The word and the way. You’ll find everything you need right here.” He tapped the cover with a gentle hand. “There is mercy and salvation for us all. All we need do is confess our sins, beg forgiveness. And then we have it. It’s ours.” He smiled. “Redemption.”

  19

  IT IS FUNNY HOW words can be treated different by folks. I felt it was a pretty decent service and I told the preacher as much as I was leaving that day. And it’s funny as I have often said what we recall from days when our life takes a turn from the way it seemed destined to go. I mean, for all the world I thought we was all in good shape—me, Zeke, Mary, Larkin, and all our young’uns. We was doing good with the ’baccer, and money would soon be rolling in. We stood out in front of the church house that day and talked with Larkin about what and all needed doing in the next few days. He never so much as let on that something had settled down right next to his very soul and was taking great big bites out of it. And I am sorry to say that I did not catch it, though I stood right up in his face yapping away about ’baccer and the topping of it. The last I seed of him was his big broad back going off down the road with his young’uns.

  It would be almost two years before I’d see him again.

  I HONESTLY DON’T KNOW what I’d have done if it had not been for Zeke, God bless him. I was big as a cow with Joe Larkin that fall and though I was not sick one bit in the body, my heart was absolutely broke. Every time Aunt Susan come by the house on her mule carrying the mail I would go rushing out to ask, “Is they anything a’tall for me?” and she would look at me with a world of sadness and say “No, honey, they ain’t a thing.” You will just have to imagine how it was for me because they is no words to tell you of how I suffered.

  When Larkin went walking off with his young’uns that day he’d got about halfway home and then had told Roxy to tell Mary he had to do something and would be on in a bit. Then it was like he’d fell off the face of the earth. All the next day they hunted for him and come up with nothing, and they kept on hunting for a solid week. As you might figure, Mary was perfectly wild. When Zeke made the call to stop looking, she was fit to be tied and I was too. I went up to the cave and they was no sign of him. I stood there in it and looked around at what was there and felt all done in. They was still some of Hackley’s things and I don’t know, it just made me feel so lonesome and hurt. Zeke finally said, “Arty, you’re going to have to let this go.” And though I knowed he was speaking the truth, it was hard for me to do. That was one of the few times in my life that all I could do was pray. But as with lots of them times, I did not know if God had Arty on the top of his list and sometimes I felt I might as well be praying to the wind for all the good it done.

  I knowed when Mary got a letter from Larkin because Aunt Susan told it to me. I went straight as a shot to Mary and stood around for the better part of a whole day waiting for her to offer to let me read it, but she did not. I went home and cried for an hour to Zeke. Carolina finally said, “Mommie, it is between them.” And Zeke said, “Leave your mommie alone, missy.” I tried and tried to do that, but finally I had to ask Mary if she could just tell me that he was all right and she looked up at me and I ain’t never seen such a look on nobody’s face as the one she offered me. “He is in Charleston and is well, Arty.” I did not dare ask anything else. At least I knowed he had not gone off somewheres and lost his mind. I done the best I could to comfort myself with just the knowing of that.

  JOE LARKIN WAS BORN in March and I knowed in my heart somehow that he would be my last. There is something in a woman that goes to mourning when she births for the last time, and so it was with me. But you know it seemed like I was in a constant state of mourning that next little bit. Mommie died in May and Daddy fell dead at the milk gap that summer. That was an awful time for me as it seemed like everybody I loved was leaving me. They is something that happens to us when our mommie and daddy dies. It is like we have to step up into their shoes and they is no bigger footprints in this world. I grieved and grieved and then grieved some more. And I was watching Mary grieve, too, and she was not like me in that she had no grave to go to and mourn over. A grave does serve some purpose, you know.

  LARKIN HAD BEEN GONE over a year when I was out hunting the cows and come up on Mary there on the ridge between the Shop Holler and the Munsen Cove. She was just standing there all wrapped up in Larkin’s big blue coat, and I felt sorry for her when I looked in her face. I said howdy to her in my softest voice, and she looked at me with eyes as old as time itself and I was struck with how she looked to have aged ten years in the last two. I asked her what she was doing out. She sort of smiled and said, “Probably for the same reason as you.” And we stood for a while looking off back into Tennessee where you could see the snow coming in. And then in a voice as flat as a flitter, she said these words to me that I have never forgot.

  “I am so very tired, Arty. I woke up this morning and thought I heard somebody screaming, but it were just the wind hitting the side of the house. I laid there a long time trying to draw comfort from the sounds of my young’uns sleeping, but it did not work its charm on me like it usually does. I find no comfort nowhere.”

  I went to stand next to her and took her cold little hand in mine. It was like ice and I chapped it between mine till she finally pulled it back. Oh, how I wanted to ask her if she’d heard from him, but I held my tongue. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I wanted to hear what she might have to say.

  Then it started to snow. “We ought to get in out of the weather,” I said.

  “They is nowhere I can go that it is not cold, Arty,” she said.

  That hurt me as bad as anything I’d ever heard, and I’m ashamed to say that I wanted away from her and her cold little hands and her sad little face and her heart that was so badly broke. I went off and left her standing there by herself.

  My heart was not just broke, it was shattered, and I could not stand no more.

  LATE THAT SPRING MAGGIE come by the house. She was a sight to see and was all decked out in a fine dress and soft leather shoes and had that big mane of glossy hair done up in coils on top of her head. She looked a vision and I told her so. Her and Silas was up there seeing about her house and she asked about Larkin and Mary. Her eyes got bigger and bigger when I told her what had happened. They stayed on for supper and it was a good visit. She wrote to me when she got back home and said they’d gone by Mary’s on the way out the next day, and peace had been made between her and Mary. Time does have a way of fixing things up. Though you might not believe that, I will tell you that it does. What she said in her letter is this: “Me and you and Mary has many things between us, Arty, the least of which is your brother and Larkin. We are all women what has eaten us a big mess of life and I suspect they is more of it on our plates to eat before we leave this world. We need to try to help each other as we go along.”

  And Maggie was exactly right. The three of us went right on eating for a long, long time.

  LATE THAT SUMMER AUNT Susan hollered me from the house and she had a grin on her face as big as a mile. There was the letter that had been two years in the coming, but for all that time it were but a short thing.

  Dearest Amma,

  I am coming home.

  Larkin

  And it was like a dam busted i
nside of me and I cried and cried and cried.

  I did not feel honor-bound to tell Mary as she had not done so with me. And it were a good thing, as the days passed and he did not come. My heart would set up a great racing with each sound from the road, but each time they would pass me by. By the end of August it was like the letter had never come at all.

  Do not get it wrong here. I harbored no hard feelings toward Mary. I loved her better than my own sister. It is just that when you mixed her sad in with mine, it was a heavier load than I could tote. But I did feel bound to help her in any way I could, and when she sent Luke to get me to help her put up her corn, I went with nary a word.

  That day was hot as Satan’s housecat and we’d been out in the field most of the day and had left the boys to keep pulling corn. Me and Mary was out behind the house shucking as hard as we could and I could hear Roxy out in front singing where we’d put her to silking and washing it. I even recall that she was singing “Little Margaret.” And then right in the middle she just quit. Now, my head come up right off, because we generally do not stop in the middle of a song, and my ears was straining for the next words. Mary was, too, and so it was that both of us was listening hard and had no trouble hearing her give a little scream. Quick as lightning me and her was up running for the house. Mary went in low through the back door and I knowed she was going for the shotgun that was always loaded and setting in the corner. I went around the house at a run and did not even stop to think of myself. My heart leapt into my throat when I come out into the clearing and saw Roxy sort of grappling around with a big man with shoulder-length black hair and I thought to myself, Lord have mercy, what is a Indian doing here? That is exactly what it looked like. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mary come out on the porch and bring the gun up to her shoulder. I thought for all the world that she was going to shoot them both, so I hollered, “No, no, Mary, you’ll hit her too.” And when he heard my voice the big man turned Roxy loose and I saw his face.