Every Day by the Sun

by Dean Faulkner Wells

  The morning after my noisy birthday celebration, Pappy announced his animal-control plan. He needed help working his horses, Tempy and Ginger. I was the help. Each afternoon at four, when it began to cool off, we headed for the stables. I exhausted my repertoire of prayers to the gods of weather, asking for tornado, hurricane, tsunami, or earthquake. The best I could summon was an occasional thunderstorm. My mother and Miss Kate frequently came to help take the horses through their workouts, with Pappy standing in the center of the paddock, riding crop in hand, putting us through our paces.

  Miss Kate had her own mount, a Kentucky trotter named Rex, a big horse that stood over sixteen and a half hands. His coat was bitter chocolate and he had a disposition to match. A few weeks into our daily rides, Miss Kate rode up on Rex all turned out in a gray and salmon tweed riding jacket, soft salmon silk shirt with an ascot, gray jodhpurs, and the most expensive English riding boots to be had from Saks Fifth Avenue. I’d never felt dowdier in my jeans, flannel shirt, and tennis shoes.

  I usually rode Ginger, the pretty little blond mare that Pappy had given to Andrew Price. She had a beautiful single-foot, as easy to ride as a rocking horse. Even I could sit her. But she was bad to bite. When she laid those ears back it meant look out. I would have done better with a little Dutch courage before the horseback riding. Each afternoon when we finished working the horses, I couldn’t wait for our six o’clock cocktail hour on the east gallery.

  Ginger and Andrew were town favorites. He rode her to the square every week, Ginger single-footing all the way, dwarfed by Andrew’s size. He was very tall, and his long legs dangled below her belly, but he sat her as if a natural extension of the animal. On Saturday afternoons, they made their way from Rowan Oak up South Street, stopping first at Mr. Hall’s blacksmith shop, where Ginger stood patiently as Andrew visited with the locals and purchased his weekly pint of Four Roses Bourbon.

  Late one Saturday afternoon, we heard a commotion going on at Aunt Sue’s house, one block south of Nannie’s. I ran down the sidewalk just as a police car and ambulance pulled up. A crowd of neighbors were gathered around Andrew, flat on his back in the middle of the street, alive and well but out cold. Ginger stood next to him, right foreleg cocked, ears flattened, poised to protect her master. A one-man horse, she adored Andrew. The consensus was that Four Roses had caused him to lose his seat. Pappy was summoned. The ambulance took Andrew home to Rowan Oak. Pappy followed on Ginger. Andrew showed no ill effects and was in the paddock the next day getting Ginger ready for the Lions Club Horse Show.

  One afternoon, I drove down to Rowan Oak to find Pappy waiting for me, along with Gerald, an Ole Miss student, an experienced rider who worked the horses for the sheer pleasure of it. When I got out of my car, Pappy motioned for me to follow him and Gerald to his jeep. He’d told me to dress for riding. I wore my usual jeans and tennis shoes, thinking I’d be sitting Ginger as usual. Instead, Pappy told me, “We’re heading for Charlie Hathorne’s farm. He’s offered me a horse. I can’t refuse. It’s not a hunter or jumper, but Charlie says it could be. His name is Duke, and he likes to take jumps. He’ll clear a tall blade of grass like it was a three-foot gate, Charlie said.”

  “How do you know when he’s going to take off?” I asked.

  “You don’t.” Pappy snorted. “That’s what will make it interesting. I want you and Gerald to bring him in for me.”

  We pulled into Hathorne’s drive. He had Duke tethered to the front gate next to a mounting block. There was a bridle on him but no saddle. The closer we got to him, the more skittish he became, and the bigger he seemed to get, sixteen to eighteen hands easy. Before we could mount, Pappy said, “See y’all at home in a bit.” And he was gone.

  The horse was dancing like crazy. He hadn’t been ridden all winter. Gerald somehow got hold of an ear, bent it double, and clamped it between his teeth. Duke went to his knees. Instantly Gerald was on him. He reached out a hand for me and yanked me up behind him. I held on for dear life for the wild ride home. We galloped through Hathorne’s woods, then the Ole Miss golf course, where more than one golfer saluted us with raised club, and then we plunged into Bailey’s Woods, which were thick with vines, low branches, and treacherous thorns and thickets. “Duck!” Gerald shouted again and again. We flattened ourselves against Duke’s back, as close as we could get. He was going at a ragged canter when we came up the driveway at Rowan Oak.

  Pappy sat on the front steps, puffing his pipe, with the cheerful expression of a man who’s getting a free horse. I, who had read Pappy’s short story “Spotted Horses,” knew that this horse wasn’t free. Just as we rounded the curve before the stable, Duke began to crow-hop sideways, hoof crossing over hoof, twisting and turning like some kind of crazed merry-go-round creature. I held on as long as I could, then found myself sailing through the air. I landed on my backside in the thick grass with Pappy’s “Ride ’im, cowgirl!” ringing in my ears.

  He took his time walking over to check on me and also, I think, to get his merriment under control. “You’re not even bleeding,” he said. “Here, I’ll give you a leg up and you can help Gerald get him to the barn and cool him down. He’s a little the worse for wear.”

  What about me! I thought, but didn’t say a thing. Gerald and I took turns riding Duke, this time with a saddle. It helped a little bit, but I would soon discover that Mr. Hathorne wasn’t kidding when he said that Duke would jump a tall blade of grass.

  Pappy cleared a riding trail through Bailey’s Woods that summer. We rode it daily until the afternoon Miss Kate’s horse stumbled and fell on her. She was not hurt but Pappy was terrified. We did not ride the trail again.

  ONE AFTERNOON PAPPY appeared at Nannie’s house with several yards of bandanna material. Red was his favorite color. I innocently asked what it was for.

  “So you”—meaning Nannie and me—“can make me some kerchiefs to stuff up my sleeve to wipe off the blood when I’m riding,” he said, severely pleased. He looked like a little boy. We did not share his enthusiasm, but we set about the cutting and hemming, and then hemstitched every handkerchief. From then on, he had one with him every time he came to call. I suspect that our sewing marathon was one of his projects to keep Nannie active and involved in his life.

  Not long after this, we had plenty to do. Hollywood returned to Oxford. Vincente Minnelli was directing Home from the Hill, with Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Hamilton, and George Peppard. The town went star-crazy, everybody young and old lining up to be extras. I became an extra in a christening scene and was thrilled to be earning minimum wage. We uncomplaining extras would walk around courthouse, church, or other locations for eight hours at a stretch.

  They filmed “my scene” at our church, St. Peter’s Episcopal. My instructions were to “wear something you’d wear to church plus a big straw hat,” and to be at the church by 9 a.m. Saturday morning. I borrowed a hat from Nannie and presented myself to the clipboard lady who was sitting on a tall stool at the door, checking off the names of extras and advising us which pew to sit in. I was told to take my seat in the middle of the pew three rows from the rear.

  I sat down in my pew and glanced at the altar. There stood our priest, Duncan Gray, talking with director Minnelli and Miss Kate. She was all decked out in a stunning burnt orange linen sheath and matching pillbox, looking like a million dollars. We were about to film the ending of the christening scene, when people left the church. Minnelli called for silence on the set, then “Action!” Miss Kate stood up in her pew, second from the front. She moved into the aisle, genuflected to the altar, and then turned and walked slowly down the aisle to the back of the church straight into the camera. Because she had told them she’d acted professionally, they’d made her an “extra extraordinaire.” Miss Kate was on camera for what seemed at least two minutes. She loved it.

  Minnelli himself went a little nuts trying to meet the reclusive Pappy. We heard that he spent hours traipsing through Bailey’s Woods hoping to catch a glimpse of “The Man.�
� If asked I would have told him that Pappy had gone back to Virginia for a few weeks. But when Parker and Peppard came calling on Nannie, perhaps hoping Pappy might be there, I wasn’t about to tell. They delivered an invitation to her from Minnelli asking her to join him on the set.

  The next day they were shooting in the cemetery, not far from the Falkner family plot with its distinctive obelisk in the center. They sent a car for Nannie. By the time I got there, on foot, a large crowd had gathered. I stood with everyone else behind a barrier watching from a distance. There she sat, my grandmother, in the director’s chair, the one with “Minnelli” printed on the back, chatting away with her fellow celebrities. One of her favorite poems was “Requiem,” by Robert Louis Stevenson.

  Here he lies where he long’d to be;

  Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

  And the hunter home from the hill.

  I wondered if she were quoting the poem to Minnelli, who seemed to hang on her every word. She looked glamorous in the black eye patch she wore tied around her head. I clung to the fence trying to get her attention. All to no avail.

  After the shoot was over and the film crew and actors were gone, Oxford settled back into its quiet rhythms of small-town living. For Pappy, the highlight of the summer, however, was the annual Lions Club Horse Show. People brought fine horses from all over Mississippi, from Memphis and Germantown, and a few from Kentucky.

  Pappy decided not to enter Tempy in the competition, saying she was “too green.” I suspect this was because he had been spoiled by riding to hounds in Virginia. There were two days of competition and many classes: junior and senior equitation, in which owners and some professional riders showed their horses; Tennessee walkers; gaited; walking; hunters and jumpers; pacers; even Shetland ponies pulling lavishly decorated four- and two-wheeled carts; and the finale, the grooms’ class.

  The shows were held in a large pasture south of town where horse and cattle barns were located. An arena was set up under portable streetlights, ringed by makeshift box seats, divided into separate areas by rope barriers. Each box held eight or ten seats. Pappy reserved one every year next to Miss Kate’s box. We went early and stayed late, fortified by Pappy’s gin and tonics and Aunt Estelle’s picnic suppers.

  The children’s classes showed early in the day. In late afternoon came the costume classes. Riders, mostly female, all riding sidesaddle, showed their beautiful horses and elaborate period costumes: plumed hats with ostrich feathers, velvet riding habits. “It aint easy to sit a horse sidesaddle,” Pappy said. They were elegance in motion. Only the jumpers and hunters could match them, Pappy said.

  We pored over the programs listing riders and mounts, and predicted who would win. Pappy made sure I filled out score sheets for each event and checked my scores against his. Each participant was announced by the emcee over a loudspeaker. All eyes were on the judges’ box as the winners were named. Pappy always had definite opinions on the judges’ selections. He was partial to the jumpers and hunters, paying serious attention to possible “tics,” and vented his frustration quietly in our box when the judges did not award a top prize to his favorite. The trophies included loving cups, silver trays, or blue ribbons.

  The box seats were always full. Friends visited from box to box. We saw everybody we wanted to see.

  Though Andrew and Ginger never won the grooms’ class, they were crowd favorites. Pappy, Aunt Estelle, and I could hardly wait for Andrew to enter the ring. Here came that pretty little horse ridden by the big man in starched overalls and work shirt with a brightly colored bow tie. That night Andrew sported a pair of brand-new size thirteen white high-top tennis shoes. We stood and clapped when he rode by.

  PAPPY INVITED HIS mother to have dinner at Rowan Oak at least once every week. Occasionally she would go. One afternoon late that summer she accepted his invitation. Wese was in town and Pappy had invited Tommy Barksdale, who was also one of Nannie’s favorites.

  Tommy drove us down to Rowan Oak at twilight. Pappy led us around the house to the east garden where he had placed wrought-iron lawn chairs around his white wheeled tea cart. There was enough breeze to make the evening pleasant. Birds were having a free-for-all in the birdbath in the garden. Pappy began mixing drinks in a large glass pitcher. To placate Nannie, who disapproved of alcohol, he announced that he was making lemonade. He worked off to the side, his body turned so as to shield the ingredients from us. Shortly he produced a second pitcher from underneath the tea cart. “Lemonade?” He poured the second pitcher into tumblers filled with ice. In four of them, he squeezed a suspicious wedge of lime. The fifth and last glass he handed to Nannie, limeless and noticeably murky compared to our see-through gin and tonics. Of course, she knew the difference.

  After dinner, I invited Pappy to join us at the drive-in movie. “What’s on?” he said, moderately interested. With a straight face, Tommy said, “A movie I think you’d like, sir. It’s a rerun. I missed it the first time it came to town. It’s called The Long Hot Summer.”

  Pappy said, without a hint of a smile, “Thank you, Mr. Barksdale. Perhaps next time it comes round.”

  In early September, I went out to my old sorority house to watch the Miss America pageant. One of my sorority sisters, Mary Ann Mobley, was Miss Mississippi, an attractive, smart, talented girl who had already won some preliminary competitions. We felt that she had a very good chance of winning. I wanted to share in the excitement with friends, and besides, neither Pappy nor Nannie owned a TV set.*

  Mary Ann made the top ten, then the top five, while we, her sorority sisters, went wild. We shrilled like banshees when she was crowned Miss America, 1959.

  The next morning I could hardly wait to get to Rowan Oak to share the good news with Pappy. Nannie hadn’t seemed too impressed when I told her at breakfast. I burst into the library. “Pappy, Pappy, where are you?”

  He came out of his office. “What is it, Dean?”

  “My sorority sister Mary Ann Mobley won the Miss America contest last night. Can you believe it!”

  “So,” he said, puffing the word out. It was his standard ejaculation, which could have meant “I see,” or “All right,” or “Well now,” or “Who gives a rat’s?” Then he said, “Well, it’s nice to know somebody has finally done something to put Mississippi on the map.”

  He went back to his typewriter. I went home to Nannie. The Miss America pageant was never mentioned again.

  Later that fall I took up hunting. I’d inherited my grandfather’s single-shot .22 rifle and a .410 over-and-under shotgun. For some reason Wese bought me a .218 Bee varmint rifle with a scope. I spent many predawn hours at Pappy’s farm, “Greenfield,” which was ten miles from Papa Hale’s farm. I was comfortable being in the woods where I’d roamed as a child. Like my father, I hunted whatever was in season: dove, quail, deer. Squirrels were always fair game. Chrissie would clean and cook any game we brought in—with one exception. She would not allow us to bring a dove into her kitchen. She believed mourning doves held the dead souls of human beings. To kill one was a desecration. I never saw a dove in the kitchen and certainly never ate one at Rowan Oak. Chrissie made a profound impression on me, and apparently on Pappy as well, for I never saw him eat a dove, at least not when he was at home. The fact is, though, I didn’t really want to kill anything and am proud to say I never bagged my limit in any season. My single trophy was a large black spider that sat in the middle of a huge web begging to be a bull’s-eye. I got him with my .22 from a respectable distance. Pappy allowed that it was a terrific shot.

  After the hunt Pappy taught me to break down my guns and clean them. We worked side by side in the kitchen at Rowan Oak. I found unexpected pleasure in learning which part went where and how to use a cleaning rod and swabs, and I enjoyed sharing the companionable silence, scented by the sharp, clean smell of gun solvent mixed with Pappy’s pipe smoke.

  Before deer season was over, my husband came home from Japan and we moved to South Carolina. Looking back, I realize that th
e year I had dreaded turned out to be one of my most cherished, for it was my last year at home with Nannie and Pappy.

  A year later, when my first child, Diane, was born at Shaw Air Force Base, Nannie wrote saying she was ecstatically happy and assured me that my baby girl’s blue eyes and blond hair would turn brown (“like all the Faulkner babies”) before she was three months old. This letter was Nannie’s last. A few weeks later Wese telephoned to tell me she was dead. She’d had a massive stroke and lived only a few days in the hospital. She made Pappy promise not to let the doctors put her on life support and left instructions to be buried in a plain pine box right after her death so that she could “return to earth as soon as possible.” Pappy obeyed her wishes. Her funeral was small and private, held in her living room, the casket placed next to the French doors just as Murry’s and Dean’s had been. She was buried in the Falkner family plot. I was unable to attend the funeral. She had lived as long as she could. She had the comfort of knowing my child and I were safe and sound. I live with the ache of knowing she had never held my baby.

  Earlier that summer Nannie had copied down three inscriptions from memory and left them on my dresser without explanation: one from Goethe, another from Robert Louis Stevenson, and an old Irish blessing. I didn’t know why she wanted me to have them. I think I do now.

  May the wind be at your back,

  May the road rise up to meet you,

  May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

  *Pappy had no use for television except for the sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? I couldn’t understand why he liked it, except possibly that to a cosmopolite like Pappy it came across as theater of the absurd. Every Sunday night you could find him at Professor Jim Silver’s house on Faculty Row, watching Car 54. I’ve often wondered if Jim and his wife, Dutch, liked the show, or if they were just being good hosts. Of course, they may have been highly amused at Pappy’s continual chuckling. When he laughed, it was through his nose in subdued snorts.