by Donis Casey
“Oh, you beautiful bumble bee.
Don’t you bumble yourself at me.
There’s no honey inside my head.
Won’t you bumble the flowers instead?
Oh, you beautiful bumble bee,
Beautiful bumble bee.”
Grace gave her a toothless grin and struggled to sit up. Alafair buttoned herself up and arranged Grace on her lap. “Yes, indeed, Grace,” she said as she wiped the baby’s milky mouth with the corner of the blanket, “it’s always good to be neighborly, and it’s always good for your mama to trust the little voice in her head.”
***
When the sun began to rise a little after 6:30 on Easter morning, Alafair left the hullaballoo of her family preparing for church and went out on the porch. For the past many years, she had made a ritual of going outside by herself early in the morning to walk into the copse of woods behind the house and feed the wild turkeys. It was a chilly, clear morning, and the sky was pinking up nicely in the east. The canny birds, normally impossible to see in the woods, seemed to sense that Alafair meant them no harm when she appeared in the mornings with her pan of bread crumbs, and clustered around her feet like chickens. On this Easter morning, Alafair sank into a meditative state as she scattered the crumbs, seeing herself back in the Holy Land on that first Easter so long ago, trying to imagine the despair of the disciples turning to wonder when it began to dawn on them what had happened at the tomb. The thought filled her with the deep religious awe of the true believer.
Her moment of reverence was short-lived, however, as were all solitary moments for any mother of ten. As she walked back up the porch steps with the empty pan in her hand, two of her youngest, seven-year-old Blanche and impish Sophronia, aged six, banged out the front door with brushes and ribbons and hairpins in their hands.
“Mama,” Blanche complained, “Martha and Mary are busy with packing up the food and Alice says we have to wait until she gets done doing Ruth’s hair before she can do us.”
Sophronia threw her arms around her mother’s waist in an excess of affection. “Daddy said he’d braid our hair for us, Mama, but when he gets done there’s always one way up here and one all skewed around here.” She demonstrated with her hands flying about her head.
“Besides, Daddy always pulls our hair,” Blanche added, holding the brush out toward Alafair.
Alafair took the brush from Blanche and sat down on the porch swing. “Well, come here, then,” she said, arranging Blanche between her knees while Sophronia climbed up into the swing beside her.
She began brushing the dark brown hair briskly. Blanche had the most beautiful wavy hair, Alafair thought, and enough of it for two little girls. “You girls look mighty pretty in your new dresses,” she observed, prompting Sophronia to leap off the swing and pirouette around the porch a few times before flinging herself back up beside her mother.
“Do me some French braids, Ma,” Blanche begged. “I want fancy hair to go with my fancy dress.”
“I aim to,” Alafair assured her with a laugh. She dropped the brush into her lap and divided the hair into two bunches on either side of the girl’s head. She twisted one side up and pinned it to keep it out of the way, then began to braid the other side high up on Blanche’s crown.
“Can I help?” Sophronia asked.
“Don’t let her, Ma,” Blanche protested. “She’s messy.”
Alafair gently pushed away Sophronia’s little hand while managing not to drop any of the three hanks of Blanche’s hair that were precariously threaded through her fingers. “Sit down, Fronie,” she ordered. “Wait until I get down to the bottom here and I’ll let you twist a couple of times.”
“Can I tie the ribbon?”
“Mama!” Blanche wailed.
“Don’t be bothering me, now, Fronie,” Alafair said to the bouncing child. “Blanche wants to look especially pretty today. Don’t you? Now sit down.”
Sophronia sat down with as much grace as she could muster while her mother expertly finished off one of Blanche’s braids and most of the other. When Alafair paused and looked over at her, Sophronia gleefully climbed into her mother’s lap.
“Stick out your hands, here,” Alafair instructed. “Now take these two hanks here in this hand and this one here, and go slow. This one over, and over, and over, and that’s good. Now hold it tight while I tie the ribbon. There, that’s good. And it looks real neat, Blanche. Thank you, Fronie. You were a big help. Blanche, go in the house and admire yourself in the mirror, then go see if you can help in the kitchen.”
Blanche bounded into the house and Alafair swung Sophronia off the seat and set her between her knees. Before she could begin braiding Sophronia’s auburn curls, her oldest daughter, Martha, appreared at the front door, holding the baby.
“Grace is ready for her breakfast, Mama,” Martha said.
Alafair made a noise of confirmation and stood. “Is she changed?”
“Yes, Ma.” Martha handed Alafair the fussy baby. “Mary’s washing out last night’s diapers right now. I’ve yet to pack the baby’s things to take with us to Grandma’s.”
“Thank you, sweetie, but I’ve already done it. The bag is in my bedroom. Would you do Fronie’s hair for her?”
Alafair and Grace disappeared into the house and Martha took her mother’s place on the porch swing with Sophronia standing before her. “You want French braids like Blanche?” she asked as she began to brush.
Sophronia had reached the limit of her ability to remain still. “Naw, just braid them regular, Martha. The other takes too long.”
Martha had just finished the second braid and was tying it with a ribbon, when Sophronia leaped forward out of her grasp and ran down the steps into the yard. “Martha, Mama!” she yelled. “Here comes Phoebe and John Lee.” She skipped through the gate to greet her sister and new brother-in-law with a dimpled smile as they came up the path from their adjoining farm. They were carrying a big picnic basket between them. Martha, Sophronia, and the newlyweds converged at the gate just as Mary and Alice came out the front door lugging their own huge baskets of food, and their father pulled up to the house with the buckboard, all neatly swept out and covered with clean quilts to protect all the pretty dresses and pressed suits. Shaw’s two hunting dogs, Crook and Buttercup, were bounding around the wagon, excited at the prospect of a trip. Shaw spoke to them sharply and, chastened, the dogs retreated under the porch.
“Let’s go, let’s go, boys and girls,” Shaw called. “We’ve got to drop all these vittles off at Grandma’s before we go to church, and the sun’s already up, now.”
More children poured out the door, and they all arranged themselves on the quilts in the bed of the wagon with much chatter and laughter. Alafair was the last out of the house, with the baby on her hip. She climbed onto the seat next to Shaw, who turned to inspect the load of offspring he was carrying: Martha and Mary, Alice and Phoebe, his boys Gee Dub and Charlie and his young girls Ruth, Blanche and Sophronia, his son-in-law John Lee, and perched next to him, his wife Alafair and baby Grace.
“Looks like I’m toting a wagonload of flowers,” Shaw observed, and was answered with a chorus of giggles.
“Do I look like a flower, Daddy?” Charlie demanded, affronted.
“Charlie-boy,” Shaw answered him with a big white grin, “you look like a bright red apple, all polished and ready to eat. Now settle, you kids, and let’s get to Grandma’s.” He picked up the reins and clucked at the mules.
***
An hour later, in the red brick Masonic Hall, where met the congregation of the First Christian Church of Boynton, the family was sitting with Shaw’s mother and stepfather, his three sisters and their families, his two brothers and their families, and his two younger half brothers. The Tucker-McBride amalgamation took up nearly a third of the hall. Because of the baby, Shaw and Alafair sat in the back, at the end of the row, and Alafair was afforded a fine view of the rest of the congregation. Since it was Easter, the hall was packed, all the
aisles filled with overflow worshipers in cane-bottomed chairs. Alafair waved at Shaw’s cousin’s wife Hattie Tucker, sitting near the front with Scott and their four nearly grown boys. Two rows up and directly across the aisle from Alice, Alafair caught sight of Walter Kelley, scanning the crowd with bright brown eyes and waving and calling to everyone he knew. His gaze crossed Alafair’s and he gave her a cheerful nod. She responded with a tight smile. His gaze slid onward and lit on Alice. He leaned across the aisle to speak to her, and Alice leaned in to hear him. Her blonde hair fell off her shoulder and she casually tucked it behind her ear. She gave the barber a languorous smile.
Alafair straightened. The young people were close enough that she could hear their conversation clearly over the chatter of the congregation, and she eavesdropped unabashedly.
“I reckon I’ll be taking Easter dinner with you and your family after church,” Walter opened.
“I heard. The family will be mighty glad to have you.”
“Will you be glad to have me there, as well?” Walter teased, grinning.
Alice grinned back. “Why, yes, I will. In fact, my grandfolks have the best apple orchard in the Creek Nation, so they tell me. I’d be pleased to give you a tour after dinner. It’s just blooming like glory this year.”
“I would love to see it, young Miss Alice,” Walter assured her.
There was no time for more conversation, since the new minister, Mr. Bellows, stepped up to the pulpit and a hush fell over the crowd.
Alice! Alafair thought, as the minister greeted the congregation. He called her Alice, just like that, so fresh, and Alice flirted back at him as brash as you please. Don’t fret yourself, her inner voice admonished. I’m pretty sure they don’t even know one another. You just don’t like the fellow, and there’s no good reason not to like him. It’s just his personality, too flip for you, and that big old grin that’s way too friendly, and that sly look that sets your teeth on edge. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad person.
A bad person. Alafair anxiously called to mind his murdered wife. If anybody would be drawn to a flip personality, it was her darling Alice. If only Shaw hadn’t invited him to dinner, she thought. She had a sudden fear that she was looking at the first meeting of fire and tinder.
Chapter Four
Grandma and Grandpapa’s very large farm was located a scant mile outside of Boynton, on a prime section of land bordered by Cloud Creek on the east and dissected across the southeast corner by Cane Creek. The pearl gray, two-story Victorian house sat at the end of a long, curving drive that wound down from the gate, and was surrounded by native oaks and elms. A massive roofed and railed porch wrapped around the front and both sides of the house. Grandpapa had surrounded the house with a low picket fence to create a pleasant yard, much of which Grandma had turned into mixed flower and vegetable gardens. Behind the house, Grandma had planted a tiny orchard of fruit trees, two of each of pear, cherry, and peach. Just outside the fence stood a couple of rangy persimmon trees, a black walnut, two or three massive hackberrys, and a forked path, one branch of which led to Grandma’s stand of native pecan trees, and the other to Grandpapa’s justly famous apple orchard.
As soon as Shaw pulled the wagon into the yard, Charlie spotted several age-mate cousins. He made a break for it, but his mother caught him by the collar before he got away and pressed him into service carrying food baskets.
They entered the house through the tall front door with the oval, etched glass window. The foyer led to a short hallway. To the right of the entrance, a carved wooden stairwell ascended to the bedrooms. To the left, glass-paned French doors opened onto a huge, airy, multi-windowed parlor. Alafair and her troop of helpers went straight down the hall with their baskets of food, through the dining room that used to be a breezeway before it was enclosed, heading for the big kitchen at the back of the house.
The younger children had divested themselves of their burdens and skipped out the back, except for Charlie, who tugged Alafair’s skirt.
“Ma, can I have some of them boiled eggs? Uncle Bill said me and the boys can hide them for the little kids to find later.”
Distracted, Alafair pointed him toward the large milk pail full of hard-boiled eggs that she had just set on the cabinet. “You can have about a dozen, honey. That means twelve and not one more, now. Take them and scoot.”
Normally, when Alafair’s family went to her mother-in-law’s for dinner, no one was allowed into the kitchen to help with the cooking. Grandma Sally informed all who asked that she could cook up a meal infinitely more efficiently if she was left alone. When guests came to her house, she insisted on doing the entertaining. When Sally did the visiting, she expected to be entertained herself. However, on a big holiday like today, when the entire tribe was in residence, the rules were eased. Most of the food was already prepared and hauled in by the wagon loads by the various daughters and daughters-in-law and granddaughters. All that was left to do after church was to make the potatoes, both mashed and fried, heat up the quarts of home-canned vegetables, and make the biscuits and gravy.
While the women were toiling in the kitchen, the men set up the long plank-and-sawhorse tables and benches under the elms by the side of the house. By the time all the tables were set up, the women were beginning to haul out platters and bowls of food to set on the makeshift banquet table. Many of the plates and bowls were covered with dishcloths to keep away the flying critters, but several medium-sized, disgruntled children were pressed into service with leafy twigs and paper fans to stand over the food and wave threateningly at the flies.
The kitchen was literally a hotbed of action. The spring day was cool, but the heat of the wood-fired, cast iron stove, combined with the harried activity of nearly a score of women, served to make Grandma’s big kitchen uncomfortably hot. Grandma Sally herself stood in the center of the floor at the head of the kitchen table, directing the action like a trail boss. Sally stood five feet tall in her bare feet, a plump, birdlike woman, all brown and bright-eyed, always flitting from this to that, never still. She wore her still-dark hair pulled straight back into a bun, and her Cherokee ancestry showed plain on her face. She was imperious, ordering everyone about without shame, but she was so good-natured and even humorous about it that no one could manage to be insulted.
Alafair was standing at the cabinet next to Shaw’s sister Hannah, mashing potatoes in a big pot. Mashing potatoes for sixty-five people is a daunting task. Alafair was using a two-handed, twisting method that took a certain amount of upper body strength. She paused occasionally to add cream from a pint jar at her elbow. She had just reached a point where the potatoes were smooth and creamy enough to serve when her daughter Ruth, just turned fourteen, sidled up to her through the crowd and plucked her sleeve.
“Who’s watching Grace?” Alafair said to her in lieu of a greeting.
“Alice has her,” Ruth said, and Alafair grunted her approval.
“Hand me that serving dish over there,” Alafair instructed. “What do you want, honey?”
After handing her mother the bowl, Ruth leaned in confidentially. “Mama, can I eat at the grown-up table today?” She was striving to keep a pleading tone out of her voice.
Alafair tried not to smile as she began to ladle the silky potatoes into the bowl. “You can eat anywhere you want to, puddin’.”
“Such a pretty, grown-up dress you’ve got on there, Ruth,” Aunt Hannah noted. “You shouldn’t let any sticky little hands anywhere near it. Go find your cousin Liz and tell her to sit at the grown-up table with you.”
Ruth straightened with a grin and made a little hop as she turned to go back outside. “Thank you, Aunt Hannah. Thank you, Mama.” She moved toward the door, but Grandma Sally grabbed her arm before she made good her escape.
“Not so fast, there, my girl,” Sally admonished. “Take these couple of bowls out and put them on the table.” She loaded Ruth down and draped some dishtowels over the girl’s shoulder. “Throw these over the bowls,” she instructed. “N
ow, scoot.”
“That’ll teach her to come in here while Grandma’s in charge,” Alafair noted to Hannah with a smile. She plopped a scoop of butter into the well she had pressed into the top of the potatoes.
As she turned to place the bowl on the table, she found Sally close at her side.
“Tell me about this handsome young barber y’all invited along to dinner,” Sally opened.
“The barber is here already?” Alafair asked.
“He drove in a few minutes ago in his shiny black automobile, with his fancy blue racing cap on his head, and his blue braces to match. All the kids were crowding around wanting a ride, but he jumped out right smart and went to sit in the shade with some of your girls.”
Alafair’s eyebrows shot up. She wiped her hands and dabbed her cheeks with the tail of her apron as she regarded the shrewd look in her mother-in-law’s eyes. “Funny you should ask me about him, Ma. I was hoping you and me might have a little time to talk about that sometime today.”
Sally’s gaze darted around the kitchen, taking in the chaos of preparation. “Josie,” she said to her eldest daughter, at the stove, “you do the directing. Me and Alafair are going outside for a spell.”
Not ones to waste effort, Sally and Alafair grabbed dishes to convey to the table before strolling off together through the crowd, on their way to the pecan orchard. As they passed, Alafair eyed Walter Kelley, sitting in a chair under the budding elms with Alice, Mary, and John Lee Day. Phoebe and Martha were busying themselves at the table. Grace and two of her infant cousins were rocking back and forth happily on a blanket spread on the grass at the young people’s feet. Walter was being his ever-so-charming self, judging by how much the girls were laughing.