The Ponder Heart

by Eudora Welty

  "Go on home, girl," says Judge Tip, "and get ready for your grandfather; he's loose and on his way. Already talked to DeYancey on the long-distance; don't know why he couldn't wait. I got no intention of washing my hands of Daniel or any other Ponder, and I'm not surprised for a minute at anything that transpires, only I'm a quiet studious man and don't take to all this commotion under my window." It woke him up, that's what.

  "I don't see why there has to be any commotion anywhere," I says—and down on the street I made up my mind I'd say that to everybody. "People get married beneath them every day, and I don't see any sign of the world coming to an end. Don't be so small-town."

  That held them, till Grandpa got back.

  He got back sooner than I dreamed. I shook my big purse at him, when the car went by, to head him off, but he and De Yancey just hightailed it straight through town and out to the place. Nearly everybody still in the house along the way got out front in time to see them pass. I understand Miss Teacake Magee even drove by Ponder Hill, pretending she was looking for wild plums. I said, Edna Earle, you'd better get on out there.

  All right, I said, but let me get one bath. It generally takes three, running this hotel on a summer day. I said shoo to the rummage sale and let them go on to the store.

  While I was in the tub, ring went the telephone. Mr. Springer got to town just in time to answer it. I had to come down in front of him in my kimona, and there was DeYancey, calling from the crossroads store; I could hear their two good-for-nothing canaries. I fussed at him for not stopping here with Grandpa, because he might know I'd have something to tell him.

  DeYancey said he had a surprise for me, that he'd better not tell me in front of a lot of people. I could have sworn I heard Eva Sistrunk swallow.

  "Tell me quick, DeYancey Clanahan," I says. "I've all but got my hat on now—I think I know what it is."

  DeYancey only starts at the beginning. He said he and Grandpa pulled up under the tree at the Ponder place and went marching in by the front door. (I told him they hadn't been beat home by much. Mr. Springer called from his room that to Silver City and back and to the asylum and back is just about equal distance.) De Yancey said they heard running feet over their heads, and running feet on the stairs—and whisk through the old bead curtains of the parlor came somebody that poor Grandpa had never laid eyes on in his life or dreamed existed. "She'd been upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady's chamber," says DeYancey. "She was very much at home."

  "No surprise so far," I says. "Bonnie Dee Peacock."

  "All in pink," he said, like I wasn't telling him a bit. "And she'd picked one of Narciss's nasturtiums and had it in her mouth like a pipe, sucking the stem. She ran to the parlor windows and took a good look out of each one." He said Uncle Daniel came in behind her and after he kissed Grandpa, stepped to the mantel and rested his elbow on it in a kind of grand way. They smelled awful smoke—he had one of Grandpa's cigars lighted. Narciss was singing hallelujah somewhere off.

  I said, "But DeYancey, you're leaving out what I want to hear—the words. What did Grandpa say?"

  DeYancey said Grandpa whispered.

  "I don't believe you."

  DeYancey said, "It's all true. He whispered, and said 'They're right.'"

  "Who?" I said.

  "Well, the Clanahans," said DeYancey. "He whispered—" and DeYancey whispered, all hollow and full of birdsinging over the wires, with Lord knows who not with us—"'When the brains were being handed around, my son Daniel was standing behind the door.'"

  "Help," I said. "And did Uncle Daniel hear it? Let me go, DeYancey, I haven't got time for conversation. I've got to get out there and stand up for both of them."

  "Don't you want to hear the surprise?" he says.

  Well, he did have a surprise; he just had to get to it. Do you know it turned out that she'd just married Uncle Daniel on trial? Miss Bonnie Dee Peacock of Polk took a red nasturtium out of her mouth to say that was the best she could do.

  After that, Grandpa just pounded with his stick and sent DeYancey out of his sight, with a message he would speak to me in the morning. And when he was getting his car out of the yard, DeYancey said, Narciss had the fattest chicken of all down on the block, and hollered at him, "We's goin' to keep her!" and brought her ax down whack.

  "Just hang up and go home and take a bath, DeYancey," I says. "I've heard all I'm going to. I'm going to put on my hat."

  Well, it's our hearts. We run to sudden ends, all we Ponders. I say it's our hearts, though Dr. Ewbanks declares Grandpa just popped a blood vessel.

  Grandpa, Uncle Daniel, and Bonnie Dee still in pink were all about to sit down. I was just walking in the door—smelled chicken. Uncle Daniel says to me, "Just in time, Edna Earle. Poor Papa! You know, Edna Earle, he's hard to please."

  And lo and behold.

  We had the funeral in the Presbyterian Church, of course, and it was packed. I haven't been able to think of anybody that didn't come. It had mortified the Sistrunks that following behind one of them so close would come a Peacock; but with Grandpa going the sudden way he did, they rallied, and turned up in their best, and Miss Teacake asked to be allowed to sing. "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere" was her choice.

  Uncle Daniel held every eye at the services. That was the best thing in the world for Uncle Daniel, because it distracted him from what was going on. Oh, he hates sickness and death, will hardly come in the room with it! He can't abide funerals. The reason every eye was on him was not just because he was rich as Croesus now, but he looked different. Bonnie Dee had started in on him and cut his hair.

  Now I'll tell you about Bonnie Dee. Bonnie Dee could make change, and Bonnie Dee could cut hair. If you ask me can I do either, the answer is no. Bonnie Dee may have been tongue-tied in public and hardly able to stand in high heels, till she learned how, but she could cut your hair to a fare-ye-well, to within a good inch of your life, if you put a pair of scissors in her hand. Uncle Daniel used to look like a senator. But that day his hair wasn't much longer than the fuzz of a peach. Uncle Daniel still keeps it like that—he loves himself that way.

  Oh, but he was proud of her. "She's a natural-born barber," he said, "and pretty as a doll. What would I do without her?" He had the hardware salesman bring her a whole line of scissors and sharp blades. I was afraid she'd fringe everything in the house.

  Well! Ignorance is bliss.

  Except Bonnie Dee, poor little old thing, didn't know how to smile. Yawned, all the time, like cats do. So delicate and dainty she didn't even have any heels to speak of—she didn't stick out anywhere, and I don't know why you couldn't see through her. Seventeen years old and seemed like she just stayed seventeen.

  They had that grand Narciss—had her and never appreciated her. It didn't seem to me they ate out there near enough to keep her happy. It had turned out Narciss could sit at a wheel and drive, of course —her and Grandpa's Studebaker both getting older by the minute, but she could still reach the pedals and they'd still catch, a little. Where they headed for, of course, was right here—a good safe place to end up, with the hitching post there to catch them at the foot of the walk. They sashayed in at the front—Narciss sashayed in at the back—and all ate with me.

  That's how everybody—me and whoever was in here at the time, drummers, boarders, lawyers, and strangers—had to listen to Uncle Darnel mirate and gyrate over Bonnie Dee. With her right there at the table. We had to take on over her too, every last one of lis, and tell him how pretty and smart we thought she was. It didn't bother her one whit. I don't think she was listening to amount to a row of pins. You couldn't tell. She just sat and picked at the Beulah food like a canary bird, and by the time Uncle Daniel was through eating and talking and pulled her up, it would be too late for the show for everybody. So he'd holler Narciss out of the back and they'd all three hop back in the car and go chugging home.

  Now the only bad thing about the Ponder place is where it is. Poor Grandpa had picked him a good high spot to build the house on, where he could
see all around him and if anybody was coming. And that turned out to be miles from anywhere. He filled up the house with rooms, rooms, rooms, and the rooms with furniture, furniture, furniture, all before he let Grandma in it. And then of course she brought her own perfectly good rosewood in right on top of it. And he'd trimmed the house inside and outside, topside and bottom, with every trimming he could get his hands on or money could buy. And painted the whole thing bright as a railroad station. Anything to outdo the Beulah Hotel.

  And I think maybe he did outdo it. For one thing he sprinkled that roof with lightning rods the way Grandma would sprinkle coconut on a cake, and was just as pleased with himself as she was with herself. Remarkable. I don't think it ever occurred to either one of them that they lived far out: they were so evenly matched. It took Grandpa years to catch on it was lonesome. They considered town was far.

  I've sometimes thought of turning that place into something, if and when it ever comes down to me and I can get the grass out of it. Nobody lives in the house now. The Pepper family we've got on the place don't do a thing but run it. A chinchilla farm may be the answer. But that's the future. Don't think about it, Edna Earle, I say. So I just cut out a little ad about a booklet that you can send off for, and put it away in a drawer—I forget where.

  So the marriage trial—only it had completely left our minds it was one—went on for five years and six months, and Bonnie Dee, if you please, decided No.

  Not that she said as much to a soul: she was tongue-tied when it came to words. She left a note written in a pencil tablet on the kitchen table, and when Narciss went out to cut up the chicken, she found it. She carried it to Uncle Daniel in the barn, and Uncle Daniel read it to her out loud. Then they both sat down on the floor and cried. It said, "Have left out. Good-by and good luck, your friend, Mrs. Bonnie Dee Peacock Ponder." We don't even know which one of them it was to.

  Then she just traipsed out to the crossroads and flagged down the north-bound bus with her little handkerchief—oh, she was seen. A dozen people must have been in the bushes and seen her, or known somebody that did, and they all came and told me about it. Though nobody at all appeared to tell me where she got off.

  It's not beyond me. You see, poor, trusting Uncle Daniel carried that child out there and set her down in a big house with a lot of rooms and corners, with Negroes to wait on her, and she wasn't used to a bit of it. She wasn't used to keeping house at all except by fits and starts, much less telling Negroes what to do. And she didn't know what to do with herself all day. But how would she tell him a thing like that? He was older than she was, and he was good as gold, and he was prominent. And he wasn't even there all the time—Uncle Daniel couldn't stay home. He wanted her there, all right, waiting when he got back, but he made Narciss bring him in town first, every night, so he could have a little better audience. He wanted to tell about how happy he was.

  The way I look back at Bonnie Dee, her story was this. She'd come up from the country—and before she knew it, she was right back in the country. Married or no. She was away out yonder on Ponder Hill and nothing to do and nothing to play with in sight but the Negroes' dogs and the Peppers' cats and one little frizzly hen. From the kind of long pink fingernails she kept in the ten cent store, that hadn't been her idea at all. Not her dream.

  I think they behaved. I don't think they fought all over the place, like the Clanahan girls and the Sistrunk boys when they marry. They wouldn't know how. Uncle Daniel never heard a cross word in his life. Even if Bonnie Dee, with her origins, could turn and spit like a cat, I hardly think she would around Uncle Daniel. That wouldn't be called for.

  I don't blame Bonnie Dee, don't blame her for a minute. I could just beat her on the head, that's all.

  And I did think one thing was the funniest joke on her in the world: Uncle Daniel didn't give her any money. Not a cent. I discovered that one day. I don't think it ever occurred to him, to give anything to Bonnie Dee. Because he had her. (When she said "trial," that didn't mean anything to Uncle Daniel that would alarm him. The only kind of trials he knew about were the ones across the street from the Beulah, in the Courthouse—he was fond of those.)

  I passed her some money myself now and then—or I bought her something ladylike to put on her back. I couldn't just leave her the way she was! She never said more than "Thank you."

  Of course, Uncle Daniel wasn't used to money, himself. With Grandpa in his grave, it was Mr. Sistrunk at the bank that gave him his allowance, three dollars a month, and he spent that mostly the first day, on children—they were the ones came out and asked him for things. Uncle Daniel was used to purely being rich, not having money. The riches were all off in the clouds somewhere—like true love is, I guess, like a castle in the sky, where he could just sit and dream about it being up there for him. But money wouldn't be safe with him a minute—it would be like giving matches to a child.

  Well! How the whole town did feel it when Bonnie Dee lit out!

  When we sat in here night after night and saw that pearly gray Stetson coming in view, and moving up the walk, all we could do was hope and pray Uncle Daniel was here to tell us she was back. But she wasn't. He'd peep in both windows from the porch, then go around by the back and come in through the kitchen so he could speak to Ada. He'd point out what he'd have on his plate—usually ham and steak and chicken and cornbread and sweet potatoes and fried okra and tomatoes and onion-and-egg—plus banana pie—and take his seat in the dining room and when it came go "Ughmmmmmm!" One big groan.

  And I'd call everybody to supper.

  Uncle Daniel would greet us at the table. "Have you seen her, son? Has a soul here seen my wife? Man alive! My wife's done left me out there by myself in the empty house! Oh, you'd know her if you came across her—she's tiny as a fairy and pretty as a doll. And smart beyond compare, boys." (That's what she told him.) "And now she's gone, clean as a whistle." There'd be a little crowd sitting close on both sides before he knew it. And he'd go into his tale.

  It would be like drawing his eye-teeth not to let him go on and tell it, though it was steadily breaking his heart. Like he used to be bound and determined to give you a present, but that was a habit he'd outgrown and forgotten now. It was safer for his welfare to let him talk than let him give away, but harder on his constitution. On everybody's.

  But I don't think he could bring himself to believe the story till he'd heard himself tell it again. And every night, when he'd come to the end, he'd screw his eyes up tight with fresh tears, and stand up and kiss me good night and pull his hat down off the rack. So I'd holler Narciss out of the kitchen for him—she came out looking sadder and sadder every time too—and she'd carry him on home. I knew he'd be back the next night.

  Eva Sistrunk said she couldn't make up her mind whether it was good or bad for this hotel—though I don't believe she was asked. Things would look like a birthday party inside, such a fine crowd—some out-of-town people hanging onto the story and commiserating with Uncle Daniel, and the Clay people cheering him on, clapping him on the shoulder. Everybody here, young or old, knew what to say as well as he did. When he sat there at the big middle table he always headed for, all dressed up in sparkling white and his red tie shining, with his plate heaped up to overflowing and his knife and fork in hand, ready and waiting to begin his tale of woe, he'd be in good view from the highway both north and south, and it was real prosperous-looking in here—till he came to the part about the note, of course, and how Narciss lightfooted it out to the barn and handed it to him so pleased, where he was feeding his calf—and he broke down at the table and ruined it all.

  But that's what he came in here for—cry. And to eat in company. He ate me out of house and home, not so much to be eating as to be consoling himself and us (we begged him to eat, not cry), but some nights, when he had a full house, I had to flit along by the back of his chair and say under my breath, "Uncle Daniel! F. H. B.!"

  He'd just catch me and say, "Edna Earle! Where do you suppose she could've got to by this time?
Memphis?" Memphis was about the limit Uncle Daniel could stand to think of. That's where everybody else had it in mind she went, too. That's where they'd go.

  Somebody'd always be fool enough to ask Uncle Daniel how come he didn't hop in his car and drive on up to Memphis and look for Bonnie Dee, if he wanted her back that bad. Some brand-new salesman would have to say, "It can be driven in three hours and forty-five minutes."

  "Believe that's just what I'll do, sir!" Uncle Daniel would say, to be nice. "Yes sir, I'll go up there in the cool of the morning, and let you know what I find, too." "Miss Elsie Fleming—I wonder where she is," he said now and then, too. Well, he just never can forget anybody.

  But he wouldn't dream of going to Memphis, to find Bonnie Dee or Intrepid Elsie Fleming or you or anybody else. Uncle Daniel belongs in Clay, and by now he's smart enough to know it; and if he wasn't, I'd tell him.

  "Never mind, Uncle Daniel," I'd come up again and say when the tears fell. "Have a Fatima." He adores to smoke those. I order off after them for him, and always keep an extra supply on hand. And I'd light him one.

  I don't really think Uncle Daniel missed Bonnie Dee as much as he thought he did. He had me. He appeared at the Beulah every night of the world, sure as shooting, and every morning to boot, and of course when he came down sick out there, he hollered for Edna Earle.

  I locked up the Beulah—well, it wouldn't lock, but I spoke to it and said "Burglars, stay away"—and went out to Ponder Hill in my trusty Ford to take care of him. When I got there, I missed Grandpa meeting me in the hall and telling me this had put him in a quandary.

  The house is almost exactly the same size as the hotel, but it's a mile easier to run. If you know what you want done, you can just ask in the morning for how many Negroes you want that day, and Uncle Daniel hollers them in for you out of the fields, and they come just like for Grandpa. They don't know anything, but you can try telling them and see what happens. And there was always Narciss. By now she had a black smear across all her aprons, that the steering wheel made on her stomach; she sat up so close to the windshield to see how to drive. I made her get back to the stove.