The Ponder Heart

by Eudora Welty

  Uncle Daniel spoke to the Peacocks, but then I saw his face light up, like it only does for a newcomer in his life. And in sailed that lawyer, Dorris R. Gladney. Long, black, buzzardy coat, black suspenders, beaky nose, and on his little finger a diamond bigger than mine, but not half as expensive. Walked too low, and got up and sat down too fast, like all the Gladneys. We all know people who're in a terrible hurry about something! And I understand Mr. Gladney has been peppered with buckshot on several occasions in the course of his career—shows you what kind of people he's thrown with. He rushed up and down the room several times, to show he'd come, and patted the little Peacocks on the head, but they didn't smile an inch.

  Then in came DeYancey, real pale, and he patted Uncle Daniel and he smiled. And all around us, everybody in the courtroom was talking ninety to nothing when old Judge Waite brought down the gavel and the whole conglomeration sat up.

  The other side was first.

  Mr. Truex Bodkin came on to start—was led on, rather—he's blind. He's the coroner.

  "Heart failure," he said. "Natural causes—I mean other than natural causes, could be. That's what I meant—could've been other than natural causes."

  "This is the case of the State versus Daniel Ponder we're on today," says the Judge. "Put your mind to your work. Suppose I acted that way." Poor old blind Truex is led back. And do you know who was called next? Nobody you'd ever hear of in a thousand years.

  Would you guess, that after all that had been done for him, Uncle Daniel had taken it on himself to send Bonnie Dee his own message? That same Saturday I stopped the money, he did it. By word of mouth, of course. And he picked out the slowest, oldest, dirtiest, most brainless old Negro man he could find to send it by. I thought it showed a little ingratitude.

  It was Big John—worked for us out there since time was: I don't know what he did. Always wore the same hat and shoes and overalls, and couldn't sign his name if life depended. Old man lives off by himself, a way, way back on the place—wonder how far anybody would have to go to find him. I never saw where he lived. First, Uncle Daniel had had to send a little Negro from the barbership to get the old one to come in and learn the message. Whole thing took all day.

  All the money Big John's ever made is right on him now, in his overall pocket, if somebody hasn't taken it again—that's all he wants it for, to carry it around. I expect he's been robbed a hundred times, among the Negroes, but he'll always ask you for money any time he sees you. Of course he and Uncle Daniel get along fine. He used to work in the flowers, if you could keep him out of the beds. Dug holes for Grandma 5 that's what she did with Big John.

  So here he was. Around his hat is a bunch of full-blown roses, five or six Etoiles in a row, with little short stems stuck down in the hatband—they're still growing in Grandma's garden, in spite of everything.

  "Did Mr. Daniel Ponder send word by you to his wife, Miss Bonnie Dee Ponder, on the fourteenth day of June of this year?" is what old Gladney asks him.

  Big John agrees with you every time. He nods his head, and the roses bow up and down.

  "Now I can tell you're a reliable Negro," says old Gladney. "And I just want you to tell me what the message was. What did Mr. Daniel tell you to say to the lady?"

  Big John has a little voice like a whistle the air won't come through just right.

  "Go tell Miss Bonnie Dee—go tell Miss Bonnie Dee—" He's getting started.

  "Keep on. Tell Miss Bonnie Dee what?"

  Big John fixed his mouth, and recited it off. "'I'm going to kill you dead, Miss Bonnie Dee, if y' don't take m' back.'"

  I would have thought Big John would get the message wrong, to begin with—that's one reason I'd never have picked him. But there was no mistaking that—he got Uncle Daniel's right!

  Old man Gladney says after him, real soft, "'I'm going to kill you dead, Miss Bonnie Dee—' Did he laugh, I wonder, when he said that?"

  DeYancey took objection to that, but Big John didn't even know what laugh was. He just scratched his head up under his hat.

  "What made you remember it so good, Uncle?"

  Big John still only scratched his head. Finally he says, "'Cause Mr. Daniel give me a dime."

  That was all he could think of. But I knew it was because of that high esteem Big John held Uncle Daniel in, that made him remember so fine. I must say Uncle Daniel held esteem for Big John, too. He always did like him—because of the money he could deposit on him, and then he didn't mind old dirty people the way you and I do. He let Big John come around him and listened to what he said, both. They listened to each other. When you saw them walking white and black together over the back lot, you'd have thought there went two Moguls, looking over the world.

  "And what word did Miss Bonnie Dee send back?" says old Gladney. But Big John could remember that about as well as the frizzly hen that comes up to the back door.

  "Her didn't have nothing to give me," was the best he could do.

  "But Mr. Daniel Ponder did send this message to Miss Bonnie Dee Peacock Ponder, paying you for its safe delivery, Uncle, only two short days before her death: 'I'm going to kill you dead if you don't take me back.' Didn't he?"

  "Ain't said to me, to her," Big John whistled out. "Ain't said to me that time. I ain't doin' nothin'. Only but what he tell me."

  "That's right. 'I'm going to kill you dead, Miss Bonnie Dee'—and now he's done it," says old Gladney sharp, and no matter how DeYancey's objecting, Big John's agreeing like everything, bobbing his head with those flowers on it under everybody's nose.

  De Yancey doesn't want to ask him anything—makes a sign like he's brushing flies away.

  "Well, go on, Uncle, I'm through with you," says Gladney.

  "He won't go away if you don't give him a nickel," I remarks from my seat.

  "What for?" says old Gladney, but forks over, and the old man goes off real pleased. I must say the whole courtroom smelled of Big John and his flower garden for a good time afterward.

  "I think as a witness, Mr. Gladney, Big John Beech was worth every bit of that," says DeYancey.

  But Uncle Daniel looked to me like his feelings were already hurt. Big John up there instead of him.

  Well, of course I hid it—but I was surprised myself at a few who were chosen as witnesses. Here rose up somebody I'd never expect to see testifying in a thousand years—Miss Teacake Magee. Old Gladney begins to tackle her.

  "Mrs. Magee, you were married to the defendant, Mr. Daniel Ponder, for two months in the year 1944, were you not?"

  Miss Teacake had cut bangs, and was putting on that she could barely whisper; the Judge had to tell her to speak up so people could hear.

  "And divorced?"

  You couldn't hear a thing.

  "Why were you divorced, may I ask?" says old Gladney, cheerful-like.

  "I just had to let him go," whispers Miss Teacake. That's just what she always says.

  "Would you care to describe any features of your wedded life?" asks old Gladney, and squints like he's taking Miss Teacake's picture there with her mouth open.

  "Just a minute," says the Judge. "Miss Edna Earle's girl is standing in the door to find out how many for dinner. I'll ask for a show of hands," and puts up his the first.

  It was a table full, I can tell you. Everybody but the Peacocks, it appeared to me. I made a little sign to Ada's sister she'd better kill a few more hens.

  Then Gladney gives a long look at the jury and says, "Never mind, Mrs. Magee, we understand perfectly. You'd rather keep it to yourself that you were harboring a booger-man. I won't ask you for another word about it."

  Miss Teacake's still looking at him pop-eyed.

  Old Gladney backs away on her easy, and DeYancey hops over and says, "Miss Teacake, just one question will clear this up, for us and you both, I think. In the period of this, your second marriage, did you ever at any time have cause to fear the defendant? Were you scared of Daniel, in other words?"

  "Listen here. I don't scare that easy, DeYancey Clanahan,"
says Miss Teacake in her everyday voice. They tell her just to answer the question. All she says is, "Ever since I lost Professor Magee, I've had to look after myself." She keeps a pistol by her bed, and for all I know, it's loaded.

  "But you did ask Mr. Ponder to go. Would anything ever induce you to ask him to come back?" says old Gladney, pointing a finger.

  And she hoots out "No!" and scares herself. But by that time they're through with her.

  She was mighty dressed up for that five minutes. Had a black silk fan she never did get worked open. Very different from appearing in church, appearing in a court trial. She said afterwards she had no idea, when she was asked to testify, that it might be for the other side.

  And here next came Narciss—her whole life spent with the Ponders, and now grinning from ear to ear. And she had that little black dog of hers with her. She didn't know any better than let him come, so there he trotted. And her black umbrella she came to town under was folded up and swinging by her skirt.

  "Woman, were you working in the Ponder house on the day of which we speak, Monday afternoon the sixteenth of June?" says old Gladney.

  "Just let me take off my shades," says Narciss. In town, she wears black glasses with white rims. She folds them in a case that's a celluloid butterfly, from Woolworth's, and says she was there Monday.

  He asked her what she was doing the last thing she did for Mrs. Ponder, and when she got around to that answer, she said, "Draggin' old parlor sofa towards the middle of the room like she tole me."

  "What for?"

  "Sir, lightnin' was fixin to come in de windows. Gittin' out de way."

  "Was Mrs. Ponder there in the parlor with you, woman?"

  "She ridin' de sofa."

  All the Peacocks laughed in court. They didn't mind hearing how lazy they were.

  "Was Mrs. Ponder expecting company?"

  "That's how come I ironed her apricots dress, all dem little pleats."

  "And company came?"

  Narciss looked around at me and slapped her leg.

  "Who was it? Tell who you saw."

  Narciss took him down by telling him she didn't see 5 but it was us. She ran out of the room first, but she had ears. They let her tell just what she heard, then.

  Narciss said, "Hears de car Miss Edna Earle ride around in go umph, comin' to a stop by de tree. Hears Mr. Daniel's voice sound off in a happy-time way, sayin' Miss Bonnie Dee was sure right about de rain. Hears it rainin', lightnin' and thunderin', feets pacin' over de yard. And little dog barkin' at Miss Edna Earle 'cause she didn't bring him a sack of bones."

  "So you could say who the company was," says old Gladney, and Narciss says, "Wasn't no spooks." But Judge Waite wouldn't let that count, either question or answer.

  "Did Mrs. Ponder herself have a remark to make?" says old Gladney.

  "Says, 'Here dey come. Glad to see anybody. If it gits anybody, hope it gits dem, not me.'"

  Uncle Daniel turned around to me with his face all worked in an O. He always thought whatever Bonnie Dee opened her mouth and said was priceless. He recognized her from that.

  "Sh!" I said to him.

  "Keep on," says old Gladney to Narciss.

  "Can't keep on. I's gone by den."

  "But you do know this much: at the time you left the parlor, and heard the company coming across the yard and talking, Mrs. Ponder was alive?"

  Narciss gave him the most taking-down look she knows. "Alive as you is now."

  "And when you saw Mrs. Ponder next?"

  "Storm pass over," says Narciss, "I goes in de parlor and asks, 'Did I hear my name?' And dere Mr. Daniel and Miss Edna Earle holding together. And dere her, stretched out, all dem little pleats to do over, feets pointin' de other way round, and Dr. Lubanks snappin' down her eyes."

  "Dead!" hollers Gladney, waving his hand like he had a flag in it. Uncle Daniel raised his eyes and kept watching that flag. "And don't that prove, Narciss, the company had something to do with it? Had everything to do with it! Mr. Daniel Ponder, like Othello of old, Narciss, he entered yonder and went to his lady's couch and he suffocated to death that beautiful, young, innocent, ninety-eight-pound bride of his, out of a fit of pure-D jealousy from the wellsprings of his aging heart."

  Narciss's little dog was barking at him and DeYancey was objecting just as hard, but Narciss plain talks back to him.

  "What's that you say, woman?" yells old Gladney, because he was through with her.

  "Says naw sir. Don't know he; but Mr. Daniel didn't do nothin' like dat. His heart ain't grow old neither, by a long shot."

  "What do you mean, old woman," yells old Gladney, and comes up and leans over her.

  "Means you ain't brought up Mr. Daniel and I has. Find you somebody else," says Narciss.

  Gladney says something about that's what the other side had better try to do. He says that's just what he means, there wasn't anybody else—since nobody would suspect Miss Edna Earle Ponder of anything—but he stamps away from Narciss like she'd just cheated him fine.

  Up jumps De Yancey in his place, and says, "Narciss! At the time you heard company running across the yard, there was a storm breaking loose, was there not?"

  "Yes sir."

  "All right, tell me—what was the reason you only stayed to hear the company, not see them? Your best friends on earth! When they came in all wet and wanting to be brushed off, where were you?"

  "Ho. I's in de back bedroom under de bed," says Narciss. "Miss Edna Earle's old room."

  "Doing what?"

  "Hidin'. I don't want to get no lightnin' bolts down me. Come lightnin' and thunder, Mr. DeYancey, you always going to find me clear back under de furthermost part of de bed in de furthermost back room. And ain't comin' out twell it's over."

  "The same as ever," says DeYancey, and he smiles. "Now tell me this. What was Miss Bonnie Dee herself generally doing when there was such a thunderstorm?"

  "Me and Miss Bonnie Dee, we generally gits down together. Us hides together under Miss Edna Earle's bed when it storms. Another thing we does together, Mr. De Yancey, I occasionally plays jacks with her," says Narciss, "soon as I gits my kitchen swep out."

  And at first Bonnie Dee just couldn't stand Negroes! And I like her nerve, where she hid.

  "But that Monday," says De Yancey, "that Monday, she didn't get down under anything?"

  "She pleadin' company. So us just gits de sofa moved away from de lightnin' best we can. Ugh! I be's all by myself under de bed—listenin' to dat" Narciss all at once dies laughing.

  "So you can't know what happened right afterward?"

  "Sir? I just be's tellin' you what happened," says Narciss. "Boom! Boom! Rackety rack!" Narciss laughs again and the little dog barks with her.

  "Narciss! Open your eyes. Both of 'em." And DeYancey gave a whistle. Here came two little Bodkin boys, red as beets, wearing their Scout uniforms and dragging something together down the aisle.

  "DeYancey, what is that thing?" asks Judge Waite from the bench.

  "Just part of a tree," says DeYancey. He's a modest boy. I don't think it had been cut more than fifteen minutes. "You know what tree that is?" he says to Narciss.

  "Know that fig tree other side of Jericho," says Narciss. "It's ours."

  "Something specially big and loud did happen, Narciss, the minute after you ran under the bed, didn't it?"

  DeYancey shakes the tree real soft and says,"Your Honor, I would like to enter as evidence the top four-foot section of the little-blue fig tree the Ponders have always had in their yard, known to all, standing about ten feet away from the chimney of the house, that was struck by a bolt of lightning on Monday afternoon, June the sixteenth, before the defendant and his niece had ever got in the house good. Had they gone in the side door, they would very likely not be with us now. In a moment I'll lay this before Your Honor and the jury. Please to pass it. Look at the lightning marks and the withered leaves, and pass it quietly to your neighbor. I submit that it was the racket this little-blue fig tree made being struck, a
nd the blinding flash of it, just ten short feet from the walls of the Ponder house, that caused the heart of Mrs. Bonnie Dee Peacock Ponder to fail in her bosom. This is the racket you heard, Narciss. I told you to open your eyes."

  Narciss opened her eyes and shut them again. It was the worst looking old piece of tree you ever saw. It looked like something had skinned down it with claws out. De Yancey switched it back and forth, sh! sh! under Narciss's nose and all at once she opened her mouth but not her eyes and said:

  "Storm come closer and closer. Closer and closer, twell a big ball of fire come sidlin' down de air and hit right yonder—" she pointed without looking right under De Yancey's feet. "Ugh. You couldn't call it pretty. I feels it clackin' my teeths and twangin' my bones. Nippin' my heels. Den I couldn't no mo' hear and couldn't no mo' see, just smell dem smokes. Ugh. Den far away comes first little sound. It comes louder and louder twell it turn into little black dog whinin'—and pull me out from under de bed." She pointed at the dog without looking and he wagged his tail at her. Then Narciss opens her eyes and laughs, and shouts, "Yassa! Bat what git her! You hit it!" And all of a sudden she sets her glasses back on and quits her laughing and you can't see a thing more of her but stove black.

  All I can say is, that was news to me.

  "And then you heard the company at the door," says DeYancey, and they just nod at each other.

  Old Gladney's right there and says, "Woman, are you prepared to swear on the Holy Scripture here that you know which one came in that house first—those white folks or that ball of fire?"

  "I ain't got nothin' to do wid it," says Narciss, "which come in first. If white folks and ball of fire both tryin' git in you all's house, you best let dem mind who comin' in first. I ain't had nothin' to do wid it. I under de bed in Miss Edna Earless old room."

  She just washed her hands of us. You can't count on them for a single minute. Old Gladney threw his hands in the air, but so did DeYancey.

  "Come on, Sport," says Narciss, and she and Sport come on back up the aisle and stand at the back for the rest of it.

  So about all old Gladney could do was holler a little—I'll skip over that—and say, "The prosecution rests." That looked like the best they could do, for the time being.