by Eudora Welty
We had all that company to crowd in at the Beulah dinner table, had to serve it twice, but there was plenty and it was good} and everybody was kind enough to tell me how I did (except Judge Waite, who sat up there by me without opening his mouth except to eat) and made me feel better. I hardly had a chance to swallow my fresh peach pie. When somebody spoke to Uncle Daniel, I tried to answer for him too, if I could. I'm the go-between, that's what I am, between my family and the world. I hardly ever get a word in for myself.
Right across the street were the Peacocks perched on the Courthouse stile, in stairsteps, eating—in the only shade there was. I could tell you what they ate without even seeing it—jelly sandwiches and sweet milk and biscuit and molasses in a tin bucket—poked wells in the biscuit to hold the molasses—and sweet potatoes wrapped in newspaper. That basket was drawing ants all through my testimony, I saw them. The Peacocks finished up with three or four of their own watermelons that couldn't have been any too ripe, to judge by what they left lying on the Courthouse grass for the world to see and pick up.
I certainly was unprepared for what DeYancey Clanahan did after lunch. He asked permission to call up a surprise witness; and he called up one of those blessed Peacocks.
It was one of Bonnie Dee's little old sisters—Johnnie Ree Peacock. The same size and the same hair, and batting her eyes! And there was most of Bonnie Dee's telephone-putting-in costume—very warm for June. And in the most mosquitery little voice you ever heard in your life, with lots of pauses for breath, she testifies that no, she and Bonnie Dee were not twins, they just came real close together, and their mama used to play-like they were twins. You could tell from listening at Johnnie Ree that she didn't have the sense her sister did, though Bonnie Dee never had enough to get alarmed about. Just enough to get married on trial.
Johnnie Ree said Bonnie Dee never did a thing to be ashamed of in her life. And neither did she.
"Even in Memphis?" says DeYancey, prancing around her.
That's what I mean by a tangent. DeYancey didn't have any business starting to prove that Uncle Daniel ought to have got after Bonnie Dee. He just ought to stick to proving that he didn't. He hadn't told me at all, eating that pie, that he was thinking of doing that. If he had, he'd have had another think coming. I didn't want any harm done to Bonnie Dee now! I don't have an ounce of revenge in my body, and neither does Uncle Daniel. The opposite.
"I believe it to be a fact, Miss Peacock, that you once enjoyed a trip to Memphis, Tennessee, with your sister," says DeYancey, and Johnnie Ree's face lights up a smidgen.
She says "Yessir."
I saw it then. Oh, I did well not to make up my mind too hastily about Ovid Springer. I congratulate myself still on that, every night of the world. Mr. Springer would not have hesitated to blacken Uncle Daniel's name before the world by driving sixty-five miles through the hot sun and handing him over a motive on a silver platter. Tired traveling man if you like—but when it came to a murder trial, he'd come running to be in on it. De Yancey had taken time from dinner to catch him on the telephone—he was eating cold cuts in Silver City—and he was headed here, as I found out later, but he had a flat tire in Delhi. I'm afraid that's a good deal like Mr. Springer, from beginning to end. Of course, he never had anybody to look after him.
So Johnnie Ree was just a substitute. But she didn't know it.
DeYancey says, "What kind of time did you have in Memphis?" and she says "Nice," and he says, "Tell us about it."
"Here?" she says.
"Why not?" says DeYancey, smiling that Clanahan smile.
According to Johnnie Ree, in her little mosquito voice, they walked around blocks and blocks and blocks of sidewalks in Memphis without coming to anything but houses, and when they came to stores they rode up and down in stores, and went to movies. Never saw the same show twice. By the second day they started going in the morning and didn't stop all day. Four in one day was their goal. Johnnie Ree wanted to stop and tell us all Quo Vadis, as if it had never been to Clay, but DeYancey broke in to ask her where did they stay in Memphis and Johnnie Ree said she didn't know: it said "A Home Away from Home." There was a fern a yard broad sitting on the buttress out front that looked like it could eat them up, and that was how she could tell the house from some others that said "A Home Away from Home" too.
And they didn't care to board with the lady, but ate in cafeterias, because you could pick out what you wanted. They had store-bought watermelon in round slices, and store-bought cake that tasted of something queer, like paregoric. Johnnie Ree's voice got a little stronger on the subject of watermelon.
I suppose her tales of Memphis would have gone on the rest of the afternoon (what a blessing that Bonnie Dee didn't talk but took after her father!) and everybody was sleepy after dinner anyway, except all of a sudden Uncle Daniel noticed her. Noticed Johnnie Ree. (She was on the premises at the funeral, but nothing looked the same then.) I heard his chair scrape. His eyes got real round, and I put my hand on his knee, like I do in church when he begins to sing too fast.
"Why, Bonnie Dee kept something back from me," he says. "Look yonder, Edna Earle. I'm seeing a vision. Why didn't you poke me?"
I says, "Oh, she's got on rags and tags of somebody else's clothes, but she looks like the last of pea-time to me." I still hold that Bonnie Dee was the only pretty one they had.
But it was her clothes that Uncle Daniel was seeing.
"Wait till the trial's over, Uncle Daniel," I whispers, and he subsides. He's forgotten the way he looked at me—he's good as gold again.
So Johnnie Ree, who'd talked on and on, and on and on, says, "So we got back home. The end." Like a movie.
"And you behaved like a lady the whole time?" asks DeYancey.
"Yes sir. As far as I know."
"And Bonnie Dee behaved?" cried DeYancey.
"Oh, Bonnie Dee sure behaved. She stayed to home."
"What's that?" says DeYancey, stock still. "Who's this sister you've been telling us about? Who did go on this fool's errand, anyway? We were given to understand by a witness now racing toward us to testify, that it was you and your sister Bonnie Dee that were up in Memphis on the loose."
"Bonnie Dee's not the only sister in the world," says Johnnie Ree. "Stand up, Treva."
And up pops a little bitty one. She held her gum still, and turned all the way around, and stood there, till Johnnie Ree says, "Sit down." She was well drilled. Treva had a pin pulling her front together, and guess what the pin was—a little peacock with a colored tail, all kinds of glass stones. I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't the substance of what she brought back from Memphis.
DeYancey groans. "Mrs. Bonnie Dee Ponder never went herself at all?"
"She was ready to hear what it's like the way we told it. But me and Treva was the ones went, and Bonnie Dee stayed home with Mama," says Johnnie Ree. "She give us two twenties and a five and a ten, and part of her old-lady clothes. So she could get a whole bed to herself and eat Mama's greens."
"But never went?" DeYancey groaned—everybody groaned, but the Peacocks.
"She said she was an old, married lady. And it was too late for her to go."
"Why, Mr. Clanahan," says Judge Waite. "I believe you've been wasting our time."
Johnnie Ree brings up her fingers and gives three little scrapes at DeYancey. When she came down, her whole family was just as proud of her as if she'd been valedictorian of the graduating class. The other side didn't want to ask her a thing. She'll remember that trial for the rest of her days.
But mercy. Uncle Daniel was stirring in his chair.
"DeYancey," he says. "You've got a hold of me. Let-a-go."
"Never mind," says DeYancey. "Never you mind."
"I'm fixing to get up there myself." That's what Uncle Daniel said.
"Take the stand? Uh-uh, Daniel. You know what I told you," says DeYancey. "What I told you and told you!"
"Let-a-go your side, Edna Earle," says Uncle Daniel.
"Dear heart," I says.
"It's way past my turn now," says Uncle Daniel. "Let-a-go."
"Edna Earle, he said he wouldn't—didn't you hear him?" says DeYancey across Uncle Daniel's little bow tie.
"You all didn't tell me I was going to have to do so much listening. It ain't good for my constitution," says Uncle Daniel.
I just drew a deep, big sigh. Sometimes I do that, but not like then, in public.
"What's this new commotion? Is this a demand to testify I'm about to hear? I expected it," says the Judge.
I just looked at him.
"That's what it's mounting up to be, Judge," says DeYancey, and he all but wrings his hands then. "Judge, do you have to let him?"
"If he so demands," says Judge Waite. "I've been sitting on the bench a mighty long time, son, since before you were born. I'm here to listen to any and all. Haven't been surprised so far."
"Daniel," DeYancey turns back and says. "If you stand up there, you got to fire me first."
"I'd hate that," says Uncle Daniel, really sorry. "But I'd rather be up there talking myself than hear you and every one of these other folks put together. Turn-a-loose."
"Daniel, it looks to me like now you got to choose between you and me who knows best," DeYancey says.
"I choose me," says Uncle Daniel.
"Don't you think, Daniel, you need to think that over a minute?" says Judge Waite, leaning down like he's finally ashamed of himself.
"Not a bit in the world," says Uncle Daniel.
"Miss Edna Earle's trying her best to say something to you," says Judge Waite.
"I'm going to beat her if she don't stop. And I'm going to fire him," says Uncle Daniel. "DeYancey, you're fired."
"Here and now?" says DeYancey, like his heart would break, and Uncle Daniel says, "Sure as you're born. Look—my foot was about to go to sleep." And up he rises.
"Who's going to ask you the questions up there?" says DeYancey, with one last try.
"Questions/" says Uncle Daniel. "Who you think I am?"
"Wait, Daniel Ponder," says the Judge. "You've been here enough times and sat through enough sessions of Court to know how it's done as well as I do. You got to let somebody ask you the questions before you can do the talking. I say so."
"Then I choose this gentleman here," says Uncle Daniel—pointing straight at old Gladney, nearly in his open mouth. "I've had my eye on him—he's up and coming. Been at it harder than anybody and I give him a little pat on the back for it. DeYancey's spent most of his time today trying to hold us all down. Run home, DeYancey. Give your grandfather my love."
The judge just made a few signs with his hands, and threw himself back in his chair.
There it came: "Mr. Daniel Ponder!"
Uncle Daniel listened to his name, and just beamed. I wish you could have seen him then, when he walked up there and faced us. He could always show his pleasure so! Round and pink and grand, and beaming out everywhere in his sparkling-white suit. Nobody'd still have a coat on in weather like this—you'd have to be Uncle Daniel, or a candidate.
They let Uncle Daniel hold up his hand and swear, and old Gladney loped over to him, and eyed him, looking up. Uncle Daniel didn't care to sit down. He'd always rather talk standing up.
"Mr. Ponder?"
And Uncle Daniel looked over his shoulder for Grandpa. Nobody had ever called him Mr. Ponder in his life. He was thrilled from the start.
"Mr. Ponder, what is your calling or occupation?" says old Gladney. "Your line of work?"
"Work?" says Uncle Daniel, looking all around, thrilled. "What would I want to work for? I'm rich as Croesus. My father Mr. Sam Ponder left me more than I'd ever know what to do with."
Old Gladney keeps on. "Did you love your wife, Mr. Ponder? I refer to your second wife, Mrs. Bonnie Dee."
"Yes indeed. Oh, I should say I did. You would have loved her too, Mr. Gladney, if you could have had the chance to know her," says poor Uncle Daniel.
"You loved Bonnie Dee," says old Gladney, still keeping on. "You expect the Court to believe that?"
"They've heard it before," Uncle Daniel said, "every one of 'em. She wasn't any bigger than a minute—and pretty as a doll. And a natural-born barber. I'll never find another one like her." But for a second his poor eye wandered.
"And did your wife Bonnie Dee return your love?" asks Gladney.
"Well now, that depended, sir," says poor Uncle Daniel, with the best will in the world. "Edna Earle could have told you all about that. She kept tabs on it." The whole thing might have come out then and there, the whole financial story of the Ponder family. Of course everybody in the room was familiar with it, but nobody wanted to hear it.
"On Monday, the sixteenth of June, Mr. Ponder, would you say she loved you?" says old Gladney. "Or loved you not?" He laughed.
They had to recall to Uncle Daniel the day that was—he's the worst person in town on dates and figures—but he said, "Oh, yes indeed, sir. She loved me then."
"Well, Mr. Ponder! If you loved your wife as you declare, and thought there was nobody like her, and your wife—as it depended or not—loved you, and on June the sixteenth she showed she did love you by sending you three proved invitations to return to her side—what did you want to go out there and kill her for?"
Old Gladney shot his old bony finger right in Uncle Daniel's face, surprising him to death. I don't reckon he'd ever really taken it in what the charge was.
Nothing happened in the courtroom except some babies cried.
"Was it because you told her you would? ... Tell us about it," says old Gladney, real smiley.
They ought never to have let Uncle Daniel up there if they didn't want to hear the story. He smiled back. I tried to hold him with my eye, but it didn't work—not with him up on a stage.
He says, "Do you know, all in all, I've seen mighty little of that girl? First she came, then she went. Then she came, then she run me off. Edna Earle knows, she keeps tabs. Then three kind friends brought word in one day I was welcome. It already looked dark and commenced rumbling towards the west, and we lit out there lickety-split. Now when we got there, I went to hug my wife and kiss her, it had been such a time, Mr. Gladney; but you might hug your wife too hard. Did you ever do that?" asks Uncle Daniel.
Old Gladney says, "No-o-o." People started to laugh at him, then changed their minds and didn't.
"It's a way too easy to do," says Uncle Daniel.
"Sure enough?" says old Gladney, and steps close. "Show me."
Uncle Daniel stood there and hung his head, ashamed of that old fool.
"I'm impervious, I guarantee you," says that old lawyer. "Go ahead, show me what a hug too hard is."
"But that time I didn't," Uncle Daniel tells him. "I went to hug her, but I didn't get to."
"Is that so? How come you didn't get to?" says old Gladney, still close.
That little frown, that I just can't stand to see, came in Uncle Daniel's forehead, and everybody caught their breath but me. I was on my feet.
"Never mind, Uncle Daniel," I calls up. "I've told that."
Judge Waite and old man Gladney and DeYancey Clanahan all three poked their fingers at me, but didn't really notice what I said; nobody noticed. Even Uncle Daniel.
Old Gladney keeps right on. "Listen close to my next question, Mr. Ponder. I know you can answer it—it ain't hard. When you ran into the parlor to hug her—only you didn't get to—did Bonnie Dee speak to you?"
DeYancey was leaping up and snapping his fingers, objecting his heart out, but what good does objecting to Uncle Daniel do? You just get fired. Uncle Daniel would have fired the angel Gabriel, right that minute, for the same thing. You never could stop Uncle Daniel from going on, once you let him know he had your ears. And now everybody was galvanized.
"Hollered! She hollered at me. 'I don't appreciate lightning and thunder a bit!'" said Uncle Daniel—proudly. And in her voice. He did have it down to a T, like he could always do bird calls. He looked over our heads for Narciss, and smiled at her.
Every
body let out one of those big courtroom sighs.
"She spoke. She hollered. She was alive and strong," says Gladney. "And what did you say, sir?"
Uncle Daniel changed. He got carnation-color. He looked down at the Stetson between his fingers and all that time went by while he turned it round and then sighted through the ventilation holes he'd cut in the crown. Then he said quick, "I said 'Catch her, Edna Earle!'"
Gladney says, "Bonnie Dee was running?"
"No, falling," says Uncle Daniel. "Falling to the floor."
"And did Miss Edna Earle catch her?"
"No, sir," says Uncle Daniel. "She can't catch."
I could have died right there.
"And what had you done to her first?" whispers old Gladney.
Uncle Daniel whispers back, "Nothing."
"You laid hands on her first!" yells Gladney.
"On Bonnie Dee? No, you can hug your wife too hard," says Uncle Daniel, "when you haven't seen her in a long time. But I didn't get to. Dr. Ewbanks had to raise me up and tend to me. I'm more poorly than I look."
"I congratulate you just the same," says Gladney, straightening up. "You got a reliable memory. You set us going on the right track. You got the most reliable memory in Court. We'll see who can remember the rest of it now. Much obliged—Mr. Ponder."
"Daniel!" says DeYancey, pushing in front of Gladney and pulling Uncle Daniel by the sleeve. "I know you fired me, but we've got to disregard it—everything! Listen to me: were you ever in the asylum?"
"Look, Tadpole," Uncle Daniel says—he still calls DeYancey that from the time they played so nicely together, "if there's anybody knows the answer to that already, it's you and your granddaddy. Your granddaddy got me in, him and somebody else." Till that good day, Uncle Daniel had never mentioned Grandpa's name from the time he died.
"Thanks, boy," says DeYancey, and to Gladney he says, "That's the witness. I ask that his evidence be stricken—"
Old Gladney was already wheeling back in his coattails. "Mr. Ponder! Were you discharged from the asylum?"