The Ponder Heart

by Eudora Welty

  "Why, sure," says Uncle Daniel. "Look where I am. Man alive, if Judge Clanahan could get me in he could get me out. Couldn't he, Tadpole? Where is he, by the way—I've missed his face. Give him my love."

  "Thank you, Mr. Ponder—I thank you. That'll be all. I'd now be very happy to cross-examine Miss Edna Earle Ponder once more, if she don't mind," old Gladney says.

  But Uncle Daniel says, "Wait. You want the story, don't you? There's a world more to it than that. I can beat Edna Earle the world and all telling it. I'll start over for you."

  And I knew he did want to tell it—I was the one knew that better than anybody. But I leaped up one more time where I was.

  "Never mind, Uncle Daniel! Listen to Edna Earle," I says. "If you tell that, nobody'll ever be able to believe you again—not another word you say. You hear me?"

  He needn't think I was going to let him tell it now. After guarding him heart and soul a whole week—a whole lifetime! How he came into the parlor all beaming pleasure and went shining up to her to kiss her and she just jumped away when the storm went boom. Like he brought it. And after she'd gone to the trouble to send for him, and we'd gone to the trouble to come, she just looked at him with her little coon eyes, and would have sent him back if I hadn't been there. She never said good evening to me. When I spoke she held her ears. So I sat myself down on the piano stool, crossed my knees, and waited for the visit to start.

  Uncle Daniel sat down beside her and she wouldn't even look. She pulled herself in a little knot at the other end of the sofa. Here came a flash of lightning bigger than the rest, and thunder on top of it, and she buried her face in the pillow and started to cry. So the tassel of Grandma's antimacassar came off in Uncle Daniel's hand and he reached out and tickled her with it, on the ankle.

  The storm got closer and he tickled a little more. He made the little tassel travel up to her knee. He wouldn't call it touching her—it was tickling her; though she didn't want one any more right now than the other.

  Of course, Uncle Daniel and I had both been brought up to be mortally afraid of electricity ourselves. I'd overcome it, by sheer force of character—but I didn't know Uncle Daniel had. I believe he overcame it then. I believe for Bonnie Dee's sake he shut his own ears and eyes to it and just gave himself up to trying to make her stop crying.

  And all the while it was more like a furnace in there, and noisy and bright as Kingdom Come. Grandpa Ponder's house shook! And Bonnie Dee rammed harder into the pillow and shrieked and put out her hands behind her, but that didn't do any good. When the storm got right over the house, he went right to the top with "creep-mousie," up between those bony little shoulder blades to the nape of her neck and her ear—with the sweetest, most forbearing smile on his face, a forgetful smile. Like he forgot everything then that she ever did to him, how changeable she'd been.

  But you can't make a real tickler stop unless you play dead. The youngest of all knows that.

  And that's what I thought she did. Her hands fluttered and stopped, then her whole little length slipped out from under his fingers, and rolled down to the floor, just as easy as nod, and stayed there—with her dress up to her knees and her hair down over her face. I thought she'd done it on purpose.

  "Well!" I says to Uncle Daniel. "I don't think it's such a treat to get sent after. The first thing Bonnie Dee does when we get here is far from ladylike." I thought that would make her sit up.

  "Catch her, Edna Earle," he says. "Catch her." That's when he said it.

  I marched over and pulled up her hand, and it hung a weight in mine like her ball and jacks were in it. So did her other hand when I pulled it. I said "Bonnie Dee Peacock."

  That's when the ball of fire came down the chimney and charged around the room. (The ball of fire Narciss took for her story.) That didn't scare me. I didn't like it, but it didn't scare me: it was about as big as your head. It went up the curtains and out through them into the hall like a butterfly. I was waiting for Bonnie Dee to answer to her name.

  When she wouldn't do it, I spread back that baby hair to see what was the matter. She was dead as a doornail. And she'd died laughing.

  I could have shaken her for it. She'd never laughed for Uncle Daniel before in her life. And even if she had, that's not the same thing as smiling} you may think it is, but I don't.

  I was in a quandary what to do. I had hold of her, and nobody ought to stay on the floor. It was still carrying on everywhere you looked. I hauled her back up on the sofa the best I could. She was trouble—little as she was, she was a whole heap heavier than she looked. And her dress was all over the place—those peach-colored pleats blinking on and off in the lightning, and like everything else you touched, as warm as dinner plates.

  Poor Uncle Daniel had never stirred an inch since she went out of his reach, except to draw up his feet. Now, after where I put her back, and let her be, he hitched both arms around his knees and stayed that way.

  Of course I couldn't go off and leave him there, to get help. I only ran after the ammonia, and that only takes a second, because I know where to find it. In the bathroom I glanced in the mirror, to see how I was taking it, and got the fright of my life. Edna Earle, I said, you look old as the hills! It was a different mirror, was the secret—it magnified my face by a thousand times—something Bonnie Dee had sent off for and it had come. I ran back, but the laugh didn't go away—for all I went out of the room a minute, and for all Uncle Daniel sat still as a mouse, and for all the spirits of ammonia I offered her or the drenching I gave her face. That ice in her glass was all water now.

  I never thought of the telephone! I got the boy on the hay wagon by the simple expedient of opening the window and hollering as loud as I could, till it brought him. In came Dr. Ewbanks, finally, in his boots, and pushed that yellow fluff back just the way I did.

  "You don't mean she's flew the coop?" he says.

  And Uncle Daniel didn't wait. He tumbled headlong to the doctor's feet, and didn't know any more about that. Thank the Lord for small favors.

  Well, I could have told the courtroom that as well as Uncle Daniel, and carried it on a little further. But I had too much sense to even try. I never lied in my life before, that I know of, by either saying or holding back, but I flatter myself that when the time came, I was equal to either one. I was only thankful I didn't have to explain it to Grandpa.

  Maybe what's hard to believe about the truth is who it happens to. Everybody knows Uncle Daniel Ponder—he wouldn't have done anything to anybody in the world for all you could give him, and nobody, you'd think, would do anything to him. Why, he's been brought up in a world of love.

  So I stopped the words on his lips, from where I stood. "You can't tell it, Uncle Daniel," I says firm. "Nobody'll believe it."

  "You can tell me, Mr. Ponder," says old Gladney. "Remember, you picked me out. I'll believe it, easy as pie. What had you gone and done to that precious girl?"

  "That's enough, Uncle Daniel," I says, real firm and real loud. "You can't answer that. You can't tell it to a soul."

  And Uncle Daniel's mouth opens—and sure enough, he can't.

  Uncle Daniel stood still a minute on the witness stand. Then he flung both arms wide, and his coat flew open. And there were all his pockets lined and bursting with money. I told you he looked fat. He stepped down to the floor, and out through the railing, and starts up the aisle, and commences handing out big green handfuls as he comes, on both sides. Eloise Clanahan climbed over her new beau and scooted out of the courtroom like the Devil was after her.

  "What is this-here?" says Gladney. Poor man, he was taken by surprise. He ran and caught onto Uncle Daniel's coattails. "Come back, man, the trial's not over!"

  That's all he knew.

  "What is this?" says DeYancey. "Edna Earle, what have you brought on?"

  And "Order!" says the Judge.

  Uncle Daniel doesn't say anything, but reaches in with both hands. He brings out more money than you could shake a stick at. He made every row, like he was takin
g up collection in church, but doing the very opposite. He reached in and reached in, handed out and handed out. He was getting rid of it all right there in Court, as fast and businesslike as he could.

  Everybody in town, Ewbankses, Magees, Sistrunks, old Miss Ouida Sampson that hadn't been out of her house in years but wanted to be carried to this, and couldn't hear a word that was said, but put out her little skin-and-bones hand now for what came her way; and all the children in town (they were loose) and total strangers who'll always go to anything, and the coroner, that blind Bodkin, everybody that could walk and two that couldn't, got some.

  Some put their hands out like they were almost scared not to. The Peacocks hung back the longest, with their mouths open, but the little ones in diapers soon began to strike out and run after floating bills that got loose and were flying around. And old Gladney sends up a cry to the Peacocks then, "Grab what you can get!"

  There was Bedlam. And passing the window Uncle Daniel let fly some bills that they never found, and I reckon the dogs chewed them up. Uncle Daniel was only trying to give away all he had, that's all. Everything to his name.

  Old Mr. Jeff Ewbanks—he's Dr. Ewbanks' father and the mayor, frail, frail—he says, "Stop him, Miss Edna Earle! Stop him, young lady!"

  Now I'll tell you something: anything Uncle Daniel has left after some future day is supposed to be mine. I'm the inheritor. I'm the last one, isn't that a scream? The last Ponder. But with one fling of the hand I showed the mayor my stand: I'd never stop Uncle Daniel for the world. This was his day, and anyway, you couldn't any more stop Uncle Daniel from giving away than you could stop a bird from flying.

  Of course the lawyers couldn't do anything} DeYancey was fired, to boot. And Judge Waite wasn't even born in this county. Finally, it was too much for guess who?

  It was Miss Lutie Powell who spoke up directly to Uncle Daniel. She was his old teacher, that's who she was. Afraid of no man. She points her palmetto at him and says, "Go back to your seat this minute, Daniel Ponder. Do you know how much money you've thrown away in the last five minutes? Have you any idea of how much you've got left? What do you say to me, Daniel?"

  It froze Uncle Daniel for about one half minute. Then he just skipped Miss Lutie and went on.

  Next, Mr. Bank Sistrunk stands up and roars out, "Daniel Ponder! Where did you get that money?"

  It was too late then.

  "Well," says Miss Missionary Sistrunk—the oldest one, returned from wildest Africa just twenty-four hours before—"the Ponders as I've always been told did not burn their cotton when Sherman came, and maybe this is their judgment."

  "Take that back, Miss Florette," I says over people's heads. "The Ponders did not make their money that way. You got yours suing," I says. "What if that train hadn't hit Professor Magee, where'd any Sistrunks be today? Ours was pine trees and 'way after Sherman, and you know it."

  "'Twas the same Yankees you sold it to!" That was Mr. Sistrunk. Why, he was beside himself. But Uncle Daniel just then got to him and gave him a single hundred-dollar bill, and shuts him up. You know, I think people have lost the power to be ashamed of themselves.

  After all, it was our bank—Mr. Sistrunk just ran it. It turned out later that Uncle Daniel had gone to the bank early that morning—he was roaming—right after his haircut, and nobody was there yet but Eloise. So Uncle Daniel just took the opportunity of asking for it all: he asked Eloise for it and Eloise just gave it to him. She said she did it to cheer him up. It took every bit the bank had that day, and then they owed him some. They still do. The bank had never, never, never let Uncle Daniel get his hands on cash. It's just a rule of Clay. Mr. Bank Sistrunk says he's going to have to let Eloise Clanahan go.

  And you know—she was right. It was cheering him up. There on Uncle Daniel's face had come back the ghost of a smile. By that time, I think that all he wanted was our approval.

  (And I don't give a whoop for your approval! You don't think I betrayed him by not letting him betray himself, do you?)

  Most people were on their feet in Court by then, and some crying—old ladies that remembered Grandma—and Judge Waite just sits there, leaning his head on his hand. Then leans it on the other hand. Then stands up and raises both arms, without words. That's the way DeYancey behaved too, but more like a jack-in-the-box, being younger. I just sat there and took note.

  I don't think any of those people that day would have ever accepted it from Uncle Daniel—money!—if they'd known what else to do. Not to know how to take what's offered shows your manners—but there's a dividing line somewhere. Of course they could have taken it and then given it back to me, later. Nobody ever seemed to think of that solution, except Edna Earle Ponder. Surely they're not beginning to be scared of me.

  And Uncle Daniel had got right back to where he started from. He went from giving away to falling in love, and from falling in love to talking, and from talking to losing what he had, and from losing what he had to being run off, and from being run off straight back to giving away again.

  Only it was worse than before, and more public. The worst thing you can give away is money—I learned that, if Uncle Daniel didn't. You and them are both done for then, somehow; you can't go on after it, and still be you and them. Don't ever give me a million dollars! It'll come between us.

  I wish you could have seen Miss Teacake Magee when she saw Uncle Daniel coming. She let out two little hoots, like a train going round the bend, and fell over with her cheek on Dr. Ewbanks' shoulder. Uncle Daniel put a little money in her lap anyway, and gave her knee a stir.

  The Judge charged the jury somewhere along there, but I don't remember a bit of what he said, and doubt if he does either, and they just went around the door and came right back, hating to miss anything in the courtroom. Uncle Daniel heard the commotion of them coming in and worked back that way and let fly a great big handful over their heads.

  And all the children were jumping up and down and running around Uncle Daniel for dear life and calling him, and he threw them the change out of his pants pockets, like he always did. He didn't realize they grew up right there and wanted some big money now.

  The Baptist preacher—Brother Barfield, always on hand—rose up and made his voice heard over the storm. (Our preacher was home praying for us, where he belonged.) He said he thought all the money here unclaimed by Mr. Daniel Ponder (that was a funny way to put it) should be turned over to the Baptist Church, which needed it. But old lady Peacock—and such a Baptist, you remember two preachers at the funeral—hollers back gay as a lark, "Finders keepers!" and showed him her hands full.

  "Si-lence!" says Judge Waite. He's famous for that cry. That may be why they got him for this trial. But he was shaking both fists, too. I don't know that I ever saw him that wild before. "Let the public please to remember where they are at. I have never, in all my jurisprudence, seen more disrespectful behavior and greater commotion and goings-on at a trial. Put that right in the record, Birdie Nell. This jury, mirabile dictu, has reached a verdict. Now you hear it."

  So the jury said Not Guilty. It almost got lost in the rush. Anyway, that old Gladney cringed. I hoped he was done for, but I expect he's not—he's probably going straight ahead from here and will end up Governor of Mississippi. Nobody showed a sign of going home.

  Uncle Daniel saw that, and patted all over his pockets and threw the children what you could see was the last few pennies he could find. When it was all gone, he just went through the motions—like scattering chickenfeed.

  "Edna Earle," he calls to me at last, "you got any money?"

  "No, Uncle Daniel," I calls back, "I haven't got any money."

  "Well, mine's all vamoosed," he says, and just stops. He spreads his hands. Eva Sistrunk had the nerve to tell me later that everybody felt so bad about Uncle Daniel at that moment that if he hadn't been so prominent and who he was, they would have taken up a collection for him. Like he was anybody else just acquitted of murder!

  So that was about all.

  There's
no telling how much the Peacocks got—but remember how many there are, and how many hands that made. I'm sure I saw one of the babies eating money. Furthermore, before they left, the Peacocks had claimed kin with poor old Miss Ouida Sampson, but I don't believe she knew a thing about it. She just nods her head that way—whatever happens.

  Well! I'd hate to have to go through it all again.

  Outside, everybody was running ahead down the Courthouse steps—ahead of Uncle Daniel and me. We came down together. I heard the Judge's wife blowing the horn for him, but he was going down real heavy and slow and leaning on DeYancey Clanahan, and then I saw DeYancey hurrying off to get drunk. That's the Clanahan failing. Old Gladney came last of all, and all alone, and jumped in his Ford and hit the highway.

  There was a little crowd held up at the stile, and a minute when we caught up with the Peacocks. Uncle Daniel pulled at the corner of Johnnie Ree's dress as she was going over the top and asked if he could come take her riding one of these days.

  But she says, "No thank you!" It's all gone to her head as quick as that.

  For a minute he just stood still in the bright sun, like the cake of ice that was melting there that day.

  "Come with me, Uncle Daniel," I says, and put my arm through his.

  Uncle Daniel comes on with me, real quiet, over the stile to the street full of cars getting started and going home. We go fronting through the children still clinging around, that don't understand there's not any more left.

  And here came Mr. Springer, for the Lord's sake, chugging around the corner. Uncle Daniel didn't even see him. We crossed the street while Mr. Springer had to hold the brakes for us. I didn't give a good continental.

  Oh, for a minute in the street there, I wished that Uncle Daniel had just whipped out and taken a stick to Bonnie Dee—out of good hard temper! Of course never meaning to kill her. And there is temper, on Grandpa's side. Uncle Daniel was just born without it. He might have picked up Grandpa's trusty old stick hanging right there on the hatrack where Grandpa left it, and whacked her one when she wasn't glad to see him. That would have gone down a whole lot easier in Clay. Even with the Peacocks, who didn't know anything was out of the way till a man like Gladney spotted it right through a poem and had to haul off and tell them about it. Sometimes I think old Gladney dreamed the whole thing up himself, for lack of something to do, out of his evil mind.