The Thanksgiving Treasure

by Gail Rock

  He stopped for a moment and looked over at me.

  “You’re my friend too, ain’t you?” He reached out for my hand, and I nodded and held his hand for a moment. It felt like it was on fire.

  “You’re so hot!” I said. “I think you have a fever.”

  I tried to feel his forehead. “Hands off!” he said, irritably.

  “I’m going to get my Uncle Will,” I said. “He’s a doctor.”

  “I don’t want no doctor poking around me. Sit down here and talk to me …”

  “I promise I’ll be right back,” I said, and headed out the door.

  “Come back here and talk to me,” I heard him say as I left. “Don’t you ever do anything you’re told … bossy kid …”

  I rode my bike as fast as I could back into town and went to Uncle Will’s office on Main Street. When I told him how Mr. Rehnquist had looked, he said we had better go right out there. He didn’t even ask me how I had come to be at Rehnquist’s. Uncle Will had that nice way of never bothering other people’s privacy, and just getting the facts he needed, which was one reason folks liked him so much. I jumped into his car with him, and we drove quickly to Rehnquist’s.

  He went up to the bedroom, and I waited downstairs, sitting on the porch, talking to Treasure and finally going into the kitchen. I paced around and looked at my drawing of Mr. Rehnquist on the wall, and at his old concertina on the table. I wished Uncle Will would hurry and went back outside.

  Finally he came out on the porch, pulling on his heavy coat and carrying his black doctor’s bag.

  “How is he?” I asked, going over to Uncle Will. “Can I go see him?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said, sadly.

  “How come?”

  “He’s dead, Addie,” Uncle Will said gently.

  “Dead?” I said, stunned. “But … but I never even said goodbye! I promised I’d be right back …”

  “There wasn’t anything I could do.”

  “Didn’t he ask for me? Didn’t he wonder where I was?”

  “He was unconscious. I’m sorry, Addie.”

  I couldn’t believe what had happened. I went slowly down off the porch and untied Treasure, and took her out to the barn. I didn’t know what would happen to her now.

  After I had taken care of Treasure, I went home and decided I had better tell the whole story to Grandma. I had learned by then that the best system was to tell Grandma first, and let her help break things to Dad.

  She was down in the basement, doing the weekly laundry. It was always my job to help her put the clothes through the wringer and get them into the rinse tubs—first hot rinse and then cold rinse—then wring again and hang on the line with an apron-bag full of clothespins. Her old machine with the agitator made a chugging noise that we decided sounded like “choc-o-late, choc-o-late, choc-o-late,” and we would often laugh and chant along with it while we did the washing.

  Grandma would fish the steaming hot clothes out of the machine with a stick, then take hold of them with her bare hands and start them through the wringer. She never seemed to be burned by it, but as I took hold and pulled them through the other side, I could barely touch them for more than a second, and juggled them from hand to hand before I flipped them into the rinse tub.

  Today, I didn’t feel like laughing at the sound of the machine, and she sensed something was wrong. I began to tell her the whole story as we worked, and Grandma was surprised at all the things Carla Mae and I had done that we weren’t supposed to do—riding so far out of town, going to Rehnquist’s place and me riding a horse. She seemed pleased at the idea of our taking him dinner, though, and was particularly pleased that he had liked her whole-berry cranberry sauce with the grated orange rind.

  “You know,” she said. “If you’d asked me about that Thanks-giving dinner for Mr. Rehnquist, I’d have packed it myself and given it to you.”

  “I know, but I was afraid of what Dad would say.”

  “You were doing a good deed for a lonely old man.”

  “He said I’d make a terrible wife, because I was so bossy. He liked it though. He liked me making him sit still so I could draw his picture. I was going to paint him too, but I never got a chance. I didn’t know he was going to die.”

  “We never know when that’s going to happen, Addie.”

  “Mr. Rehnquist was nice to me. He let me ride Treasure. I think he was really a good person. I don’t see why he had to die.”

  “We don’t die because we’re bad people, Addie,” Grandma said. “Mr. Rehnquist was in his eighties. He lived out a full life. And look at me. I’m in my seventies—already outlived most of my friends and raised two families now.”

  I was startled by what she had said, and for the first time I realized just how old Grandma was.

  “You’re not going to die, are you?”

  “Well,” she laughed a little, “I sure don’t feel like it right now, but someday I will. We all will.”

  “No, you won’t!” I said angrily. “You’ve got to wait till I grow up! You’ll live to be a hundred years old! I’ll be a painter in Paris, France, and you’ll come and live with me.”

  “What are you going to do with a hundred-year-old woman draggin’ around after you?” Grandma asked.

  “You could wear a beret,” I said, picturing it all in my mind, “and we’d go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and drink wine.”

  “Now, don’t talk nonsense,” Grandma said, gently. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to live to be a hundred.”

  “I don’t want you to die!”

  “We never want to lose the people we love,” Grandma said quietly. “But we have to remember the good things about them, and keep those memories, and that’s what you have to do with Mr. Rehnquist, just the way you remember the things I told you about your mother.”

  “But I never knew my mother,” I said. “I’ve never known anybody who died before.”

  “I know, Addie, I know.”

  “I’m scared, Grandma. I just don’t see why anyone has to die.”

  She came over to me and put her arms around me.

  “Addie, I felt just that way when your Grandpa died. I thought I couldn’t face another day knowing I wouldn’t see him. And then one day, someone read something to me. It said, ‘When people leave on a boat, you say, “There they go.” But on the other side of the horizon, they’re saying, “Here they come.” ’ I thought … it must be something like that, and I was able to let Grandpa go.”

  I thought about what she said for a moment, and it seemed to make sense to me. I imagined Mr. Rehnquist meeting his old friend Pearlie Blake again, and what had happened didn’t seem quite so terrible.

  “Do you think I should go to Mr. Rehnquist’s funeral?” I asked.

  “I think that would be a very nice thing to do,” said Grandma.

  “I won’t know what to do.”

  “Why, you don’t have to do anything,” she said. “Tell you what, I’ll go with you.”

  “Oh, would you, Grandma? What if Dad finds out about it?”

  “Never you mind,” she said, hugging me close. “I’ll take care of that.”

  “I can’t believe I’ll never see Mr. Rehnquist again.”

  “You made him happy,” she said. “Like you’ve made me happy. Remember that, always remember that.”

  I cried then, and Grandma held me close.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mr. rehnquist’s funeral was that Saturday, and while Dad was busy doing some work on his pickup, Grandma and I quietly got dressed and left for the funeral parlor without telling him. I had on my best church dress, which was yellow with brown and white rickrack trim, my black patent leather Mary Janes with heavy white socks, and my hat, a navy blue sailor with a long ribbon down the back. Grandma wore her black dress she always wore to funerals, and her flat black hat with the pink rose on the side. I tied a brown ribbon on the fall bouquet I had made those weeks ago for Grandma and took it along for Mr. Rehnquist.

  We
set off down the street to Jensen’s Funeral Home, and when we got there, we saw the hearse drawn up outside waiting. When we got inside, Mr. Jensen was there at the door to give us a Memorial Programme, and to help us sign the register. I wrote in my best penmanship, and noticed that there were no other names above ours. We were the first ones there, and Mr. Jensen’s assistant ushered us in. Grandma and I sat in the fourth row of the little chapel. We never liked to sit right in the front row at church either, but we always sat close enough so Grandma could hear well.

  This was the first funeral I had ever been to. I looked at the Memorial Programme and saw that it told when Mr. Rehnquist was born and the date he died, and it had a nice sketch of the funeral parlor on the front. I thought it was even better than I could have drawn myself. Mrs. Jensen was playing the organ, which was up at the front of the room with the casket. There was one bouquet of flowers on the casket.

  We sat there for a while listening to Mrs. Jensen play the organ, and then Uncle Will came in and sat next to us. I thought it was nice of him to come since he hadn’t even known Mr. Rehnquist until that last day. In a few moments, our preacher from the Presbyterian Church, Reverend Teasdale, came in and went to the lectern at the front of the chapel. He looked a little surprised when he saw me, and then he began to read from the Bible. I looked around and was startled to see that there was no one else there. Reverend Teasdale went right on through the service just as though we were a whole Sunday audience. Mrs. Jensen sang “The Old Rugged Cross,” and then the Reverend read a list of nice things about Mr. Rehnquist that I had never heard of, and it was all over.

  Mr. Jensen came in and ushered Grandma and Uncle Will and me past the casket. We stood there for a few moments and looked at him, and it wasn’t scary the way I thought it would be at all. I tried to decide if I would say he “looked good” the way people always did when they came back from a funeral. He didn’t look crabby, anyway, and I figured that was good.

  Then Grandma and I went outside, and she said this was where you waited for the casket to come out. You had to do that to show respect. Soon Mr. Jensen, his assistant, Uncle Will and Reverend Teasdale carried the casket out and slid it into the hearse.

  Mr. and Mrs. Jensen drove the hearse to the cemetery, and Reverend Teasdale took Uncle Will and Grandma and me. At the cemetery they moved the casket up to the hill where Mr. Rehnquist would be buried. We stood around the grave, and Reverend Teasdale said The Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-Third Psalm and then threw a handful of dirt over the casket. We stood there for a moment, and I wondered how it would feel to be asleep down in that dark hole with dirt over you.

  Then Grandma and I put our fall bouquet, with Mr. Rehnquist’s own cattails in it, on the casket, and we went home.

  Grandma and I went in through the kitchen door, hoping we wouldn’t run into Dad, but there he was, sitting at the kitchen table going over some bills.

  “Where’ve you two been all dressed up like that?” he said, glancing at us.

  I bolted for my bedroom door. “I’ve gotta go change out of my good dress,” I said, and disappeared. I didn’t want to be there for the fireworks I was afraid might follow.

  “We’ve been downtown,” I heard Grandma say, as I left the kitchen.

  “Dressed like that?” asked Dad.

  “Yes,” said Grandma, “been to a funeral.”

  “Who was it this time?” said Dad, sounding as though she went to funerals every day.

  “Would you like some coffee?” Grandma asked him, trying to change the subject.

  “Yes, I would. Who was it?” he asked again.

  “Walter Rehnquist,” she said.

  “Walter Rehnquist …” Dad said, absent-mindedly. Then suddenly he looked up. “Why did you go to Walter Rehnquist’s funeral?”

  “He didn’t have any family, so we went,” said Grandma, acting very casual.

  “We?” said Dad, sounding surprised. “You mean Addie went with you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why did you take her?”

  “He was a friend of hers,” Grandma said quietly, “so naturally she wanted to pay her last respects.”

  I was listening carefully from behind my bedroom door as I changed. I figured this was it. I was right.

  “A friend of hers?” Dad said incredulously. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Calm down, James,” said Grandma, and took him his coffee.

  Dad was not about to calm down. “What do you mean, he was a friend of hers? She didn’t even know him.”

  “Well, yes, she did, James,” said Grandma, trying to keep calm.

  “How?”

  “She went out there to visit him a few times.”

  “Visit him?” roared Dad. “What the hell was she doing out there? Addie!” he shouted, getting up from the table. “Come in here!”

  I yanked on my sweater and hesitantly went into the kitchen. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Dad. I just took him some Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “You what?” he asked loudly.

  “I knew he was your enemy, and Miss Thompson said we should make friends out of our enemies, and you wouldn’t let him come here …”

  Grandma interrupted. “I think it was a very nice thing for her to do, James. Walter Rehnquist was a mighty lonely old man.”

  Dad stood there, looking from Grandma to me and back again. “That’s the craziest thing I ever heard of,” he said angrily. “You knew that old goat owed me money.”

  “He wasn’t an old goat!” I said, angry myself.

  “You knew I wouldn’t want you going way out there!”

  “Well,” said Grandma, “I think it’s a good thing she did. She found Mr. Rehnquist sick and got her Uncle Will. At least the old man didn’t die alone.”

  Dad looked at me, and I could tell he was really furious. “I’m gonna lock that bike up for a month,” he said, “and if you ever go that far out of town again, I’ll take it away for good.”

  Just then, someone knocked on the door.

  “Please don’t make a fuss, James,” Grandma said to Dad as she went to answer the door. “Addie’s upset enough as it is.”

  “Think I’m not upset?” he said. “She could have gotten killed riding way out there.”

  Grandma opened the door, and there stood a tall, skinny man with blond hair and a sharp Adam’s apple. He was dressed in a dark blue overcoat and was carrying a briefcase. He said he was the lawyer for the Rehnquist estate and wanted to speak to James and Addie Mills. I had no idea what was going on, but I was glad that Dad’s tirade had been interrupted.

  Mr. Burkhart told us that Mr. Rehnquist had left everything to his sister in Boise, Idaho. She had been too ill to come to the funeral, but Mr. Burkhart had come out to handle the estate. There was an addition to Rehnquist’s will, in the form of a letter, which he wanted to read to us. We all sat down around the kitchen table, and he pulled the letter out of his big briefcase. He cleared his throat, which made his sharp Adam’s apple plunge up and down, and started to read.

  “I, Walter Rehnquist, being of sound mind, do write this letter, leaving to James Mills $234 as final payment for my pond, which I did not know was on a sandhole at the bottom.”

  I looked over at Dad, surprised, and he looked absolutely shocked.

  Mr. Burkhart continued reading. “To Addie Mills, my faithful friend, I leave my horse, Treasure, together with the saddle, bridle and other such equipment. Signed, Walter Rehnquist.”

  I was numb.

  “Wait a minute,” said Dad, confused. “What’s this about a horse?”

  “Treasure,” I mumbled, almost to myself. “He left me Treasure. Oh, Dad. Isn’t that great?”

  Dad looked at me and then at Grandma. “You didn’t say anything about a horse.”

  Grandma looked a bit guilty. “Well, James, Mr. Rehnquist let Addie take care of his horse, and she rode it now and then. And isn’t it wonderful that he left it to her?”

  I could see from Dad�
��s expression that he didn’t think it was wonderful at all. “We’ll talk about it later, Mother,” he said ominously.

  Mr. Burkhart, having no idea of the bomb he had just dropped in the lap of our family, went right on taking care of his business. “I’d appreciate it if you could go out and get the horse today, Mr. Mills, as there’s no one at the farm to take care of it.”

  “I can’t keep a horse,” said Dad, sounding disgusted.

  “Mr. Rehnquist left it to Addie, James, not to you,” said Grandma.

  “You know it’s not possible for us to keep a horse!” he said to her. “We have no place to put it … we can’t afford to feed it.”

  “If you don’t want the animal,” said Mr. Burkhart, “I’ll have to make some arrangement to keep it until we can sell it, with the other farm equipment and household effects.”

  “Fine,” said Dad. “You sell it …”

  “She’s not an ‘it,’ she’s a ‘she,’” I interrupted angrily.

  “… and send Addie the money care of our Post Office Box 72,” Dad continued.

  “I don’t want the money. I want Treasure!” I said.

  “Well,” said Mr. Burkhart, “if you don’t want the horse, it becomes part of the estate. The estate will sell the horse and keep the money.”

  “I don’t follow you,” said Dad, frowning. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It may seem ridiculous to you,” said Mr. Burkhart, “but it was Mr. Rehnquist’s intention to give your daughter the horse, not the money. Now, if you want to sell the horse after you get her, that’s your business, but I can’t do it for you.”