Land Sakes

by Margaret A. Graham

  “Oh, I guess you could call him that… Barbara is the daughter of one of his mistresses… He has full custody of Barbara, and she will inherit his estate.”

  “You mean—”

  “Miss E., let me tell you why Philip married me.”

  “No, that’s none of my business.”

  “Please, I want to tell you. You see, my grandfather knew I had no head for business… He wanted me to be married to a man who could manage all these businesses and things… somebody he trusted. He picked Philip… Philip was working in one of the export offices… He was twenty years old without a penny to his name. Philip had nothing but brains and a driving… a driving ambition… My grandfather picked him and offered him my hand in marriage… Of course, not without attorneys and legal papers drawn up to make sure Philip never divorced me or stole my money.”

  This sounded like something out of an old movie, yet, knowing what I knew about that grandfather, I believed every word of it.

  “I had always been a roly-poly child… roly-poly, yes… that’s what they called it. At the time of my coming-out I was still overweight. Being fat, plus my artificial eye, did not make me the most desirable debutante, much less a bride. Even so, Philip agreed to marry me.”

  “Well, Mrs. Winchester, I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but didn’t you have anything to say about that?”

  “Oh, I was grateful to have a husband. Philip was handsome, still is. Given time, I hoped we might have a happy marriage.”

  Although I knew the answer, I had to ask. “Did you?”

  “Miss E., we had a wedding and a honeymoon, but we’ve never had a marriage.”

  Those words shook me to my toenails. I’d had enough of this misery. “Mrs. Winchester, it’s getting late. Don’t you think we better go to sleep?”

  Without a word she rolled over in the bed, and I started straightening the cover over her. She caught my hand and, looking up at me with the saddest face ever I saw, asked, “Miss E., will you call me Winnie?”

  Winnie? “Mrs. Winchester, I’ll have to think about that.”

  11

  The next morning we were up early, and as we were getting in the car, Percival announced that it was a six and a half hour drive to Chicago. “Well,” I said, “this is the Lord’s Day, and I would like to stop along the way for church.”

  The way he took off his cap and slapped his thigh showed he didn’t like that one bit, but before he could say anything, Mrs. Winchester spoke up. “To be sure, we will. We’ll stop.”

  Percival drew in his breath. “Madam, may I suggest that we allow only one half hour for this delay?”

  “Very well.”

  After about two hours on the road, when we were not far from Louisville, I saw this little country church up ahead on a side road. “Let’s stop there,” I said.

  The church was one of those little white ones with a bell and steeple where most likely poor people worship. The graveyard, dotted with wreaths and faded flowers, hugged the church on one side, and the rest of the yard held beat-up cars and pickups that had rolled in and stopped every whichaway.

  All the women going in the door were wearing white dresses and big hats and had Bibles under their arms. Some of them wore blue ribbons labeled “Usher.” The men and children were dressed in their Sunday best, and their manners matched—they didn’t go running to gawk at the Rolls-Royce.

  Percival parked the car at an angle, hogging space for two or three cars. I guess that was to protect it from all the other vehicles. I got out of the car. “Please, you’ll come with me, won’t you, Mrs. Winchester?”

  She fidgeted a bit, but I could tell she wanted to go. I reached over, took her by the hand, and helped her out of the car.

  We left Percival guarding the Rolls with a book in his hand. I figured he would soon realize that these people were not the kind to do anything to his precious motorcar and that he would use the time we were in church to take the dogs for a walk or to read that book. According to Mrs. Winchester, Percival kept his nose in a book.

  The church sign showed it was an AME Zion church like one we have in Live Oaks. I had always wanted to go to a church like that, but I didn’t know how the members would take to white folks.

  The people in this church could not have been nicer—ushered Mrs. Winchester and me right down to the front. Only one old lady was sitting on that front pew. She looked to be a hundred, and she wasn’t wearing a white dress like the others. Hers was a cotton housedress with a crocheted shawl around the shoulders. As worn as her clothes were, they were clean and neat. Leaning on her cane with her hands folded over the crook of it, she might have been praying; she didn’t look up at us.

  A lady in back of us touched me on the shoulder, “This is Pastor Appreciation Day,” she told me. I thanked her and took a good look at that preacher sitting on the platform. He looked like he could use some appreciation. If the woman beside me was a hundred, he was old as Methoozelah. Skinny as a rail, he wore a suit that just hung on him, and his back was bent from age, but he had a soft, good face like that on my friend Elijah.

  The old pump organ commenced, and the choir filed in, women in front, men in back. Once they were seated, the organist quit playing and stood up to direct. Soon as she lifted both arms, one choir member heisted the tune, and they all began singing in different parts and harmonizing:

  Some glad morning,

  When this life is over,

  I’ll fly away…

  The music that came out of those singers would’ve given angels a run for their money! I do believe Mrs. Winchester enjoyed it as much as me; she was patting her foot.

  Then I reckon it was a deacon who got up to speak. He talked about the years when he was a child and how the pastor had baptized him, married him and his wife, and funeralized his mama and his grandmama.

  When he finished and stepped down, the choir director made a response that brought people to their feet to bring love gifts to the altar. As long as they were coming, she played “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and a couple more hymns on the organ.

  After nearly every man, woman, and child had made their trip to the front, the old lady on the pew next to me raised her face toward heaven and started praying in a surprisingly strong voice.

  “Dear Gawd and Father, I thank thee that you have give me the light of another day to live and breathe this side of Jerden… a Sabbath day to wership and rest from our labors, look one another in the face, sing your praise and pray.”

  The choir was humming her prayer to heaven, and the congregation was backing her up with amens.

  “Lawd Jesus, high and holy, meek and lowly, walk with me, talk with me, tell me things I need to know. I am your own—your servant, your chosen one. Lawd Jesus, open the windows of heaven and pour us out a blessing that fills our cups—fills them to the brim—makes ’em spill over to bless this poor, poor world.”

  More amens sounded, and, to tell the truth, I felt like shouting a “glory, hallelujah!”

  “Some has got hearts of stone. Lawd, give them hearts of flesh. Some follows you afar off; woo ’em back, Lawd, woo ’em with woes and whispers of love. May all o’ your people here, there, and evahwhere this day take the time to be holy. With holy lives and loving hearts he’p us reach out to this pore world—to all them enemies of the cross, the fallen, the sick and suffering. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.”

  The humming grew softer; the amens were petering out.

  I thought she had finished, when—“Lawd Jesus, how long must I stand on Jerden’s bank a-lookin’ over to the other side—a-waitin’ for you to come and take me home? Oh, to look on your face—to look on your face!”

  “Yes, Lawd!” came from the preacher, and the humming and amens swelled again. I glanced at my watch and whispered to Mrs. Winchester, “Our thirty minutes is up.”

  She shook her head like it didn’t matter.

  The organist played a stanza of “Sweeter as the Years Go By,” and then four men moved out of the choir on
to the platform to sing. You won’t believe what that quartet sang! That old spiritual, “Dem Bones.”

  Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”

  Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”

  Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”

  Oh, hear the word of the Lord!

  The foot bone connected to the… leg bone

  The leg bone connected to the… knee bone

  The knee bone connected to the… thigh bone

  The thigh bone connected to the… back bone

  The back bone connected to the… neck bone

  The neck bone connected to the… head bone

  Oh, hear the word of the Lord!

  Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’

  Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’

  Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’

  Oh, hear the word of the Lord!

  It was all I could do not to jump in singing myself! They carried the tune up one step at a time and then, repeating the words in reverse, brought it down the same way, one step at a time.

  Not for one minute did I think them singing “Dem Bones” was any accident—the Lord was bringing to mind the Scripture that Mrs. Winchester and I had read. I will never forget it.

  Well, I knew from experience that church services like this one could go on for half a day, and Percival was probably having a conniption fit already. As we got up to leave, I apologized to the woman behind me. “We’re traveling and can’t stay any longer. Wish we could.” She thanked us for coming.

  As soon as Percival saw us coming out of the church he hustled Desi and Lucy back inside the Rolls and held the door open for us. No sooner were we inside and buckled up but what he jumped under the wheel and gunned that car out of the churchyard like a shot out of a gun.

  All the while we were flying down the interstate, all I could think about was “Dem Bones.” The words kept singing in my head, and I kept singing them to myself but, for sure, not out loud.

  “I liked that church,” Mrs. Winchester said. “My nanny took me to church one time. We went to my grandfather’s funeral in St. Patrick’s cathedral, but it was nothing like this church.”

  “Well, as Splurgeon says, ‘Going to church will not make you a saint any more than going to school will make you a scholar,’ but it’s the right thing to do. One of the reasons I go to church is because the Lord says we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.”

  “I’ve watched religious programs on television,” she said. “They have clapping music, and raise their arms a lot, but not much else.”

  “That’s all well and good, Mrs. Winchester, but watching it on TV is not the same as going to church where you participate.”

  Since we were headed for Louisville, Kentucky, I thought about the Kentucky Derby. At Priscilla Home we always made it a habit to watch those races the first Saturday in May. I asked Mrs. Winchester if she had ever been to the Kentucky Derby.

  “No, I’ve never been, but my grandfather left me a box of eight seats at Churchill Downs. Philip takes clients, people he knows. I prefer giving Super Bowl tickets to my staff. Would you like to go to a Super Bowl?”

  “No, I’ve never had much time for sports.”

  We were coming into the city, and Percival was zipping right through on the interstate. Because of the time, I didn’t think we’d be visiting any cemeteries in Louisville, but I asked her, “Who’s buried here?”

  “There’s a Colonel Sanders visitor center and his gravesite, but we won’t have time to look him up today.”

  “Have you ever eaten Kentucky Fried Chicken?”

  “No, have you?”

  “Lots of times. You really should try it.”

  For a few minutes she didn’t say anything, but then she said, “Very well, we will,” and told Percival to look for a Kentucky Fried Chicken place. He glanced back at us in his rearview mirror, looking like he could bite a ten-penny nail in two.

  I saw the Colonel Sanders Visitor Center sign coming up. Percival took that exit and drove on. Before long we were turning into a KFC parking lot, and he drove the car all the way beyond the dumpster to park. He did not turn off the ignition. “Madam, surely you are not thinking of—”

  “Yes, Percival, we are having lunch with the Colonel.”

  “But, madam, we have lunch prepared.”

  “Never mind, go in and order whatever is necessary.”

  “Get the original recipe,” I told him. Percival turned off the engine, got out, and trudged his way across the parking lot.

  There must have been a long line or else it took him a long time to choose, because we waited quite a while before he came out lugging a bucket of chicken and a bag of who knows what. He left the stuff on the front seat while he set our tables and poured our drinks. Then, aggravated, he served our plates with chicken, biscuits, and slaw. He left what remained in the bucket for us and served himself a salad and wine.

  Ours was as grand a lunch as a body could want. I was so tired of fancy meals that the Colonel’s chicken made me feel like I was home again. Mrs. Winchester ate four pieces and three biscuits! When we were finished, we wiped our greasy fingers with wipe-aways, and I gathered up the trash. I was thinking Percival would feed the scraps to Desi and Lucy, but Mrs. Winchester said no he wouldn’t. “He only gives them dog food prescribed by the vet.”

  Once back on the interstate, we headed for Indianapolis, and I asked Mrs. Winchester if we were going to stop there.

  “No,” she said, “the only celebrity I know buried in Indianapolis is John Dillinger, and he is famous for the wrong reasons. James Dean is buried in Fairmount, which is not far from Indianapolis but too far for us to go today.”

  Even without stopping again except to go to the bathroom, we were nearly 9:00 reaching Chicago. We were staying in another one of them out-of-this-world hotels, but I was too tired to pay much attention. I would take two Tidynol and go to bed.

  As I was removing that apron from around my waist, I thought, I better check this thing, make sure everything’s in there.

  So far as I could tell there was nothing missing. Even so, I was thinking that with the way gangsters run wild in Chicago, to be safe, I ought not to show my face outside that hotel. Mrs. Winchester had mentioned that Al Capone was buried in Chicago, but I prayed she wouldn’t want to go there. The cemetery might be in a seedy part of the city where, if we didn’t run into gangsters, there’d be winos, druggies, or the like to waylay us, steal what we got, maim or murder us.

  12

  The next morning I was fit as a fiddle. Since Mrs. Winchester was still dead to the world, as soon as the maid showed up I planned to go downstairs for breakfast.

  This Peninsula Suite we were staying in was like a mansion. Of course, I never been in a mansion, but it was a far cry from anything I ever seen in the movies. Everything about this place was made to pamper and spoil a body. Right beside my bed was a panel with buttons for climate control and for operating all the lights, TV, alarm clock, drapes—even a button to call housekeeping. All I had to do was roll out of bed and get myself dressed. I guess a body can get used to living in the lap of luxury, but as far as I was concerned, I’d never get used to it.

  In addition to everything else, there was a safe in the suite. I figured I could leave my apron with her jewelry in the safe until I got back from breakfast.

  I went to fix my face in the bathroom—everything in there was marble. They had a phone beside the tub and a big TV. Now, considering the way I like to soak in a tub, a small TV in my own bathroom might be a luxury I could afford, but never in a million years would I spend money like that. The night before when I was taking my time in the tub, there was this soft music playing so sweet it near about put me to sleep. Now, what if I had fell asleep in there? I’d probably have drowned before them martinis wore off and Mrs. Winchester realized something was wrong. Even if I was only half drowned, she wouldn’t know how to give me artificial perspiration.

  The carpet
in the suite felt like it was a foot deep. And there were oil paintings on the walls that must have made many a starving artist rich overnight. The living room was so big it had room for two divans, stuffed chairs, straight chairs, footstools, a chest of drawers, tables, lamps, and, would you believe, a baby grand piano! That piano reminded me of Priscilla Home and Albert. The day he got our baby grand back in shape, he sat down and played “Twelfth Street Rag” by heart. That was one red-letter day for us.

  I walked out on the terrace to have a look-see. We were so high up that I couldn’t hear the street traffic below. Made me swimmy-headed looking down. I figured Mrs. Winchester would eat breakfast out there on the terrace because the dining room table was as long as a bowling alley and had these silver candlesticks with more candles than ever I saw at a wedding.

  I would have give my eye teeth to know what she paid for that suite. No ordinary high flyer could afford it. It would take a supersonic high flyer and then some. It’s a sin and a shame to spend money for such as that when there’s so many hungry people in the world.

  Two maids arrived, Mozelle and Tanya. That they knew my name came as no surprise; when we arrived everybody on staff knew our names—the hotel manager who made a big fuss over Mrs. Winchester, the desk clerks, bellhops, you name it. I told the women I was going to the lobby for breakfast and that if Mrs. Winchester woke up before I got back, tell her where I was at.

  The lobby was on the fifth floor, and on the way I picked up two complimentary postcards with colored pictures of the hotel to send to Beatrice. They were huge cards. Glancing at those pictures I decided that if there was time after I ate, I’d take a tour of the top floors, where they have got this spa and swimming pool.

  When I walked in that lobby, I felt like I was in one of them Baghdad palaces they had talked about on the news. The room was bathed in this golden light streaming through the windows. I’d say the windows were twenty feet tall, reaching from the marble floor to the gold ceiling, and there were enough tables in there to seat busloads of people, only I doubt it’s the kind of place busloads come to. Esmeralda, I thought, this ain’t no food court!