Cold Sassy Tree

by Olive Ann Burns

  Miss Love had started playing "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" with a strong marching beat and lots of walking bass. She still hadn't seen me, though I had a good side view of her. I stood by the door while she finished the hymn and ran through choruses of "Maple Leaf Rag," "Georgia Blues," and "Good Ole Summertime," which she hummed, then played again, singing the words. After that she bammed out "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis," as if her purpose in life was to play loud enough for old man Tate to hear through the shut windows.

  I don't know what I was most flabbergasted at, the bright sun in the parlor (already fading the furniture, I was sure) or the bing-bang music (which I knew she would quit playing as soon as she saw me) or Miss Love herself, seated on the round stool, legs apart, long skirt hiked up above her knees (to be cooler, I reckon), and her heels and toes rocking the way I imagined a piano player's would in a cabaret.

  Maybe it was her clothes. I had never seen Miss Love when she wasn't dolled up like one of those M. Rich & Bros, fashion advertisements in the Atlanta newspapers. Working at the store or playing for preachin' on Sunday at the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, she wore perfume and a hat, and her hair fixed fancy, and was always corseted and gusseted or whatever it was ladies did to shape their hips and bosoms.

  But today she looked like a girl instead of a lady.

  Her heavy brown hair was bound up and covered with a kerchief made out of a rag—actually a piece of Granny's old white outing nightgown. Mama always wore loose housework dresses at home, but Miss Love had on an old pink afternoon dress with white eyelet embroidery and a low-cut neckline. If she'd of bent down in that dress, her bosoms would of looked like two puppies trying to climb over a fence. Whenever her hands hit bass and treble chords at the same time, the bodice stretched tight across her bust, and on fast pieces, the jiggle was something to see! I tried not to stare, but I couldn't exactly help it.

  With all that and her rollicking songs, I was on fire. My bare left foot patted to beat the band while she was singing "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby." Then she repeated the last line real slow and soft, except this time she sang, "Yes, sir, it's my baby ... yes, sir, this house is ... my baby ... now-ow..." She ended with a slow, subdued flourish of treble chords and finally one soft single bass note, like a Graphophone winding down.

  "Boy howdy, Miss Love!" I exclaimed.

  Surprised, she swung toward me on the piano stool, clutching her low dress front with one hand and flipping down the long pink skirt with the other.

  "Will Tweedy!" she exclaimed, the way a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar might say "Mama!"

  "I, uh, knocked, but you didn't hear me," I said. She blushed. I reckon she was embarrassed at being caught with her knees showing, or being caught so happy when her husband's real wife wasn't yet cold in the grave.

  "What can I do for you?" she asked, as if this was the store and I was a lady come in to order an Easter hat.

  "Uh, Grandpa said you could use some hep," I offered, hitching my overalls and scratching my left heel with my right big toe.

  "I hadn't expected your mama could spare you."

  "Grandpa told her to send me up here."

  "That man! I never saw anybody get away like he did this morning." She laughed gaily, her hand still clutching the low dress front.

  "I reckon he was scairt somebody would see him doin' housework," said I, grinning. "He don't know doodly-squat about cleanin', you know. The one that always hepped Granny was me. Uh, excuse me, ma'am," I said lamely. "I shouldn't of mentioned my grandmother."

  Waving a hand in protest, Miss Love got up from the piano stool. She looked a little flustered, as if trying to decide what to say and how to say it. "Look here, Will. Miss Mattie Lou was nicer to me than anybody else in Cold Sassy. Even if she weren't all around me in this house, I'd never forget her. So please don't think I expect to take her place. I'm—well, I'm just going to try to look after your grandfather."

  "Yes'm."

  We talked a little about me on the train trestle. She asked if I felt all right and I said yes'm. Then she went to get a gold bar pin for her dress front, to make the neck higher, and I went out to the porch for a drink of well water. On the way back up the hall, I chanced to look in Grandpa's room and saw that the bed in there wasn't made up.

  Mama wouldn't ever start anything else without she made up the beds first.

  Miss Love had raised the parlor windows by time I got back. "First," she said cheerfully, "I'd like you to shake these dusty draperies outside. I want to make new ones, soon as I can get around to it; the room needs brightening. But these will do for now."

  How was Granny going to stay all around Miss Love if she got new parlor draperies?

  Next I hefted the rolled-up parlor rug over my right shoulder and started out to hang it on the line. "When you get through beating it, leave it out in the sun a while," she said.

  "Uh, won't it fade in the sun? Mama always says sun will fade a rug." It didn't matter to me personally, but I knew what Mama and Cold Sassy would say if Miss Love ruined Granny's things.

  It got her dander up, my saying that. "The rug is moldy, mildewed, and full of moths, Will," she snapped. "That's what happens when a room stays shut up. The sun may fade it a little, but at least it won't smell musty."

  To my mind she was same as saying that Granny was a dirty housekeeper. I lacked the nerve to explain about Grandpa not hiring help. As if reading my mind, Miss Love came over and patted my arm. "I didn't mean to be passing judgment, Will. When a woman gets sick, the house gets sick, too."

  She was in the dining room when I came in from beating the rug. "I'd like you to take down the curtains in here," she said, "and put them out to burn. They're rotten. Then please sweep the walls and the ceiling in here, and when the dust settles, we'll wash the windows and the floor. But first, Will, take the coat rack and the little pine desk out of the hall into the parlor. I've already washed and waxed them."

  Toting the desk into the parlor, I saw that Miss Love had laid the big Toy family Bible on Granny's loveseat. Seeing it, I longed for Granny. It sounds crazy, but I still found it hard to believe she was gone, and half expected that her death wasn't really written down in the Bible.

  It was there, all right, in Grandpa's bold handwriting: Died June 14, 1906.

  And below it, there was a new line. In a fine ladylike hand it said, Enoch Rucker Blakeslee married Love Honour Simpson in Jefferson, Georgia, July 5, 1906.

  Gosh, Mama would sure be mad! This was the Toy Bible, not the Blakeslee Bible. To my knowing there wasn't any Blakeslee Bible. And I had heard Mama tell Aunt Loma right after the funeral, "I'm go'n bring Ma's Bible over here, if Pa don't mind."

  I wondered if Grandpa knew Miss Love had put her name in it.

  All the walls in Granny's house were horizontal pine boards, painted to look like plaster. I swept those in the dining room, like I was told to. When I came out, Miss Love was down on her hands and knees, scrubbing the hall floor, and humming like it was the most fun she'd ever had in her whole life.

  She had just fired up the stove and put the kettle on when Grandpa walked in to eat dinner. Not a blessed thing fixed! He always was one to want a big meal in the middle of the day, and he told Miss Love so.

  You never saw the like of how she took it. Instead of getting her dander up like Loma would, or being upset and apologizing the way Mama would, Miss Love, just calm and cool as you please and with a happy smile on her face, said, "Goodness, Mr. Blakeslee, cleaning this wonderful house made me forget all about time!" Her eyes were glowing. "Look, I'll cook you a real good supper. But for now, we can have the apple pie left from yesterday, sir, with a big hunk of that rat cheese from the store on it, and some cool milk. Is that all right?"

  I expected him to explode. Instead he just went out on the back porch, poured some water from the bucket into the gray enamel basin on the shelf, washed up, came on in, sat down at the table, and said the blessing over the pie and milk. He didn't fuss at all, and didn'
t seem to notice she wasn't wearing the gold wedding band, which was still on the piano. She'd told me the ring was a little big and kept slipping off when her hands were in the soapy wash water.

  While I bolted down my pie, Grandpa blurted out that Son Black had come in the store that morning. "He says you and him had a unner-standin'. He's talkin' bout breach a-promise. He got any call to think you was go'n marry him?"

  Miss Love looked startled. "If he did, it was all in his own head. He talked about us getting married, but I always just passed it off as a joke."

  "Thet's all I need to know," said Grandpa, finishing up his pie. "Miss Love, you think you could trim my hair some?" He tried to smooth it down with his hand, but it was too thick and bushy to mind anything but scissors.

  "I'd love to trim your hair, Mr. B." There in the kitchen she danced around, studying his face this way and that, and finally burst out, "Mr. Blakeslee, you don't know how long I've wanted to see what's under that shelf of a mustache and that old gray beard!"

  He jerked his arm across his face. "I didn't say cut my beard off, woman. I said cut my hair. I reckon the beard could use a li'l trimmin', but thet's all, hear. I ain't fond a-shavin'."

  She didn't give up. "With a close haircut and a thin mustache and no beard, sir, you'd look—distinguished! Can I? Oh, please, Mr. Blakeslee?"

  "I don't think so. I ain't seen my face in so long I mightn't know me."

  "Wouldn't nobody know you, Grandpa," said I, pitching a hunk of cheese in the air so it dropped into my mouth. "Cain't you just see my daddy and Uncle Camp and Cudn Hope if you walked in the store shaved? They'd take you for a stranger and sell you a mule collar or something."

  The idea really appealed to him. "By dang, Will Tweedy, you right. They wouldn't know me from Adam!"

  "But you won't look like somebody who needs a mule collar," Miss Love protested. "You'll look like a judge who's come in for fine tobacco. All right, Mr. B.?" She was real excited. "Can I? Please?"

  "By George, yes!" he said, slapping his knee. "If'n you can fix a lady's hair to go with them fancy hats, Miss Love, I reckon you ain't go'n make me look no worse'n I already do. Will Tweedy, go git the strop and my Wade and Butcher razor. Hit used to be my daddy's," he told her. "And, son, find them hair-cuttin' scissors yore granny always used. They's somewhere on my bureau."

  Miss Love cut off most of the thick gray beard with the scissors, after which Grandpa wrapped a steaming towel around his face to soften the stubble. He shaved kind of awkward, nicking his face in several places. Then Miss Love trimmed the mustache into a pencil-thin line and cropped his hair down from a mane to short as mine.

  Boy howdy, I couldn't believe what a difference! His hair and mustache being dark, he looked years younger without the gray beard. His face was lean and handsome. He looked like a fine gentleman.

  Later, considering who arrived on the train that same evening, I couldn't help thinking how glad I was that Miss Love got Grandpa changed from a bushy-headed, bushy-faced old country man to somebody she could be proud to stand beside and introduce as her husband.

  19

  GRANDPA couldn't stop looking at himself in the mirror. Preening like a rooster, he kept saying things like "I do recollect seein' thet feller somewheres before. Ain't he a buster though!"

  Miss Love was so excited she hugged him.

  I could tell the hug surprised her as much as it did Grandpa, who looked like he didn't know whether to hug her back or not, which he didn't. But he seemed mighty pleased, and didn't object when she said, "Mr. B., don't go back to the store wearing that same tobacco-stained shirt, or you won't fool a soul."

  Grandpa generally wore just two shirts a week, and Saturday wasn't his day to change. But he went to his room and came out buttoning a clean one. Then as he pulled up his suspenders, he said, real formal, "I'm much obliged to you, Miz Rucker Blakes-lee."

  He hardly ever thanked anybody for anything. Gratitude embarrassed him. I guess the words popped out because he was so pleased to see how good he looked after all these years.

  While he dusted off his hat, Miss Love said, "You'd really look spiffy in a new cut of suit, Mr. Blakeslee."

  "Cain't afford no new suit," he said gruffly.

  "I'll make you one."

  "Thet'd be a dang waste a-time. I wouldn't live to wear it out. Will Tweedy, you think they'll know me at the store?"

  "No, sir! Specially if you walk in kind of sideways, so they won't see your arm off."

  He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. "I better git on back. Camp'll go to sleep if'n I ain't there." He set his hat at a jaunty angle and raised his hand good-bye. Reminded me of a little boy going off by himself for the first time.

  We stood watching as he walked across the tracks, a new sort of strut in his long stride. "Boy howdy, Miss Love," said I, still amazed at the change. "If I was at the store and Grandpa walked in, I wouldn't know him. I might think I'd seen him somewhere, but I wouldn't know him."

  She turned towards me, beaming. "He likes it, Will Tweedy! And isn't your grandfather a handsome man! You and him—I mean you and he—you look a lot alike, Will. I never realized it before."

  "Granny always said so."

  "It's the mouth and the shape of the jaw, and—" She put her hand on my shoulder, turned me toward her, and studied my face. Blushing, I bent my head. "No, look at me, Will. It's also your eyes, big like his. And your brows are arched like his."

  Soon as Miss Love went to the kitchen, I went hunting for the painted mirror that usually hung over the marble-top table in the front hall—the mirror Aunt Loma and Mama both wanted. I found it laid across a table in the parlor. Bending over the glass, I stared around Saint Cecilia at the organ and all the painted angels and flower garlands to see if something of Grandpa would stare back at me.

  Well, gosh, yes. Now that I had finally seen his face, I could say I did look like him. A lot like him. When I grinned at myself, the lower lip turned up at the corners, just like Grandpa's. His mouth was like a boy's anyhow, except looser. I preened a while, this way and that. If I looked like Grandpa, and Miss Love thought he was handsome, then that meant I was handsome, too.

  Lee Roy and them might not think so, but Miss Love did.

  I combed my hair down with my fingers, squeezed a red sore place on my chin, and examined my upper lip to see if my mustache was any more ready to be shaved than yesterday. Hearing Miss Love coming, I sort of waved good-bye to myself and straightened up. She said, "Will, bring those pasteboard boxes in off the back porch to the company room, and I'll tell you what to do next."

  When I came in with the boxes, I asked, "Ma'am, what you want me to do with'm?" I couldn't see her over the high stack I carried, but I knew she was in there. I could hear her opening drawers.

  "I want you to pack up everything in this bureau," she said evenly. "And the things in the wardrobe, too."

  "Everything?" I dropped the boxes. They fell with a thick dull clatter. I couldn't believe it. Without so much as a by-your-leave from Mama or Aunt Loma, Miss Love was planning on getting rid of Granny's belongings!

  "Yes, everything. Mostly it's stuff that was packed away—old quilts and things your grandmother obviously wasn't using but I suppose hated to get rid of. The clothes she was wearing are all in Mr. Blakeslee's room. He wants everything in there to stay the way she had it."

  I couldn't think what to say to that. So I asked, "Where we go'n put what's in here, Miss Love?"

  "I want you to take it home. Your mother and Loma can go through it and throw stuff out or give it away. I need the space for my things, you see. It's—uh, this will be my room." She blushed.

  It slowly dawned on me that it already was her room. Several of her dresses hung on wall nails, and also her nightgown, and she had pushed back a blue thousand-eye tray on the princess dresser to make room for a shoebox full of her combs and ribbons and doodads. Why, she had already brought over her things from the Crabtrees'! Two big trunks sat in front of the fireplace.

/>   Looking around, I noticed a small poster tacked on the wall, advertising a women's suffrage speech in Baltimore in 1888. It said:

  The Subject: Throw Off the Yoke of Oppressor Man!

  Miss Hannah Lee, The Long-Tongued Orator

  Will Emit Impassioned Yawps at Borough Hall

  7 O'Clock Monday Night!

  The Belva E. Lockwood Quartette

  Will Furnish Discord!

  Come One, Come All

  And Bring Your Chewing Gum!

  I didn't want to offend Miss Love, but I thought that was the silliest thing I ever read. Seeing I was trying to keep a straight face, she giggled. "Go on. Laugh. Your grandpa did. I laugh myself, every time I look at it. That's why I put it up."

  "I thought you wanted women to get the vote, Miss Love."

  "I do. Oh, I do. But that doesn't mean I can't laugh."

  "'The long-tongued orator will emit impassioned yawps,'" I read. "Haw, I sure would of liked to hear that! Was she chewin' chewin' gum while she talked?"

  Miss Love laughed. "I doubt it, Will, but I wasn't there. I found that poster on the sidewalk later. For a long time I tried to figure it out. I didn't know whether Miss Hannah Lee thought the suffrage movement was getting too grim and made this up to poke fun at herself and the rest of us, or whether some printer did it as an insult. I just know that every time I start taking life too seriously, I can look at that silly poster and get my sense of humor back."

  Laughing merrily, she started out the door, then turned and asked, "Did you ever hear of Belva E. Lockwood, Will?"

  "No'm. Was she that lady scientist over in France? Well, no, I see she was a singer." I nodded toward the poster.