Cold Sassy Tree

by Olive Ann Burns

I AGREED with Mama: there was just no excuse for the way Miss Love acted. No nice lady would pick a fuss in public like that, much less tell anybody and everybody her personal business. What on earth got into her?

  Somehow it brought to mind the time I helped Smiley Snodgrass blow up a hen with a bicycle pump. We like to died laughing, watching that bloated chicken wobble around like a dern balloon. It's far-fetched to compare that to Miss Love blowing up Cold Sassy, but I'm saying it's one thing to embarrass a hen and another thing entirely to embarrass a family and a whole town.

  Neither Mama nor I said much for a while. Just sat there on the porch in the dark, waiting for Papa. While the tree frogs croaked and the porch swing creaked, it came to me that there might not of been a fuss at the store if I'd told what Miss Love said the day I helped her clean up. Gosh, I'd felt so set-up and proud, her confiding in me like I could be counted on to keep my mouth shut, and all the time she must of been hoping I'd scatter her words broadcast like turnip seed.

  Probably Miss Love thought Mama and them would take her right on into the family if they knew she wasn't a real wife and that all she'd ever get out of Grandpa was the house and furniture—not the store, not the farm lands or his other houses or the railroad stock and the cottonseed oil company stock.

  Of course it could be she just needed to talk to somebody who was kind and understanding. If not me, who? Miss Love didn't have one close friend in Cold Sassy and no doubt was lonesome, being used to working around people at the store.

  But tell the truth, she'd been lonesome ever since she hit town. Cold Sassy took pride in being hospitable to outsiders, so Miss Love had always got her share of invites. But she was still an outsider and acted like one. Despite being friendly and lively, like Grandpa she had always held a part of herself back. Close-mouthed, they called her.

  So it just didn't make any sense at all for Miss Love to tell me about the arrangement unless she hoped I'd go home and set Mama and Aunt Loma straight—and through Aunt Loma, the whole town. If I was right about that, I'd sure let her down.

  But now that Miss Love had declared war on Cold Sassy, where did that put me? Right smack in the middle that's where—between Grandpa on the one side and Mama and Cold Sassy on the other. I knew I still wanted to be her friend. Lord knows she needed one. And I couldn't help liking her. But I hated taking her part against Mama and them.

  Papa was right. The family would just have to let bygones be bygones, and be nice no matter what.

  That night Miss Love declared war on the family, too. She fired the opening shots at Aunt Loma.

  Mama and I were still out there on the porch, waiting for Papa, when here came Loma and Camp—her carrying the baby, him carrying Granny's big mirror with Saint Cecilia painted on it. Boy, was Aunt Loma mad!

  They had gone up to Grandpa's house straight from Sunday night preachin' at the Baptist church. "To pay a friendly Christian call, Sister. I was go'n try and show Pa that we weren't holdin' hard feelin's," said Loma. "Quit that, Campbell Junior." He was fretting and grabbing at her face.

  "But Mr. Blakeslee warn't to home," Uncle Camp put in as Aunt Loma plunked herself down in a porch rocker, unbuttoned the shirtwaist of her mourning dress, and let the baby nurse.

  "Love said Pa had gone to the store to make up his order," said Loma. "Workin' on Sunday, Sister! He never did that when Ma was alive."

  "He sure didn't." Mama was disgusted.

  "Well, after Love lit a lamp in the parlor, we all sat down. She took Campbell Junior and played with him a while, but then we just sat there. Sister, if Miss Love isn't a Yankee, she sure acts like one. You know the way they can sit for hours and nobody say a word? Drives you crazy. Finally I said isn't it a hot night and Camp said how much we could use some rain. Then I ast if she'd found out what was wrong with the horse Will brought her. I mean, you know, why would Cudn Jake give him away like that? Instead of answerin', she ast would we like some refreshments.

  "With her gone to the kitchen, we could take a good look at the parlor. Sister, you wouldn't believe how she's changed things around. 'You sure have changed things around,' I said when she came in with lemonade and pound cake. But I spoke real nice, didn't I, Camp? I did tell her she better close the blinds every mornin' and keep the sheets on the loveseat and all. I reminded her about sun fadin' things."

  "What'd she say?"

  "She said she likes mornin' sun and doesn't intend to close the blinds at all. I ast her was that all right with Pa, her lettin' the sun fade Ma's things. She said she hadn't ast him."

  Camp's voice spoke up in the darkness. "She shore does make a good pound cake, I'll say that for her. Loma Baby, I wish you'd make me some pound cake."

  Loma Baby ignored him. "Then she offered to show us her room. She picked up the lamp and started across the hall, but I said, 'I'd like to see Ma's room, first.' 'All right,' Love said, 'but all I've done in there is sweep and dust. Your father wants it to stay just like Miss Mattie Lou had it.'"

  "Maybe you hadn't ought to dust even," Camp told her. "Where somebody has died is a sacred place. Even the dust is sacred."

  Miss Love had laughed at him! Said, "Camp, that's the silliest thing you ever said. Dust is dirt. There's no such thing as sacred dirt, for heaven's sake."

  "The nerve," said Mama, "talkin' like that to Camp."

  Shifting Campbell Junior to her other side, Loma said softly, "Well, we went in there, and Sister, it looked like Ma was still livin' in that room. Their weddin' picture on the wall over the bed, you know, and Ma's hair not even combed out of the brush, and her glasses still on her Bible on the night stand.... Love hasn't even thrown out that dried-up old rose in the bud vase. I hate dead flowers. I said, 'Love, you could at least throw out that old rose,' but she didn't answer me. Well, then I saw Ma's blue beads in the pin tray on the dresser."

  "The weddin' beads that Pa gave her," Mama said, her voice choking a little. "We should of buried her in them. You know, Loma, I never saw Ma without them till the funeral. Did you? I'd sure like to have those beads."

  "I already got'm, Sister," Aunt Loma said with an I-bid-first tone in her voice, and pulled them out of her pocket. "I told Love I wanted those beads and she said to ast Pa. Said she couldn't give permission. That really made me mad. 'I don't need your permission,' I told her, and I just prissed over and got them. 'Just tell Pa I have them.'"

  "You tell him," Miss Love snapped, high and mighty, and hurried back up the hall to light the way to the company room.

  "Sister, you ought to see what she's done to the comp'ny room." Aunt Loma was jealous, I could tell. Listening to her, I felt jealous myself—for Granny's sake, I mean. Granny used to talk about fixing things nice but never had the time or the money, either one. Loma said the board walls in there were painted a bright yellow, and everything else was white: mantelpiece, door and window frames, iron bed, night stand, dresser, wardrobe, wicker chair—all white. There were ruffledy yellow and brown checked curtains at the windows and the same cloth was on the ceiling, glued up there like wallpaper.

  Mama hooted. "Cloth on the ceiling? Who ever heard of paperin' with cloth!"

  "I have to admit, it looks right nice," said Loma. "I ast her did Pa do all the paintin'. She said, 'Where would he find the time? I painted it myself.' Said she liked to paint. 'That's man's work,' I told her. I couldn't hep it; I said, 'Love Simpson, you remind me of a crowin' hen.' Well, anyhow, Sister, she's put Ma's tulip quilt on her bed. And she's got that little yellow, orange, and brown plaited rug beside the bed—the one Grandmother Toy made. And Ma's 'Yard of Yellow Roses' picture is hangin' over the mantelpiece. I told her, I want that picture. Miss Pearl Lozier copied it for Ma and I want it.'"

  "What did she say?"

  "She didn't answer, so I just let it go. I'll ast Pa for it later. I tried to remember that I was down there to be nice, pay a Christian call. So I inquired politely about the tintypes and photographs on the dresser. Who they were, I mean. One was her mother, and one was an old lady who rais
ed her. A cousin, I think. At least she hadn't put out a picture of her Union Army daddy for Pa to have to look at. Well, Sister, then I spied a stirrup under the bed! I figured the silver saddle must be under there! But just as I bent down to look, Love said, 'Let's go back to the parlor where we can sit down.' Going across the hall with the lamp, she said, I have no family at all now. They're all dead.'"

  Mama blew out a breath. "Well, that's a relief."

  Back in the parlor with nobody talking, Loma had had time to consider the situation. "The more I thought about it," she told us, "the madder I got. I mean the way she has just taken over. All of a sudden I said to her, 'Love Simpson, I cain't hep sayin' you sure got your nerve, movin' Ma's rooms around like this.' Camp said, 'Loma's right, Miss Love.' You know what Love said to him, Sister? She said, 'Campbell Williams, it's not your place to tell me anything.' I said he had more right to speak out in the fam'ly than she did. She said, 'Not in my house.' I said maybe it was her house, but it was still Pa's home. Boy, that shut her up."

  Then Aunt Loma told Miss Love there were some things she wanted. "Things of Ma's. I don't mean old clothes and letters and ragged quilts like you sent over. I mean—" She almost lost her nerve, she told us, but had barged on. "I'm talkin' about things like the piano. I want the piano."

  If she had said she wanted the whole house, I bet Miss Love wouldn't of been more shocked. "Why in the world would you want the piano, Loma? You don't play!"

  "That don't keep me from wantin' it. Every house needs a piano."

  "Well, you can't have it. I'm sorry."

  "I'll ast Pa for it. He'll give it to me. He gives me anything I want."

  "Go on, ask him! It won't do you any good." Miss Love was trembling, she was so mad. But she calmed down some and said, nice enough, "But maybe there's something else you want, Loma. Anything I can't use, you're welcome to it."

  There was a silence till Uncle Camp spoke up. "She wants that mirror," he said timid, pointing behind the loveseat where "Saint Cecilia at the Organ" had been leaned against the wall.

  "Shut up, Camp," Loma said. "I'm not go'n ast her for anything. I'll ast Pa."

  "He'll just tell you to ask me," said Miss Love. It was too bad she hadn't made it clear that day at the store that Grandpa deeded her the furniture, too. She proceeded to make it clear to Aunt Loma now. "Maybe you don't know I own everything in this house."

  Aunt Loma said she stood up so fast that the rocking chair nearly turned over backwards. Camp stood up, too, and so did Miss Love. "I ast her, 'Have you got that in writin', Love Simpson?'"

  Miss Love said coldly, "Are you telling me your father would go back on his word?" Then she went over and pulled out the Saint Cecilia mirror. "Here, Camp, take this. I hate it. But, Loma, over my dead body you'll get the piano!"

  And that's how the second Mrs. Blakeslee, alias Love Simpson, declared war on the family.

  30

  THE NEXT MORNING I was sitting in Miss Love's kitchen, eating hot apple pie and cheese and hoping she wouldn't pick a fuss with me like she had with everybody else. If she did, or if she got to raving on about Cold Sassy treating her bad, I was go'n say, "Ma'am, I just remembered. Papa told me to paint the iron fence today. I better get on home." If she brought up that mess about keeping her maiden name, I'd say, "I reckon you got a right to, Miss Love. But it's foolish if you care a hoot about Cold Sassy acceptin' you as Grandpa's wife—or his housekeeper, either one."

  I didn't get a chance to see if my nerve would hold up to my indignation, because she was just nice as you please. Besides that big piece of pie, she fixed me a glass of lemonade and some for herself, and sat down to talk. She asked right off how was the camping trip, which made me uneasy, I tell you.

  "We had a swell time," I said. Taking a big slurp of lemonade, I changed the subject. "You sure make good lemonade, Miss Love."

  "Well, I've got plenty. Help yourself."

  "One time I ast Queenie why she drinks tea out of a quart Mason jar instead of a glass, and you know what she said? Said, 'Mr. Will, dat fust glassful always be's de bestis, so I makes it jes' big as I can.'" I laughed the way white folks always do when they tell something funny a colored person said.

  Miss Love laughed, too. Then she said, "But of course you know the real truth about that, Will."

  "What you mean?" My pie fork paused in midair on its way to my mouth.

  "I mean colored cooks know white people don't want them using their dishes and things. That's why they all drink out of jars and eat out of old plates or pie pans."

  "Ma'am?"

  "Well, does Queenie use the same plates as the family?"

  "Course not, Miss Love. It ain't the custom."

  "And what's Queenie's joke about that?"

  The color rose to my face. Clearly Miss Love didn't understand. Despite she wasn't exactly a Yankee, she was from way north of Cold Sassy. Before I could change the subject, she said, "Queenie uses an old knife and fork at your house, too, doesn't she, Will? And always washes them and her pan and her jar last—just before the dog and cat dishes? That's the custom, isn't it?"

  "Queenie doesn't care what she eats out of, Miss Love. No more'n she cares if pot licker runs off of the turnip salad and soaks her biscuits, or if the cream gravy gets all over her mashed sweet potatoes. She likes usin' a pan. It holds more'n a plate." Being an outsider, Miss Love couldn't understand that Queenie really just didn't care. Yankee, I thought, burning. Yankee, Yankee....

  It was a hot day, but there came a chill in the air as I finished my pie. Miss Love chopped up two big carrots and put them in her apron pocket, along with some shriveled little yellow apples out of Granny's bowl on the work table. Then she reached into Granny's old brown crock for some sugar lumps.

  She tossed me one.

  I wasn't a child. She couldn't make up to me with a dern sugar lump. "I'll save it for the horse," I mumbled, dropping it in a pocket of my overalls.

  Miss Love took a green print sunbonnet of Granny's from a nail in the kitchen and we headed for the barn. Old T.R. sprang up from under Granny's boxwood, where he'd been cooling off, and ran ahead of us to chase Granny's dominecker hens out of the path. I didn't say a word all the way to the barn.

  "Look, there he is!" Miss Love pointed to the gelding. He was cropping grass in the back pasture not far from Grandpa's mule. Mr. Beautiful raised his head and stared at us, and Miss Love squeezed my arm. "He's just so handsome, Will—that shiny black coat, and the white blaze on his forehead! And look how he holds his head!" I don't think she even noticed she had touched me, but the pit of my stomach might near flipped over.

  Looking towards us, the horse sniffed the wind, started walking, then quickly picked up his gait to a fast trot. As he got near the barn, he shied at a rock in the grass, stumbled, rared up, and raced away, tail arched high. But he was soon back, nickering and snorting as he pranced sideways towards the pasture gate we were leaning on. Then he shot off again like an arrow.

  Miss Love put her hands to her mouth, as if she couldn't believe him. She said softly, "That's got to be the fastest horse in Cold Sassy. Maybe the fastest in Georgia...."

  "Yes'm." Pride rose up in me for being the one that had brought him to her.

  Every time the gelding came near, Miss Love held out a piece of carrot. Finally he stopped, walked slowly toward her, stopped again, came closer, and, glistening with sweat, stretched his neck to get the carrot. His breathing was hard. "Come here, Mr. Beautiful, I won't hurt you. Here, baby," she murmured, holding out an apple.

  "Boy howdy, I cain't hardly wait to see that fancy Texas saddle on him!" I said. She blushed, as if she thought the saddle might remind me how she'd kissed Clayton McAllister. I blushed, too, because it did remind me of that. I said quickly, "Ma'am, I hope you ain't forgot. That horse ain't broke to anything but a halter. You won't try to ride him any time soon, will you?"

  "I wish I dared. But no, I'm still just making friends. Here, boy," she called, walking along the fence.

 
; "A big horse like him, he could kill you."

  She met my eyes with her gray-blue ones and the long dark lashes didn't even flutter. She said, "Mr. McAllister taught me all about training horses, Will. It's done in definite stages. I helped him train the mare that was"—she hesitated—"the mare that was to be mine after we married. The one the saddle was made for."

  Yeah, I thought, and I bet you kissed Mr. McAllister between every sugar lump and apple, and hugged him every time the mare did what you wanted her to. I hated Mr. McAllister.

  I wished Miss Love would touch me again.

  She didn't. It was the horse she kept touching. She rubbed his ears and his neck, talking soft and holding tight to the halter. Soon as she let him go, he was off again across the pasture.

  We watched him a few minutes, then walked back towards the house. We were about even with Granny's flower pit when I stopped and asked the question that had been on my mind ever since I got there. "Does Grandpa know ... I mean did anybody tell him about, uh, about the way Mr. McAllister, uh—"

  There was an empty minute before she came right out with it. "Kissed me?" Her face was hidden under the bonnet, so I don't know if she blushed. But I did. "As a matter of fact, Will, somebody did tell Mr. Blakeslee."

  "It wasn't me, Miss Love, I swear. Must of been Miss Effie Belle."

  "Maybe she did. I don't know. But I told him first."

  "You?" I couldn't believe any lady was that dumb. I said I bet he'd already heard.

  She waved a honeybee away from her face. "No. This was on Saturday night after Mr. McAllister was here. And if he had heard, he'd have said so as soon as he got home. Your grandfather is a very direct man, Will."

  "Yes'm, he is."

  "Still, I kept thinking what if he does know. I got nervous as a witch, wondering. But all he talked about at supper was the horse. Which stall it could have, which day you might get back with it, things like that. And he asked what did I know about breaking a horse. I could see he didn't know one thing about it himself."