Cold Sassy Tree

by Olive Ann Burns

  "When did you tell him, Miss Love? About—you know."

  "At one o'clock Sunday morning. We both went to bed early, but I just tossed and turned. I was so nervous I thought I'd scream. Finally I decided my only hope was to be honest and tell him myself, before you ... I mean before Miss Effie Belle did, or somebody else."

  "You called him out of bed? He don't like—"

  "I just went to his door. It was open—for the breeze, you know. I stood there holding my lamp and called, 'Mr. Blakeslee?' He said, 'What you want? What's wrong?' So I told him how Mr. McAllister had barged in and was kissing me before I knew what was happening—and that Miss Effie Belle probably saw it. I said I'd pack up and leave as soon as it got light."

  I kicked my bare foot at a bunch of tall grass. I had a glimmer of something I didn't like. Sounding bolder than I felt, I said, "Why'd you offer to leave, Miss Love? I thought you were hopin' if you were honest about it, he'd let you stay."

  "Well, yes, Will." A wry little smile lit her face. "But I guess I thought I should at least offer to leave."

  "Did you cry, ma'am?"

  I think she sensed what I was driving at. Hesitating, she admitted she cried a little.

  "What'd Grandpa say?"

  "Nothing, for a minute. Then he told me to go to bed. 'Mr. McAllister's on the train to Texas, Miss Love, so that's the end of it. Effie Belle or no Effie Belle.' Then he raised up on his elbow and said, 'Now if'n you want to see me mad, Miss Love, jest let me git up for breakfast and you ain't made me no yeast bread like I ast you to.'"

  We both laughed, ambling on towards the house. She said, "Tell the truth, I had forgotten all about making that bread. I was ... well, it had been an awful day, as you know, Will, and I was worn out. But I went to the kitchen and got at it."

  "In the middle of the night?"

  "Yes. The oven was still warm from supper, so I mixed the dough and set it in there to rise. About three o'clock I got up to knead it, and at five I fired up the stove. I had the bread baked and toast ready when Mr. Blakeslee came in to breakfast."

  I had to admire any lady that anxious to please.

  Well, in all of that talking, Miss Love hadn't mentioned me gossiping about her on the camping trip, or her being taken off of the Methodist piano stool, or how she told off Pink Predmore's mama down at the store. She hadn't spoken Aunt Loma's name, much less Saint Cecilia's. But she'd told me the one thing I needed to hear if I was to keep coming up here: that Grandpa knew about her kissing Mr. McAllister. As long as I was wondering whether he knew or didn't, I'd of been worrying about what he might do to Miss Love when and if he found out, and how she would act toward me if she thought I was the one had told him.

  On the back porch, she picked up the tin dipper that floated in the well bucket and started to drink.

  "Here, I'll draw you some fresh, Miss Love," I said, emptying the bucket into the wash pan. With the well right up by the porch, I only had to lean over to let the bucket down. When I heard it splash, I turned the crank to draw it up and, feeling that I was being what Aunt Loma called gallant, offered Miss Love the first cool drink.

  "Why, thank you, Will." She drank from the dipper, then poured her leavings on a pot of begonias. "And thank you for being my friend."

  Gosh, Miss Love sure knew how to make a boy feel like a man. Dipping up some water, I was careful to put my mouth where hers had been. I watched her over the rim of tin.

  She hesitated as if trying to think of something to say, then asked, "Tell me, Will, uh, don't you think your mother will go on to New York City after all?"

  "No'm. She ain't go'n go," I said as we left the porch and entered the cool hall. "She planned big on it all spring, you know. But not since Granny died."

  "Are you very sure she won't change her mind? It would do her good to get away from here." Miss Love really cared about Mama, I could tell.

  "Yes'm, I'm certain sure. Papa keeps tryin' to talk her into it, but she won't change her mind. She says it wouldn't be fittin'. Uh, I expect you been plenty times, ain't you, Miss Love? New York ain't all that far from Baltimore."

  "I went just once. When I was a little girl." She smiled kind of wistful.

  I reckon Miss Love was pure starved for company, because when we got to the front veranda, she sat down in the swing, patted the cushion beside her, and said come sit a while. "You went to New York with your daddy one time, didn't you, Will?"

  "Yes'm, when I was seven, and I sure was glad to get back home. I'd heard about damnyankees all my life, and up there I was in a city just full of'm."

  Miss Love really laughed.

  "I been on lots of other trips with Papa," I bragged. "When I was ten, he took me to Atlanta just to ride a new street-car line to College Park and back. Another time we went to Atlanta to hear President Roosevelt. The speaking was in a place called Piedmont Park. Afterwards we took a street car to Davison-Paxon-Stokes Company, and then went to M. Rich and Brothers. You ever been in that store, Miss Love?"

  "Oh, yes. They have very fashionable clothes."

  "Yes'm. Well, while we stood outside lookin' at their show window, a man dressed up in a Sunday suit came out and greeted us. Then he opened the door wide, bowed to Papa with a big flourish, and said, 'Enter, sir! The store is yours!' It was Mr. Rich himself. Later I ast Papa why didn't he and Grandpa dress nice like that to go to work, and do like that. Bow, I mean, and open the door and say, 'Enter, sir, the store is yours.' Papa said, 'Cause if we did, Cold Sassy would think we were off in the head.'"

  Miss Love was very entertained. "I guess you've been lots of places with your grandpa, too," she said, rubbing a chain link on the swing with her finger.

  "No'm. He took me and Mary Toy to Maysville one time in the buggy to visit Aunt Fody, his youngest sister. The year he went to the Homer Celebration he took me, and since we were already halfway to Cornelia, we went on to see Aunt Clyde, his oldest sister. But Grandpa don't really like to go places. Last time he went to Atlanta was to General John B. Gordon's funeral, and that was two or three years ago. General Gordon was a Confederate general, you know."

  "Well, your grandfather is so full of fun, I expect he has a grand time when he goes to New York for the store."

  "I don't know'm. He ain't been since before you moved here. He feels about it like me; they got too many Yankees in New York. He said one time he'd just soon go to the bad place. That's why Papa's always the one goes on the buyin' trips."

  I didn't find out till next morning that Miss Love wasn't just passing the time of day talking about New York City. She'd had an idea. An idea that just about tore our family to pieces.

  31

  WITH NO INKLING of what was to come, I left there on top of the world. I just had to do something, for gosh sake. So I decided to go apologize to Aunt Loma like Grandpa told me to. Not that I was regretting those titty stories. I was just in the mood to enjoy hearing Aunt Loma fuss and fume.

  Every now and again she didn't react like I thought she would—for instance, that time she got Papa to make me paint her dining room. After I finished, I caught about ten of her cats, dipped their feet in the can of gold paint, and chased them around in the empty room. Boy howdy, the floor in there looked like a dern leopard skin! I expected Aunt Loma would be furious, but she said what a darlin' idea. Thought I'd done it to please her.

  Well, she wouldn't be clapping her hands about the psssssssssssst and pig stories, which by now would be coming at her from every direction. She'd like folks saying what a bad boy I was, and how dirty-mouthed, but it would get her goat when they asked, "Loma, did you really nurse a pig?"

  Her not fussing at me yesterday at Sunday dinner didn't mean she hadn't heard. She was just too busy low-rating Miss Love to fool with me. And last night she was too upset over not getting the piano.

  And now as I came up on her back porch, Aunt Loma was the maddest white woman you ever saw. Her face was red. Her blue eyes spat fire. Her fists were clenched and her voice harsh. "I'm so mad I could die, W
ill!" That was her greeting. Boy howdy, I thought. But it wasn't me she was mad at. She said, "Come look what Camp's done now!"

  Jerking up Campbell Junior from the kitchen floor, where he sat sucking a greasy chicken bone, Aunt Loma marched ahead of me to the parlor and pointed at the mantelpiece, gleaming with a new coat of hard shiny white enamel paint. "Just look!" she exploded.

  "What's wrong, Aunt Loma? I think it's a big improvement."

  "Go look. You'll see."

  I looked and I saw. Without wiping off the mantelpiece at all, Uncle Camp had painted around a tin matchbox and right over a cockroach, a pencil stub, and a shirt button.

  Trying not to laugh, I said, "Why didn't you make him get it up before the paint dried? Ain't nothin' harder than enamel paint."

  "I only just noticed it, that's why."

  "It's go'n be a job to scrape it off."

  "I don't want it scraped off. I want Camp to be reminded how dumb he is every time he comes in this parlor. Will, I cain't bear to think I'm married to somebody that stupid."

  "He ain't that stupid," I said, trying to make her feel better.

  "Then he just don't care, and that's worse."

  "Maybe he did it on purpose."

  "You're crazy. He wouldn't have the nerve."

  "Maybe he ain't got any nerve when you get to fussin' at him, Aunt Loma. But that don't mean he couldn't do this on purpose."

  Her face flushed. She knew I was calling her bossy. "You know good'n'well if I didn't keep after him, he wouldn't ever do a blessed thing."

  "Yeah, but that don't mean he likes bein' pushed around. And maybe for once he's showin' it. I feel right proud of him, Aunt Loma. Maybe you ought to be, too."

  "Well, aren't you smart! I guess you got that notion from Miss Love Simpson Blakeslee. I'll thank her to keep her mouth shut, especially to you."

  "Ain't nobody ever said nothin' out loud bout you henpeckin' Uncle Camp, Aunt Loma. It don't take much brains to notice, though. If you treated a colored cook like you do him, she'd quit."

  "Colored folks got more sense than Camp. Lord, Will, I had to show him the roach before he knew what I was mad about."

  I would of laid a bet that when she got on him about it, Camp had looked down at the floor instead of at the mantelpiece. I bet he said, "I'm sorry, Loma Baby. I'm sorry."

  I hated how he was and how she treated him.

  "Grandpa said I had to apologize about those stories I told on you, Aunt Loma. So I'm apologizin'."

  "Pa told you to?"

  "Yeah, he did."

  She looked real pleased. "Well, now! I never thought he'd take up for me against you, Will."

  "He was mad as heck about it, tell you the truth. So I'm sorry. And soon as you finish bawlin' me out, I got to go."

  She set the baby down on a plaited cotton rug by the fireplace and spoke sternly. "All right, I'll bawl you out: How dare you say I nursed a pig!" Then she giggled. "Will, you're awful. You ought to be ashamed. But my land, I haven't enjoyed anything this much since I left LaGrange College. It's almost like playin' the lead in a theatrical. Campbell Junior, come out of the fireplace! Get him, Will. He'll turn black before our eyes if he gets into that chimney sut."

  I picked the fat baby up and swung him around. He squealed with pleasure. "You're your mama's little piggy, ain't you, Campbell Junior?" I held him high above my head and he squealed again. "So part of what I told wasn't no pig tale." Aunt Loma laughed. It was like we were having a party. I put Campbell Junior on my shoulder and rode him around, then tossed him up.

  "Will, I've decided.... Will, are you listenin'? Put the baby down and listen to me."

  "I'm listenin'." I tossed him one more time and put him back on the floor.

  "I've decided you ought to be a writer, Will. Those stories you told on me, they're outlandish, but they'd be so easy to act out. Those and all the other stories you tell. Will, I want you to write plays." She said it as solemn as if she was a queen knighting me with words.

  I couldn't hide how pleased I was. I grinned from ear to ear. Still and all, why couldn't Aunt Loma just be nice and compliment me and let it go at that without saying what I had to be. Long as I could remember, she'd been trying to direct me like I was one of her dad-gum Christmas pageants.

  It gave me some satisfaction to say "But I'm go'n be a farmer. You know that, Aunt Loma, unless you ain't ever listened to me talk. I'm go'n go to the Ag College over at the University. Papa's aimin' to buy Grandpa Tweedy's farm, and I'm go'n farm it."

  "Anybody can be a farmer," she said, flipping away my dream. "We cain't let a talent like yours go to waste, Will, and I want you to start by putting down those stories you made up about me. Do it right away, before you forget them." She blushed a little. "I don't mean I think you could sell'm. They're too—well, most editors would call them vulgar. But they'll do fine for writing practice."

  If I had pos-i-tive-ly decided to be a writer and at that moment had picked up a pencil to get started, I'd of put it down. I just couldn't stand her telling me what to do. "I don't like to write stories," I said stubbornly. "I just like tellin' stories. But ain't nobody go'n make me do either one. Specially not you, Loma Blakeslee Williams."

  Campbell Junior was crawling from her to me and back from me to her, but Aunt Loma didn't even notice him. All of a sudden she stood up and started singing, "Here comes the bride, dog bite her hide." We had sung it like that when we were children. Then she dum-dummed the rest of the wedding march. I didn't guess what she was doing till she made like she was adjusting a veil and mouthed I do and all, and then went psssssssssssst. Her eyes rolled with mock alarm and her hands quickly hid one side of her chest. Then she doubled up laughing. I was laughing, too. Campbell Junior must of thought we were a couple of hyenas.

  "How in the ... world ... did you think up such a ... thing as a ... rubber bust!" She couldn't talk for ha-ha-ing and hee-hee-ing.

  I was shocked that Aunt Loma had come right out and said bust in mixed company, but that just made it funnier. Between guffaws and gasps we moaned and clutched our stomachs. The poor baby sat staring at us, then dropped his chicken bone and commenced squalling. To her credit, Aunt Loma picked him up, sat down in the rocker, and unbuttoned her dress for him. I always watched close when she did that, hoping she'd be careless, but she never was. Like all the other nursing ladies in Cold Sassy, Aunt Loma would turn sideways to her audience or else cover herself with the baby, and also drape a clean diaper over herself.

  I got up to go, but she told me to wait till she could put Campbell Junior down for his nap. She hummed the wedding march while she rocked him, only sometimes she had to press her lips together to keep from laughing out loud. "Is there any such a thing, Will?"

  "As what?"

  "As ... well, you know. If there is, I sure wish I'd heard about it in time for my weddin'!" And we both died laughing again. Except it was quiet laughing, so as not to distract the baby from nursing. In a few minutes she sat him up and he let out a loud belch.

  "I really got to go, Aunt Loma."

  "Oh, you can wait another minute. I got something for you." She laid Campbell Junior down on the rug by the fireplace, a clean diaper under his fat face, and he was asleep by time she came back downstairs, carrying a thick book.

  "I made this before Campbell Junior was born." She flipped open the book, which had cloth-covered cardboard covers and blank pages inside. "I was go'n copy all my poems and plays in it. But as you know I never have a minute to call my own now." Her voice a little hard, she nodded towards the sleeping baby. "So I want you to have it, Will."

  This was the nearest Aunt Loma had come to being nice since I was a little bitty boy, and I liked it, despite I also felt like she was trying to railroad me. When I hesitated, she held the book out to me. "You must write something in it every day." She nodded to cement her words. "Write down the stories you make up. Write poems and plays. Write down things that happen, and surprising things you see or hear about. Listen when people talk, a
nd put their words down just like they speak. If you go'n be a writer, you got to practice, that's all there is to it. My professors preached that to me all the time at LaGrange College." Aunt Loma never missed a chance to mention LaGrange College, where she had studied elocution and expression.

  "Well..." I took the book and flipped through the blank pages, then handed it back. "But I done told you, I ain't go'n be no writer. You be one."

  "Fat chance," she said, bitter. "Camp won't ever be able to afford a cook. Not while he's workin' for Pa. And I cain't write without hep. I know that now. So you just do what I say, Will. Quit arguin'. Here, read this." Opening it to the first page, she forced the book into my hands again. "Look at this."

  At the top of the page, in fancy printing, it said LOMA BLAKESLEE WILLIAMS, HER BOOK. Under that it said PRESENTED TO HOYT WILLIS TWEEDY, JULY 1906. "Do like I say, Will. And when you get famous, don't forget to mention it was your Aunt Loma that pushed you towards your destiny."

  Bossy, same old bossy, I thought. But I was touched. And all of a sudden those empty pages were like the si-rene call I'd heard when I looked up at Blind Tillie Trestle and wanted to see how it was up there. I knew I wouldn't write any dang poetry or plays. But right that minute I got the notion I'd like to keep a journal.

  It's been eight years since Loma gave me that book, and not long ago I read through all I wrote down on its blank pages. That's why I can remember so much that happened to Miss Love and Grandpa, and what went on in the family and the town, and what people said and how they said it, and how I felt when it was happening. Reading my notes in the journal brings it all back.

  I never knew before that Aunt Loma could be fun to be with—that, like Grandpa and me, she preferred three-legged chickens to the usual kind. What really surprised me was finding out I liked her. At least, that day I did. She was Grandpa all over again. She was hardheaded like him, wanted her own way like him, and had a sense of fun to match his. But of course she was mean and vindictive in a way Grandpa wasn't. At least that's what I thought right then.