Cold Sassy Tree

by Olive Ann Burns

  With men crowding around to congratulate him, Grandpa got up on the back seat, raised his hand for silence, and shouted for everybody to follow us down to the store. After the word store, Mr. Goosby took it on himself to hit the big drum—and kept hitting it every time Grandpa finished a sentence. "I want y'all to git a good look at this here artermobile, folks!" — BAM — "See how she works!" — BAM — "I ain't aimin' to have the only Pierce in town for long! I'm a-go'n sell all y'all one!" BAM!

  Seeing the question mark on Papa's face, Grandpa reached down and shook my daddy's hand. "Thet's right, Hoyt! I got the Pierce dealership, and we go'n sell Caddy-lacs, too. Folks, a new day's a-dawnin' for Cold Sassy!" — BAM — "We go'n put ever man in town behind a dang artermobile wheel!" BAM!

  The crowd clapped and whistled like they thought Grandpa was giving motorcars away. He raised his hand again. "Now, let's git on to the store! I got free thread for the ladies and lick-rish and peppermint sticks for all you chi'ren! Will Tweedy, son, start my dang artermobile!"—Drum roll—"Hoyt, start yore'n! Mary Willis? Loma? Y'all set? I'm ready to lead the dang parade!" BAM, BAM, BAM and another drum roll, and the bands struck up "Dixie."

  I was scared to death the Pierce might not start. Turning the switch key, I pulled out the choke as Papa motioned big Loomis to turn the crank. The engine sputtered. He cranked again. The motor flipped over, sputtered, caught! The car shimmied and shook. Grandpa leaned forward and blew the horn, loud and long.

  "Sit down, Grandpa! Here we go!" I yelled, and we were off. With drums beating, horn tooting, Mary Toy squealing, and Papa and them in the Cadillac right behind us, the crowd pushed forward toward Cold Sassy's new day dawnin'.

  Except for me and Grandpa, I don't think a soul cared that Love Simpson wasn't in the party. But I expect a lot of folks noticed.

  ***

  "You see her?" Grandpa asked, standing up to look as we chugged to a stop in front of the store. His eyes scanned the crowd. "I thought Miss Love would aw-ready be here, waitin'."

  "I don't see her, sir," I said.

  Mary Toy caught aholt of his knotted sleeve and tugged at it. "I saw her, sir, after you made your speech. She was goin' towards home. Why didn't Miss Love want to ride with us, Grandpa?"

  He didn't answer.

  In the store a few minutes later, Aunt Loma said to me, real smug, "I reckon Pa wouldn't let Love horn in on his big day."

  "It wasn't like that," I said. "Miss Love, she—she's sick this mornin'."

  "Well, good for her!" said Aunt Loma, pleased. "That's poetic justice, considerin'."

  I thought Miss Love would come in after while, but she didn't. And nobody seemed to mind she wasn't there, especially not Mama and Aunt Loma, who got busy giving out thread samples and candy and had a swell time.

  The store did a big trade in everything but cars that day. Lots of folks said they'd sure like to own one, but it was after five o'clock before anybody actually talked business. The man who did was Mr. Sheffield, president of the mill. He rode up on his white Thoroughbred.

  Those crowded around the two cars parted for Mr. Sheffield as he kicked his horse up to the Pierce. Folks white and colored watched, silent and curious, as the rich man dismounted, leaned in, examined the seats and the steering wheel, ran his hand over the horn, then tied up his horse and went in the store. I saw him motion to Grandpa.

  Five minutes later he came out with my daddy for a ride in the Cadillac. Then I took him out in the Pierce, with Grandpa in the back seat, shouting over the engine's putter that artermobiles is a dang marvel.

  As Mr. Sheffield got back on his horse, he said he thought he'd rather have a Hanson touring car.

  We all felt let down.

  Just before dark, Grandpa told me to drive his car home and park it in the barn. Coming out to watch me crank up, he slapped his hand on the shimmying hood. "Be up home fore sunup, Will Tweedy!" he yelled. "You go'n learn me and her how to drive this here thang!"

  "Tomorrow, sir? Tomorrow's Sunday!"

  "Thet's right. Better tell Loomis to milk for you, son, cause we got to git a early start or we go'n run up on all them buggies and wagons comin' in for preachin'."

  The sky was barely getting light and the birds just beginning to wake up and sing when I tiptoed downstairs in my Sunday suit and my new linen duster. Queenie hadn't even gotten there yet. After washing down a cold biscuit with some sweetmilk, I put on my driving cap and goggles and had just sneaked out the back door when Papa leaned out of his bedroom window upstairs. "Will?" he called softly.

  Seen through my driving goggles, he looked dim in the half-light. "Sir?"

  "Watch the time and don't be late gettin' back for Sunday school. You hear?"

  "Yessir."

  I ran all the way up to Grandpa's house.

  Thirty minutes later we were on the Jefferson road, and it could of been Christmas, we were so excited.

  There was no sign of leftover bad feelings between Grandpa and Miss Love. He had his new clothes on under his duster. Miss Love's gray fall suit barely showed under hers, and she wore the dust veil over her red hat. She said we looked like a fashion advertisement in the newspaper. But as the sun rose and the mist burned off, we really warmed up in our fashionable get-ups.

  Grandpa was sitting up front with me to watch what I did. "Maybe we don't need the dang dusters!" he yelled, looking back at Miss Love.

  Her answer was lost in the wind.

  "What you say?" he yelled.

  "I said somebody might see us!" she shouted, leaning forward. "The man said part of selling cars is looking the part! Wearing the uniform! Remember?"

  When we got to a long stretch of newly graded road, I shut off the engine, and the sudden silence sounded like noise. "Sit forward so you can see, Miss Love," I said, feeling important. "I'm go'n show y'all where the foot brake is, and the hand brake and gas feed and switch key." When I thought they understood it all, I got out to walk around the car and Grandpa moved over to the right side behind the wheel. Stepping onto the running board and seating myself, I said, "Now, sir you got to get all these dohickies set right or else she ain't go'n start up."

  I knew he didn't have the faintest notion why he was doing any of it, but he said, real impatient, "You ain't got to tell me but once't, Will Tweedy. What's next?"

  "Next you got to give the crank a few hard turns."

  "You go do thet for me."

  "Sir, you need the practice. Crankin' up is part of drivin'."

  Miss Love had been watching closely, her arms on the back of the driver's seat. As Grandpa stepped out, she said, "You forgot something, Mr. Blakeslee."

  "I ain't forgot nothin'." He walked toward the front of the automobile.

  "Yessir, you did, Grandpa," said I. "You didn't turn on the ignition."

  "Gosh a'mighty, son, what's the ignition? You ain't mentioned thet'n."

  "Yes, he did, sir," said Miss Love. "The ignition is what you turn on with the switch key."

  "Well, doggit, whyn't you say so? Miss Love, reach over and turn the dang key."

  She did. But as Grandpa bent to crank up the engine, she reached forward again and, with a chessy-cat grin at me, turned the switch back off! Naturally nothing happened when Grandpa cranked. Disgusted, he straightened up and bit off a plug of tobacco. "Hit must be outa gas-lene, Will Tweedy."

  "Cain't be," said I, winking at Miss Love. "Come see if you set everything right, Grandpa." As he started toward us, head down in disgust, Miss Love quick reached forward and turned the key on. Grandpa leaned in, studied the board a minute, then said, "Will Tweedy? Everthang you told me to do, I done done. You see anythang I missed?"

  "No, sir. I reckon you just ain't crankin' hard enough, Grandpa."

  Soon as he turned his back, Miss Love shut off the switch again. We like to died, holding in laughter. Grandpa repeated his quick jerks of the crank, all for nothing. After he'd wore himself out up there, he kicked one of the front tires and said, "Giddy-up, you dang fool!"

  Mi
ss Love was laughing out loud now.

  "Don't make fun a-me, woman!" yelled Grandpa. "Let's see you come have a try at it. You crank and I'll laugh."

  As Miss Love sashayed to the front of the sedan, she looked back and winked at me, and I grinned and turned on the ignition. With one quick turn she had the engine putt-putting loud and pretty as you please. "It just needed a woman's touch!" she yelled sweetly. Grandpa swatted her behind as she went back to get in.

  "I'm go'n shut it off now, Grandpa," I yelled. "You need to practice settin' all the dohickies, and I ain't sure you know how to crank it up yet. You get a knack for that by doin' it."

  Glaring at me, Grandpa stalked back to the car, reached in, turned on the switch, pulled out the choke, spat, and went back to the front of the engine. Miss Love waited till he bent down to crank and then turned the key off again.

  Crank, crank, silence. Crank, crank, cuss.

  "Gosh a'mighty dang!" He raised up. "I never did like to do anythang I ain't done before!" Jerking off his linen duster and his cap and goggles, he threw them on the hood of the car and said he was a-go'n crank thet dang Pierce if'n it took all day. "Wisht I hadn't never heard the word artermobile."

  The harder he cranked, the harder we laughed. Miss Love didn't see him coming towards us till he was nearly to the driver's seat. He caught her reaching for the switch key.

  "I seen you! I seen what you done!" Grandpa shook his fist in her face and said, "Woman, if I ketch you doin' sech as thet again, you go'n walk home!"

  I swear I don't know how she had the nerve, but she laughed in his face.

  He walked backwards to the front of the auto, watching her, and then made her get out. This time when he cranked, the motor roared. "Now thet's more like!" yelled Grandpa. With a satisfied grin, he flung his duster and goggles into the back seat, put on his cap at a jaunty angle, climbed in, and yelled over the racket, "Now then, I'm a'go'n drive this son-of-a-gun. How fast will she go, Will Tweedy? How do I start off? What do I do after we git to goin'?"

  "Release the hand brake first, Grandpa!" I yelled over the engine noise. "Now, sir, feed a little gas.... Not much. Just a little bit till you get the hang of it. Go slow now!...Grandpa, don't wiggle the steerin' wheel so much!"

  "Thet's what you done, son!"

  "Only enough to keep it goin' straight."

  "Thet don't make no sense a-tall."

  We crawled along for a mile or two, Grandpa having the time of his life. Then we reached the crest of a hill—and the road plunged down on the other side like a roller coaster! I saw Grandpa swallow his tobacco chew as we picked up speed. "What do I do, son?" he yelled. "Whoa, doggit, whoa!" He tried to hold the steering wheel with his arm stub while turning off the switch key and moving every lever his hand could find. "Will Tweedy, stop the dang thang!"

  "The brake! Use the brake, Grandpa!"

  Faster and faster we went, Miss Love screaming and me yelling for the brake. At the foot of the hill, the road curved. With a wild turn of the steering wheel, Grandpa landed us in a shallow ditch.

  Nobody was hurt, but it sure knocked the pride out of us, and it knocked the air out of the right front tire. It took me and Grandpa both to push the car onto the road, after which we just stood there looking at it. A crow called from a cornfield nearby. A fly buzzed around my ear. "We ought to brought Loomis along," I said, taking off the hot duster and my cap. "He could of just picked the car up and set it back on the road."

  "If I'd a-had two good hands," said Grandpa, fuming, "I could a-kept it from happenin'."

  I couldn't bring myself to remind Grandpa that he had two good feet, one of which should of found the brake.

  While I patched the inner tube, Miss Love leaned against the hood of the car, looking like she might faint. Grandpa paced up and down scratching his head. Neither one watched what I was doing or tried to help me. Well, I'd teach them about inner tubes another day.

  When I had the tire back on, I wiped my hands on a rag from the toolbox and said, "Now, Grandpa, you can crank her up again."

  "Thet was my first and last time," he said, fishing in his pants pocket for his plug tobacco. "A artermobile ain't nothin' but a dang roller coaster. A mule's at least got sense of its own."

  "Aw, Grandpa, come on." I tried to pull him toward the car. "It ain't hard, sir. You can learn."

  "I'm shore I can, but I ain't a-goin' to. Anyhow, it's Miss Love's turn."

  I motioned her towards the driver's seat, but she opened the back door and climbed in. "I think," she said in a weak voice, "that I'll wait my turn till later."

  "Yes'm," I said, relieved. "It seems like maybe a good idea."

  It looked like Miss Love was going to be a good driver. She wanted to practice without Grandpa in the car. The first time I took her out in the country, she just about sat on the brake and didn't go but two miles an hour, but she looked real stylish with her dust veil draped over Grandpa's driving cap and goggles, and she reeked of perfume. She said she always wore lots of perfume when she was nervous.

  Two days later she speeded up considerable, and got brave enough to drive all the way home. We were in front of her house in no time, but instead of turning in, she kept right on going. "I want to drive to the store!" she yelled over the putt-putt. She was real excited. "I've been telling Mr. Blakeslee how easy driving is! I want him to see!"

  It's just a pity that a bee got under Miss Love's dust veil about time she crept the car around the Confederate monument. I reckon it was the perfume did it. Probably the bee thought he'd found a flower. Then while Miss Love was slapping at him under her veil, the bee fell down the front of her dress! Got to crawling around on her bosom, I reckon, because she commenced screaming and hitting her chest, and the car went clean out of control! I grabbed for the wheel as Miss Love took her hands and feet off of everything and covered her eyes.

  People screamed and ran, horses and mules screeched and rared. The Pierce bounced onto the curb of the monument, grazing the marble where it says our noble dead, then ambled across the street and bumped to a stop against the sycamore tree near the cast-iron watering trough in front of Grandpa's store. Miss Love didn't even notice when I cut off the ignition. She was still fighting the bee. As Grandpa and my daddy rushed out, followed by a bunch of customers, Miss Love screamed. "He bit me! He bit me! Somebody help! Get him out of here!"

  "Will Tweedy, be-have yoreself!" yelled Grandpa as Miss Love leaped out of the car and ran in the store.

  "I ain't done nothin', sir! She's got a bee down her dress!"

  We rushed into the store. Uncle Lige motioned towards the storage room. "She run in thar!" Grandpa found her behind a stack of ninety-five-pound sacks of cow feed. Her veil and linen duster were on the floor beside the bee, which she had stomped to death, and Miss Love was buttoning her shirtwaist. Turning her back to us, she sobbed. "I g-got stung, Mr. Blakeslee."

  He looked helpless, like he didn't know what to do, then commenced patting her shoulder. "Hit's all right, Miss Love," he whispered. "Hit's all right."

  I couldn't help thinking that though Miss Love could sass Mr. McAllister back to Texas and glare down a town full of folks sitting in judgment on her, with a bee in her bosom she was helpless as any lady I knew.

  Finally she turned and faced Grandpa. Her cheeks were wet and she clutched her swelling breast with one hand, but she had control of her voice. "Mr. Blakeslee," she announced, "I'll not drive that or any car again. Ever."

  "Now, Miss Love—"

  "Sir, I mean it."

  I couldn't hardly stand to see her give up. "You'll learn, Miss Love. It ain't like you go'n get a bee down you every time you drive."

  She ignored that. "I guess we're alike, Mr. Blakeslee. I don't trust machinery. I don't understand how it works. I can talk to a horse and calm him down, but I can't talk to that!" She pointed in the general direction of the sycamore tree. "Oh, Mr. Blakeslee, I wanted a car so bad!" She started crying again. "How can we ever g-go m-motoring now!"

  Grandpa
, real agitated, looked over at me, where I stood leaning against a big wooden box. "Son," he said, "it 'pears to me like if thet dang Pierce ever sees the road agin, it's a-go'n have to be you at the wheel."

  40

  ANY MULE HEAD could see that the automobiles wouldn't last long parked in front of the store—children jumping on the seats, men and big boys monkeying with the wires and knobs trying to see which did what. Papa was real upset about it. I finally told Grandpa we ought to make room for the cars in the buggy-and-wagon shed behind the store, but he dismissed the idea with a backward flip of his hand. "I ain't a-go'n do thet. Two elephants tied out yonder wouldn't draw customers to the store as good as them artermobiles."

  That was the Lord's truth. Cold Sassy never had been a whirlpool of excitement. If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies could make that last a week as something to talk about. We had our share of cotton-gin fires, epidemics, storms, and lawsuits, of course, but the only diversion we could count on was protracted meetings, recitals, ice cream socials, fish fries, and lectures—a doctor talking up his cure for cancer, an old man telling how he tracked a mammoth moose for nineteen days back in 1856, a young fellow talking about "Across Asia on a Bicycle." It's easy to see why not even the scarlet of the Cold Sassy tree in autumn could equal our big shiny automobiles as something to rave about, especially with the open invite to come sit in them and take a ride.

  By the end of the week, though, even Grandpa was worried. "I reckon maybe you better move'm on to the back, Will Tweedy," he said. He was let down about it, I could tell, but he made sure nobody forgot the cars were back there. Any time he had an audience of customers, Grandpa would say what a dang marvel a artermobile is, and then light in talking about car-owners taking all-day trips together, sending delegations to the Georgia legislature to talk up better roads, and having auto races "uphill, downhill, cross-country, and hind-part-before."