Cold Sassy Tree

by Olive Ann Burns

  Sometimes she would lay her head on the mattress and stretch out her hand just to touch him. I know she prayed; I could see her lips move. Every few minutes she'd feel of his forehead or his arm. At some point she murmured, "I'm dying to wake him up, but I don't dare. This sleep could make all the difference.... Will, honey, won't he be thrilled if it's a boy? I just know it will be a boy."

  I didn't tell her, but Mama used to say Granny was always sure it would be a boy.

  She got up to pace the room. "Will, what if the fever goes way up again before he wakes?"

  At that moment Grandpa went to coughing. His eyes opened wide as he gasped for breath. Miss Love looked at the sputum he spat into a rag. "It's so bloody, Will," she whispered.

  When the coughing subsided, Grandpa started to drift away again, but she called him back. "Rucker, look at me!"

  He opened his eyes. "You ... so beautiful," he mumbled.

  "How do you feel, dear?" She spoke softly.

  "Well, I'm ... takin' it leisurely...." He pulled at his whiskers.

  She leaned over the bed to get her face close to his. "I've got something wonderful to tell you, Rucker. Can you hear me, dear?"

  Gazing at her, his face softened. He put his hand on her hair, and something like a weak grin passed over his face. "I'm Rucker.... Pleased to ... meet you, Love.... Oh, Love, I'm so sick. I jest cain't ... git ... enough ... air...."

  "You're going to get well, Rucker. I'll make you get well! Don't go back to sleep yet. Please. I've got to tell you what I have for your birthday. The most wonderful thing has happened, Rucker...."

  It's to my credit that I left the room. I didn't stand out there in the hall and listen, either. I went to the kitchen and drank some milk, then mixed some meal and water for Granny's chickens and went out to dump it in their pan. They ran up to me, clucking and shoving, and then here came old T.R. Sensing my joy, he jumped up on me and licked my face, and I hugged him good, pulling his ears and scratching his belly.

  Church bells were beginning to ring all over town. I wondered would Papa attend preachin', now that Loma would of told them that Grandpa was better.

  I thought I ought to go back in and see if he was still awake. I couldn't wait to hear what he'd say about the baby. I went in the house, tiptoed up the hall.

  It looked like he was sleeping again, and Miss Love, too. She had stretched out on the bed beside him, her hand on his. The house was quiet and peaceful at last, and I was wore out.

  I thought I'd just go lay down on the daybed a few minutes....

  I don't know how long I slept. Miss Love's scream woke me up.

  Grandpa was dead.

  50

  I RAN in there. Miss Love, still on the bed, was raised up on one arm, staring at him. I waited for her to say something, but she just kept staring.

  I heard somebody come in the front hall. "Miss Love? Mary Willis?" It was Miss Effie Belle.

  "Oh, God help me!" whispered Miss Love. "Keep her talking out there, Will. I've got to ... oh, God, just a minute more."

  Miss Effie Belle had heard the scream as she was coming in from church. Her pink lip wart quivering, she said, "Rucker's passed on, ain't he, Will?"

  "Yes'm."

  "Well, God knows best." Her eyes misting, she touched my face with her wizened hand. "You go'n take it hardest, Will. You was his favorite in all the world."

  I thought I ought to say that Miss Love was his favorite now, but what was the use?

  "One time when your granddaddy was a baby, I helt him in my lap. Who'd a-thought I'd outlive him!" she said, trying hard to keep aholt of herself. "And we been next-door neighbors for I don't know how long. Lord, why couldn't it of been Bubba? I'm so tired, and Bubba just cain't seem to die." She sighed and patted my shoulder. "I'd like to go in and see him, Will."

  At that moment we heard the bedroom door close, and Miss Love came up the hall. She looked like stone. Her eyes were dark-circled and her skin pale. There was no expression at all on her face as she said, "Will, you'd better hurry home and tell your family. They'll have to call Dr. Slaughter."

  "Yes'm. I was just fixin' to go. Here's Miss Effie Belle to see you."

  The wizened hand reached out to pat Miss Love's arm. "I'll be more'n glad to stay with you till Mary Willis and them git here."

  "You're very kind. But I ... I'd like to be alone right now. I hope you understand?"

  Granny's clock chimed half-past noon as I followed Miss Effie Belle out of Grandpa's house and ran home.

  Papa had attended morning preachin', but he was already back home when I rushed in.

  Dead must of been written all over my face, because I didn't have to say a word except how and when.

  "Run clean up and put on your suit, Will," said Papa. "Folks go'n be comin' in all day. Out of respect for your granddaddy you ought to look presentable. But make haste."

  As the family hurried out to the car, Papa said we had to go by the store.

  "Are you crazy, Hoyt?" asked Mama. She had cried all the time she was getting dressed, and looked it.

  "There's a sealed letter in the safe," he said, taking the driver's seat. "Your daddy told me about it a month or more ago. Said if anything happened to him, I was to get the letter out and read it to the fam'ly." He motioned me to turn the crank. The engine sputtered but didn't catch.

  "Cain't it wait, Brother Hoyt?" Loma screeched. "I want to see Pa!"

  "No, it cain't wait. If you want to know exactly how your daddy put it, he said, 'Git thet letter fore my body's cold, and don't let nobody move me till it's read.'"

  Miss Love came out of the room where Grandpa was and walked slowly up the hall to greet us. She hadn't fixed herself up or anything while I was gone. Smelling a little of turpentine, she was still in the soiled green print dress she'd worn all yesterday and all last night and all this morning. She hugged everybody, the way folks do when they don't know what to say, but she did it as if there was nothing to be said.

  Mama whispered, "Can we see him?"

  "Certainly. Of course," said Miss Love. Leading the way, she said Dr. Slaughter had already come and gone. "He said to convey his condolences, and tell you he was sorry not to stay. Miss Herma is having a bad labor."

  I couldn't believe the change in Grandpa! He was turned on his back, his head on a single pillow, his right arm outside the fresh clean sheet that had been spread over him and the bed. His face was shaved, the mustache trimmed to a neat pencil line again, the hair combed and slicked down. Miss Love must of used some of her freckle-cover cream to fade the bruises and lighten the blackness around his eyes.

  "Don't he look nat'ral," Mama whispered.

  My throat swelled till I could hardly get my breath. To me he looked spiffy, and I just wanted so bad to tell him.

  I saw that Papa, holding Campbell Junior, was having just as hard a time as I was. Whereas I was grieving for my grandpa who had died, Papa was mourning for the man who had given him his chance in life. I don't know why, but right then it finally dawned on me that Papa had wanted to please Grandpa out of respect and gratitude, not from kowtowing. I watched as he tried not to cry. All of a sudden, still carrying the baby, he left the room.

  Aunt Loma, Mary Toy, and Mama stood around the bed, crying. Miss Love stood there dry-eyed, looking down on the father of her unborn child.

  I found Papa in the parlor. He had lifted Campbell Junior up to the window so he could watch a hen leading her baby chicks towards the front yard. "See the biddies?" asked Papa, and little Camp jumped with delight.

  "What do we do now, sir?" I asked. "Call Mr. Birdsong?"

  "Not yet, son." He sighed deep. "I have to read that letter first. I reckon we better go back in there and start."

  For the reading, Miss Love sat down in the rocking chair, pulled as close to Grandpa as she could get it. Papa had handed over the baby to Aunt Loma. She stood jiggling him in her arms to keep him quiet. Mama was holding Mary Toy's hand, but my little sister begged, "Will, stay by me," and I put my a
rm around her, held her close. Papa walked around to Granny's side of the bed and tore open the envelope.

  "Mr. Blakeslee didn't tell me what's in this," he began. "He just said if anything happened to him I was to get the letter out of the safe and read it to y'all right away." He looked over at the widow. "Are you all right, Miss Love? You rather go in the parlor?"

  "No, Mr. Hoyt. Please read it." She placed her hand on Grandpa's shoulder.

  The letter was in his big sprawling hand on a long ruled sheet torn out of the store's ledger book. I copied it later, word for word like Grandpa had it.

  "To my dearly beloved wife Love Simpson Blakeslee, to my beloved daughters Mary Willis Blakeslee Tweedy and Loma Blakeslee Williams, to my beloved son-in-law Hoyt Tweedy, who is like a son to me"—Papa had to wait a minute before he could go on—"to my grandsons Hoyt Willis Tweedy and Campbell Williams Junior, and to my granddaughter Mary Toy Tweedy:

  "This is about the disposal of my earthly remains.

  "Please recollect the funeral I gave Miss Mattie Lou. I tried to make it a nice thank-you to her for living. Likewise I gave Camp a nice funeral. I believe God means us to stand up to suffering, not end it with a bullet. A man killing himself aint nothing I can understand. But I can forgive it. Anyhow, I wanted Camp's funeral to say 'Judge not that ye be not judged.'"

  I could hear Aunt Loma snuffling.

  "Now I want my burying to remind folks that death aint always awful. God invented death. Its in God's plan for it to happen. So when my time comes I dont want no trip to Birdsong's Emporium or any other. Dressing somebody up to look alive don't make it so."

  My daddy paused. I could tell he was reading ahead to himself, because his face flushed all of a sudden and he had to take a deep breath before he could go on.

  "I dont want no casket. Its a waste of money. What I would really like is to be wrapped in two or three feed sacks and laid right in the ground. But that would bother you all, so use the pine box upstairs at the store that Miss Mattie Lou's coffin come in. I been saving it. And tho I just as soon be planted in the vegetable patch as anywhere, I dont think anybody would ever eat what growed there, after. Anyhow, take me right from home to the cemetery.

  "Aint no use paying Birdsong for that hearse. Get Loomis to use his wagon. Specially if it is hot weather, my advisement is dont waste no time."

  Mama, scandalized, had both hands up to her mouth. Mary Toy had turned white as a sheet. I held her tight. Aunt Loma seemed excited, like when watching a spooky stage play. I felt excited myself. I wondered was this Grandpa's idea of a practical joke or was it a sermon. Maybe after he made his point, he'd put a postscript saying that when he was dead it really wouldn't matter to him what kind of funeral he had. But I doubted it.

  Miss Love? She kept her eyes on Grandpa, lying there so unnatural quiet, so unnatural still.

  Papa read on. "I want Loomis and them to dig my grave right next to Miss Mattie Lou. I dont want no other preacher there but him, but don't let him give a sermon. It would go on for hours. Just let him pray for God to comfort my family.

  "I would like Will Tweedy to read some Bible verses, and I want you all to sing 'Blessed Be the Tie That Binds.' Also I want Hoyt to read some verses I am going to copy on another sheet and put in with this letter. The title is 'Be Still, My Soul.' I want Miss Love to know that the line in the poem about 'Love's purest joys restored' means I want her to try to find a way to be happy after I am gone. I expect her to outlive me by some years, and I dont want her to live drab. I want folks to say there goes Rucker Blakeslees happy, good-looking, piana-playing widder. I dont want them to say she sure has gone downhill since he passed."

  All eyes turned on Miss Love, but she sat like stone.

  Papa read on. "I dont want nobody at the burial except you all and them at the store that want to come. Dont put Not Dead But Sleeping on my stone. Write it Dead, Not Sleeping. Being dead under six foot of dirt wont bother me a-tall, but I hate for it to sound like I been buried alive.

  "Now then, the funeral party. In case you all aint noticed, the first three letters of the word funeral spells fun. So a week or two after I die, you all have dinner on the grounds at one of the churches, or if they aint in favor, have it at the ball park. I dont care which. I think a Wednesday at one o'clock would be fine since the stores close anyhow. I hope everybody in Cold Sassy will come, white and colored. Have a happy get-together with kinfolks and old friends. Tell funny stories about me and such.

  "I would like for you all to ask the town band and the Negro band to come play parade music and also tunes like 'Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-de-Ay' and lively hymns like 'When They Ring Them Golden Bells.' Get everybody to sing out on Don't you hear the bells now ringing, Don't you hear the angels singing? Tis the glory hallelujah Jubilee-ee-ee. And so on.

  "Let it be known ahead that we going to have favors. That will bring out the crowd. But dont buy nothing that cost much. Unless its in the cold wintertime, lets set up apple bobbing and dunking booths for the children. Maybe have a shooting gallery for the men. And lets have a hog-calling contest and a crowing contest, funny things that will make folks laugh. See can you get some little colored boys to do buck-and-wing dancing. Maybe we can have a backwards automobile race, and race bicycles backwards too. Oh, it's going to be a fine fancy day!

  "Now you all can cry and wear black at my burying if you want to, but I dont want nobody at the funeral party to wear black or cry either one. Dont go if you cant be pleasant. If you do go, dress up and act happy. You can cry later.

  "Anybody who dont foller my wishes as written here is out of my will. I do not wish my will to be read till after the funeral party.

  "Well, thats all I can think of. I hope it will be a long time between this writing and when Hoyt has to read it. I want all of you to always remember what my family meant to me and how blessed I was to have two such fine wives. I think they was both dang marvels. Enoch Rucker Blakeslee."

  The paper was signed, dated, sealed, and witnessed.

  There was no choice but to hurry with the burying, despite folks were already bringing in food and sad faces. Loomis got his two oldest sons to go dig the grave. Then, while Cold Sassy gathered on the front veranda and in the parlor, we gathered in there around the deathbed with the door closed, watching as Loomis, weeping, lifted Grandpa and gently laid him in the coffin box. Miss Love had fixed a sort of padding out of clean feed sacks printed in bright red and white checks. It liked to killed Mama, those feed sacks, but Miss Love acted like they were the usual thing for a coffin liner.

  After my daddy said a prayer, she draped two more of the checked feed sacks over his body and then, hesitating only a moment, covered his face. Loomis nailed the box shut, and he and Papa and I toted Grandpa out the back door to the wagon.

  It sure would of tickled him to see all the neighbors on his front porch staring with their mouths open as Loomis drove the mule team towards the street.

  Miss Love rode in the wagon with Grandpa. Besides lots of perfume, she had on the black dress she wore to church that time Cold Sassy criticized her for acting like she was in mourning for Granny. As expressionless as the time she was a store mannequin, she sat in the wagon on a sawed-off chair, bracing herself with one hand on the driver's plank and the other on the coffin box.

  Behind the wagon came the two cars, me driving the Pierce, Papa the Cadillac, and all of us looking straight ahead. It's no credit to me or Aunt Loma that we were enjoying our roles in this melodrama. Mama and Papa sure didn't feel that way. They were ashamed. But if Miss Love was feeling anything like shame, she didn't show it.

  What Grandpa would of really enjoyed, haw, was the sight of Mr. Birdsong reining in the black horses pulling his ambulance-hearse just as our procession turned into the street!

  Cudn Hope, Uncle Lige, and Hosie were waiting for us at the cemetery gates. I could tell that Hosie had been crying.

  It was awful, the burying. Such a pitiful little band of mourners, so bumbling without Mr. Birdsong or anyb
ody else to tell us what to do.

  There hadn't been time to think or feel much of anything except disbelief while we were making all the arrangements. Now that we were actually here in the cemetery, we felt shocked and helpless.

  Grandpa had only considered what he wanted when he wrote all those instructions; he didn't give a thought to what it would be like for us to gather around a gaping hole before we'd hardly realized he was dead, before we'd hardly even got started on the grieving.

  And what were we supposed to do? How was the service supposed to start?

  I could tell the spirit was on Loomis to help us out, but he knew white folks' funerals aren't like colored funerals. He was scared we might not like him taking over.

  As Papa put one arm around Mama and the other around Mary Toy, Miss Love's composure crumbled and she went to crying. I got the wagon chair for her to sit in, and stood by her while she sobbed and wailed. What to do? Black Loomis knew what to do. He lifted his face to the sky and sang, "Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home...."

  By time the last hum of the word home drifted in and out among the tombstones, all of us felt calmer, and Miss Love hushed as Loomis prayed "for Missus an' all us in de fam'ly. We asts You to hol' us in Yo Bosom, Lawd. Hol' us 'n' comfort us, till we's able to git up 'n' carry on in de lan' ob de livin', bless Jesus a-men."

  Then Papa pulled the letter out of his pocket. "I will now read this poem of Mr. Blakeslee's choosing. He wrote that he found it in a old book." He cleared his throat.

  "Be still my soul: the Lord is on thy side;

  Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

  Leave to thy God to order and provide;

  In every change He faithful will remain.