by Fannie Flagg
“Easter was always a lucky day for me. That was the day the good Lord let me know I was going to have Albert.
“Sometimes when I think of other people’s troubles, I realize how lucky I was to have gotten Cleo. I couldn’t have asked for a better husband. Didn’t have a roving eye, didn’t drink, and was he smart. I’m not bragging, because I don’t do that, but it’s the truth. Just had a naturally keen mind. Never had to dig for anything. I used to call him my dictionary. Whenever I was struggling, trying to write something or other, I’d call out to him, ‘Daddy, how do you spell this word or that word?’ He could spell anything. And he knew history. You could ask him any date and there it would be, right on the tip of his tongue. And I never saw anybody who wanted to be a doctor more than he did … wanted to be a surgeon. I know it like to broke his heart when Poppa died and he had to come out of medical school, but I never heard him say a word about it, not once.
“And he was loved. You ask anybody that knew him, and they will tell you that there wasn’t a sweeter man on earth than Cleo Threadgoode.
“But young girls are funny. They want dash and sparkle and romance. Cleo was kinda quiet. He wasn’t the one I wanted at first, but I was the one he wanted. He said he made up his mind the first night he came back home from college and saw me out in the kitchen helping Sipsey cut the biscuits on that big white tin table.
He walked into the parlor, where Momma and Poppa Threadgoode were, and he said, ‘I’m going to marry that big girl out in the kitchen cuttin’ biscuits.’ Made his mind up in just a flash. But then, all the Threadgoodes were like that. I was only fifteen at the time, and I told him I wasn’t interested in getting married to anyone, that I was too young. He said he’d try again the next year, and he did, and I still wasn’t ready. I married him at eighteen, and I still wasn’t ready.
“Oh, at first I was afraid Cleo wasn’t the right one, and I cried to Momma Threadgoode that I thought I had married the wrong man. Momma said not to worry, that I would learn to love him.” She turned to Evelyn. “I just wonder how many people never get the one they want, and wind up with the one they’re supposed to be with. Anyhow, when I look back on all the years of happiness I had with Cleo and I think that I could have turned him away, it just makes me shudder.
“Of course, when I married Cleo I was green.” She chuckled. “I’m not gonna tell you how green I was. I didn’t know a thing about sex or what was in back of it or anything, and I’d never seen a man before, and, honey, that’ll scare you to death if you’re not prepared for it. But Cleo was so sweet with me, and by and by, I got the hang of it.
“And in all those years of marriage I can honestly say that there was never an unkind word passed between us. He was my mother, father, husband, teacher. Everything you could possibly want in a man. Oh, and it was so hard the times we had to be separated. First, the world war, and then, I had to stay home again with Momma when he was putting himself through chiropractic school. Cleo was a self-made man. Didn’t get help from anyone. Didn’t complain, just did it. That was Cleo.
“And all those years we tried to have a baby and couldn’t, he never said a word to make me feel bad, and I know how much he wanted children. Finally, when the doctor told me that my problem was a tipped uterus and that I would never have a baby, Cleo just put his arm around me and said, ‘That’s all right, honey, you’re all I need in this world.’ And he never made me feel any different. But, oh, how I wanted to give him a baby. I’d pray and pray and I’d say, ‘Oh Lord, if it’s something I’ve done, if that’s why you’ve made me barren, please don’t make Cleo suffer for it.’ Oh, I agonized over it for years.
“Then, one Easter Sunday I was sitting in church and Reverend Scroggins was telling us the story of our Lord ascending into heaven, and I closed my eyes and thought how wonderful it would be if I could raise up my arms and ascend into heaven with Jesus and bring home a little angel for Cleo. Just as I was thinking so hard, a beam of sunlight shot right through the top of the stained glass window and hit me like a spotlight. That light was so bright that it blinded my eyes, and that stream of light stayed shining on me for the rest of the sermon. Reverend Scroggins said afterwards that he couldn’t take his eyes off me while he was talking, that my hair lit up like fire and I simply glowed. He said, ‘You sure picked the right seat this Sunday, Mrs. Threadgoode.’
“But I knew right away that that was God’s way of telling me that he had answered my prayers. Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen, indeed.
“I was thirty-two years old when Albert was born. And you never saw a happier daddy than Cleo Threadgoode.
“Albert was a big baby. He weighed twelve and a half pounds. We were still living at the big house at the time, and Momma Threadgoode and Sipsey were upstairs with me and Cleo was downstairs in the kitchen with everybody else, waiting. That afternoon, Idgie and Ruth came over from the cafe and Idgie brought a bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey and was sneaking it to Cleo in a teacup to help calm him down. That was the only time I know of that Cleo took a drink. Idgie said she knew just how he felt. She had been through the same thing when Ruth had her baby.
“They said when Sipsey handed Albert to Cleo for the first time, he just burst into tears. It wasn’t until later that we found out there was anything the matter.
“We noticed that the baby was having such a hard time sitting up. He’d try so hard, then he’d just topple over. And he didn’t walk until he was twenty-one months old. We took him to all the doctors, all over Birmingham, and they didn’t know what the trouble was. Finally, Cleo said that he thought he ought to carry Albert up to the Mayo Clinic, to see if there wasn’t something that could be done. I dressed him in his navy suit and his little cap, and I remember it was a cold, wet day in January, and when Cleo and the baby got on the train and it pulled out, little Albert turned around in Cleo’s arms, looking for me.
“It hurt me so to see them go. When I walked home I felt like somebody had just pulled the very heart out of me. They kept Albert up there for three weeks, giving him test after test, and I prayed every minute they were gone, ‘Please, God, don’t let them find anything wrong with my baby.’
“When Cleo and Albert came back home, the first day, Cleo didn’t say a word to me about what they found out, and I didn’t ask. I guess I didn’t want to know. He brought me the cutest picture that he had made up there in a penny arcade of he and Albert sitting on a half moon, with stars in the background. I still have that picture on my dresser and I wouldn’t take a million dollars for it.
“It wasn’t until after supper, when he sat me down on the sofa. He held my hand and said, ‘Momma, I want you to be brave.’ And I felt my heart drop to my knees. He told me that the doctors found out that our baby suffered a brain hemorrhage at birth. I asked him, ‘Is he gonna die?’ Cleo said, ‘Oh no, honey, he’s physically as healthy as he can be. They checked him from top to bottom.’ When I heard that I felt as if a hundred-pound weight had been lifted off my chest. I said, ‘Thank God,’ and got up, but Cleo said, ‘Now, wait a minute, honey, there’s something else you have to know.’ I told him that as long as the baby was healthy, I didn’t care about anything else. He made me sit back down and he said, ‘Now, Momma, this is something very serious that you and I are going to have to discuss.’ Then he went on to tell me that the doctors up to the clinic said, although Albert may very well be physically sound and live a long and healthy life, that most likely he will never develop mentally past the age of four or five years. That he would remain a child all his life. And sometimes the burden of having a child like that, one that required constant attention, was too great. Cleo said that there are special places that … I stopped him right in midsentence. ‘Burden!’ I said. ‘How could that precious, sweet baby ever be a burden?’ How could anybody ever think such a thing? Why, from the minute he was born, Albert was the joy of my life. There wasn’t a purer soul that ever lived on this earth. And years later, whenever I would get to feeling a little down, I would
just look at Albert. I had to work every day of my life to be good, and it was just a natural thing with him. He never had an unkind thought. Didn’t even know the meaning of the word evil.
“A lot of people might have been sad to have a birth-injured child, but I think the good Lord made him like that so he wouldn’t have to suffer. He never even knew there were mean people on this earth. He just loved everybody and everybody loved him. I truly believe in my heart that he was an angel that God sent down to me, and sometimes I cain’t wait to get to heaven to see him again. He was my pal, and I miss him … especially at Easter.” Mrs. Threadgoode looked down at her hands.
“Well, now that it looks like I’m gonna be here for a little while yet, I’ve been thinking about that picture I have in my bedroom at home, of that Indian maiden paddling her canoe down the river in the moonlight. She’s fully clothed, so I’m gonna see if Norris will go over and bring it to me whenever he gets the chance.”
Mrs. Threadgoode pulled something out of the Cracker Jack box and all of a sudden her eyes lit up. “Oh Evelyn, look! Here’s my prize. It’s a little miniature chicken … just what I like!” and she held it out for her friend to see.
DECEMBER 30, 1939
Religious Sewing Machines a Fraud
The man that was in town a couple of weeks ago, selling those religious sewing machines that were supposed to heal you as you sewed, was arrested in Birmingham. It seems that the machines were not from France, but were made outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and were not religious at all. Biddie Louise Otis is very upset, because she thought the one she bought had helped her arthritis a lot.
Whistle Stop’s Boy Scouts, Duane Glass and Vernon Hadley, all received their merit badges, and Bobby Lee Scroggins moved up to Eagle Scout. Scout leader Julian Threadgoode treated them to a visit to the iron statue of Vulcan, over in Birmingham, Atop Red Mountain.…
Julian said that the statue of Vulcan is so big that a man can stand inside of his ear.
Who would want to stand in a man’s ear, is my question.
Vesta Adcock had an afternoon party for her Eastern Star ladies, and served petit fours.
By the way, Opal asks that the neighbors not feed her cat, Boots, even though she acts like she’s hungry and begs. She has plenty to eat at home and is on a diet, because the doctor said she was too fat.
… Dot Weems …
P.S. Has anybody seen my other half’s December National Geographic? He claims he lost it somewhere in town and he is having a fit because he hasn’t finished it yet.
JANUARY 8, 1938
Ever since Idgie had put the picture of Miss Fancy the Elephant up at the cafe, Onzell and George’s youngest child, Naughty Bird, had been fascinated. She would beg her daddy to take her to Avondale Park so she could see the elephant; and today, that’s all Naughty Bird had on her mind.
She had been sick for over a month now. Dr. Hadley had just told them that pneumonia had set in, and if they couldn’t get her to eat, he didn’t see how she could live out another week.
Big George was leaning over the bed with an uneaten bowl of oatmeal, pleading with her. “Please, won’t you eat a bite for Poppa? Just one little bite for Poppa, baby. What you want, baby? You want Poppa to get you a sweet kitten?”
Naughty Bird, who was six and weighed only thirty pounds, just lay there, listless, with her eyes glazed over, and shook her head.
“You want Momma to fix you some biscuits?” Onzell said. “You want some biscuits and honey, baby?”
“No ma’am.”
“Miz Idgie and Miz Ruth’s here. They done brung you some candy … won’t you eat a bite?”
The little girl turned her head toward the wall covered with magazine pictures and mumbled something.
Onzell leaned down. “What, baby? You say you want some biscuits?”
Naughty Bird said, weakly, “I wanna see Miz Fancy.”
Onzell turned, with tears in her eyes. “See what I mean, Miz Ruth. She got it in her head to go see that elephant, and ain’t nothin’ else gonna do, and she ain’t gonna eat till she does.”
Idgie and Big George went out on the porch and sat on the faded green tin chairs. He stared out in the yard.
“Miz Idgie, I cain’t let my baby die before she sees dat elephant.”
“Now, George, you know you cain’t go in Avondale Park, they just had a big Klan meeting over there the other night. As soon as you set one foot in that gate, they’d shoot your head off in a minute.”
Big George thought it over and said, “Well then, they’s gonna hafta kill me, cause dat’s my baby girl in dere and I’d rather be dead in my grave than let anything happen to her.”
Idgie knew he meant it.
This six-foot-five giant of a man, who could pick up a full-grown hog and carry it like it was a sack of potatoes, had such a soft spot for his little girl that he would leave the house whenever Onzell gave her a whipping. And when he came home at night, it was Naughty Bird who would run and crawl up him like a tree and hug his neck. She could twist him around her little finger like he was the red on a barber pole.
That year, he had ridden the streetcar over to Birmingham to buy her a snow-white Easter dress, with shoes to match. Easter morning, Onzell had managed to get Naughty Bird’s nappy hair all up in pigtails and tied them with white ribbons. When Sipsey saw her in that white dress, she had laughed and said she looked just like a fly in a pan of milk. But Big George didn’t care if she was black as midnight and had nappy hair: he’d carried her to church with him and sat her on his lap, like she was Princess Margaret Rose.
So the sicker Naughty Bird became, the more Idgie worried about Big George and what he would do.
Two days later, it was cold and wet after a hard rain. Stump was walking home from school down the railroad tracks, smelling the strong wet pine smoke rising up from the houses along the way. He was wearing brown corduroy pants and a leather jacket that had seen better days. He was chilled to the bone.
When he got home to the cafe, he sat by the wood stove in the back, his ears burning as they thawed out, listening to his mother.
“Honey, why didn’t you wear your hat?”
“I forgot.”
“You don’t want to get sick, do you?”
“No ma’am.”
He was glad to see Idgie come in. She went over to the closet and got her coat and asked him if he wanted to drive over to Birmingham, to Avondale Park, with Smokey and her. He jumped at the chance. “Yes ma’am.”
“Well, come on then.”
Ruth said, “Wait a minute. Do you have homework?”
“Just a little.”
“Do you promise to do it when you get back, if I let you go?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Idgie, you’re coming right back, aren’t you?”
“Sure. Why not? I’m just gonna talk to the man.”
“Well, all right, but get your hat, Stump.”
He ran out the door. “ ’Bye, Momma.”
Ruth handed Idgie his hat. “Try to get back before dark.”
“I will. Don’t worry.”
They piled into the car and headed to Birmingham.
At twelve o’clock that night, a frantic Ruth received a phone call from Smokey, saying not to worry, that they were all right. He hung up before Ruth had a chance to ask where they were.
At five forty-five the next morning, Ruth and Sipsey were in the kitchen getting ready for the breakfast crowd. Onzell had stayed home with Naughty Bird, who was getting worse. Ruth was a nervous wreck, worrying over Stump, Idgie, and Smokey, who had not come home yet.
“She’s gonna be back,” Sipsey said. “Dat’s jest her way, she’s always runnin’ off. You know she ain’t gwine let nothin’ happen to dat boy.”
An hour later, while Grady Kilgore and the boys were having their morning coffee, they heard a horn blowing, coming toward the cafe. Then, from far off, they heard the sound of Christmas bells jangling, getting louder and louder. They all got up
to look out the window and couldn’t believe their eyes.
Next door, at the beauty shop, Opal, who had just slung a teacup of bright green Palmolive shampoo at her six-thirty customer’s head, looked out the window and screamed so loud that it scared poor Biddie Louis Otis nearly half to death.
Miss Fancy, all decked out in her leather ankle bracelets, with her bells and her bright purple feather plume, was happily strolling by the cafe, her snout waving in the air, thoroughly enjoying the scenery. She headed over the tracks to Troutville.
When Sipsey came out of the kitchen and saw the huge animal floating past the window, she ran into the ladies room and locked the door behind her.
A second later, Stump burst into the cafe. “Momma! Momma! Come on!” And he ran out, pulling Ruth behind him.
As Miss Fancy sauntered down the red dirt roads of Troutville, doors started flying open and the air became filled with the sounds of children screaming with delight. Their dumbfounded parents, many still in robes and pajamas, with their hair still done up in rags, were speechless.
J. W. Moldwater, Miss Fancy’s trainer, was walking beside her. He had been in a bout with old man whiskey last night and had come out the loser. He was now wishing that the children, who were running along beside him and jumping up and down like Mexican jumping beans, screaming in loud, ear-piercing squeals, would be quiet.