by Jan Karon
“Not a bit. I want to hear everything.”
She raised her head and looked at him. “I beg your pardon for talkin’ with my head down, it seems disrespectful, but holdin’ my head up when I’m sittin’ aggravates these ol’ bones.”
“It’s okay, I understand.”
“Every bite we ate and all we wore, we had to buy at the company store because it was twelve miles to town an’ hardly anybody with a truck to ride in. They ran the prices at the store way up, so first thing you know, you didn’t get any pay a’tall because of your debt. Then, next thing you know, you owed th’ store such a big lick, you couldn’t manage to ever pay it back, so you got in a cycle like that an’ the rule was, you couldn’t quit camp ’til you paid up th’ store.”
“Could anyone leave?”
“Some made it out, but you wouldn’t want t’ run away, no. My daddy tried. He figured if he could get away, he could go make enough money to buy Mama an’ us children out. But th’ woods rider got him. A camp always had a woods rider. It was a high position, he was the boss of everything. He rode th’ woods on horseback, with a shotgun on one side an’ a rifle on the other.
“He used th’ shotgun on my daddy. Unless you were known to make trouble in camp, th’ woods rider didn’t shoot to kill, he didn’t want to lose a worker. But th’ shot got in him so bad, Daddy couldn’t ever work turpentine again. One of th’ buckshot ended up in his shoulder. There was a man in camp who could dig out shot, he jus’ went in through th’ hole in my daddy’s arm with a knife and dug around ’til he got it out. They made Mama an’ us children watch this brutal thing. The infection was so bad, we thought Daddy would lose his arm.
“Pretty soon, they ran us off from camp, just said, Get out an’ stay out. All we had was th’ clothes on our backs. It was a terrible price my daddy paid to get us free, but we were together an’ God took care of us, every one. Mama used to look around at Daddy and all her children an’ say, ‘All us got is God an’ us, an’ that’s enough.’
“We ended up at a farm where Daddy found a little work, he got so he couldn’t use but his one good arm, an’ Mama an’ I cooked and cleaned in Miz Prichard’s house. We were all livin’ in the barn, we had quilts an’ fresh hay to sleep on an’ I never regretted that time. It was a lovely time—smellin’ the hay, an’ th’ corn an’ molasses they mixed in th’ feed, an’ havin’ th’ company of the cows an’ horses an’ chickens. We even had an old mule that made us children laugh, his name was Nelson.
“I never forgot th’ sound of that barn at night when we were all layin’ down to sleep; th’ cows chewin’ cud, th’ horses breathin’, th’ ol’ mule snortin’ in his muley dreams—it seemed like God had sent his angels to watch around us and keep us safe. By then, my little sister, Lona, was lookin’ after th’ tots durin’ the day, and in th’ evenin’, we sat out in the barnyard an’ cooked over a little pit fire with two pots an’ a skillet. I was nine years old.
“One time a fox carried off one of Miz Prichard’s layin’ hens; Sam ran hollerin’ at th’ fox ’til he dropped th’ hen—its neck was broken. Sam took th’ hen around to Miz Pritchard an’ said, ‘Here’s your layin’ hen th’ ol’ fox run off with, it’s neck’s broke.’ Miz Pritchard looked at th’ hen, said, ‘Why, I believe that’s your layin’ hen, Sam. It sure looks like your layin’ hen.’
“Sam came runnin’ to th’ barn with that hen an’ we shucked off its feathers and singed the little hairs off th’ skin and popped it in that big cookin’ pot with a handful of wild onions, an’ you never saw such a time as we had. We jus’ went all out—made hoe cake and roasted up potatoes in th’ hot coals, an’ drank coffee with milk straight out of th’ cow, an’ after while, sucked on a honeycomb Sam found in a snag tree. It was th’ best meal I ever had in all my years, an’ me gainin’ on ninety.”
“I hear you!”
“One day Miz Prichard said she was goin’ to send us all to Miss’ippi in th’ back end of a truck. Th’ truck was goin’ out to pick up her widowed sister and her household goods an’ carry ’em home to Middleton. She said there would be work for us out there, an’ a place to stay.”
Peggy looked up at him and smiled a little. “It was a long road to Mississippi.”
“Sure enough.”
Her eyes were amber, with flecks of gold. “Jackson was where we went. And th’ place that took us in was right across th’ road from your Grandpa Kavanagh’s place.”
“You never told me that.”
“No use to tell you that, no use to tell about Peggy. There were too many broken parts of Peggy to talk about.
“Th’ most broken part back then came from losin’ baby Jack.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “All us were playin’ in th’ yard. Mama kept a swep’ yard, it was smooth as linoleum, an’ Jack was crawlin’ around under that old yellow pine tree.
“Under that tree is where we set up our imaginary store. You could get anything you wanted in that store, and all for free. We hardly noticed that Ol’ Man Crowder was comin’ up th’ road whippin’ on his horse—he rode that horse in a criminal way. All of a sudden, he reined in at our place. He never reined in at our place before, it all happened so quick. Jack had crawled out in th’ yard…”
Peggy took a handkerchief from her dress pocket and pressed it to her eyes. For the first time, he heard the ticking of a clock in the room.
“It’s fresh,” she said. “Eighty years gone, an’ anytime I call it back, it’s fresh. That ol’ fool said he thought it was a little black dog in th’ yard an’ dogs knew how to get out th’ way of a horse.
“Th’ suffering made a mark that never left me and never will. For a long time after, Mama looked around at Daddy an’ her children and said, ‘All us got is us.’”
She turned and took her lemonade from the table and looked at his empty glass. “Our manners are gettin’ triflin’. Would you like more lemonade, Timothy? Henry made enough for a corn-shuckin’.”
He was glad to hear her speak his name. “No, ma’am. Thank you. How about you?”
“No, no.” She drank, thirsty; beads of perspiration rolled from the glass into her lap.
“Your grandpa raised cattle, I can’t remember what kind, seem like Holsteins, maybe. They were beautiful creatures to look at, movin’ over th’ pastures, lyin’ under trees, drinkin’ from th’ spring. They used to say you could count a man’s money by countin’ his cows. My daddy said Boss Kavanagh was rich as Croesus. Did you ever hear of Croesus?”
“He minted the first gold and silver coins, and is said to have parted Midas from a few. Seems like Aunt Lily used to say that, too.”
“I don’t know how Daddy knew about that saying, but he used it a good bit. Now an’ again, your gran’pa had a big cattle auction. People came from all over creation in fancy cars, old trucks, horseback, walkin’, drivin’ mule teams. Some came to buy an’ some to look. At auction time, they said nearly any ol’ body could go on Boss Kavanagh’s property an’ look his eyes full if he had a mind to.
“This day I’m tellin’ you about, they said Boss Kavanagh was puttin’ on a big show. Daddy would have gone, but he was sick in his chest, so Mama stayed home with him an’ Minnie. She said Sam an’ Lona could go with me if I’d mind ’em every minute an’ stay well back from th’ food.
“They put out a big feed at auction time, but no children or colored was allowed to touch anything at all, not a slice of bread, not a candy stick, nothin’, that was th’ rule. You ever been to a cattle auction?”
“No, ma’am. Never.”
“Great big ol’ heifers, an’ bulls big as Sister’s car out yonder. When they get in th’ show ring, they get to jumpin’ around, kickin’ up their heels, dirt an’ manure flyin’ every whichaway—you better keep back. It was very exciting to us Lambert children, very thrilling, better maybe than goin’ to th’ circus. An’ all those smells of food cookin’—it was hog meat roastin’ on a spit, an’ steaks fryin,’ an’ I don’ know what all, with a w
hole table full of whiskey an’ branch water, free to anybody with a green ticket.
“It was a hot day, th’ kind of heat that burns right through to your marrow, and th’ whiskey was a popular item. Even some of th’ women were throwin’ that whiskey down like a man, an’ everybody eyein’ th’ hog meat an’ those steaks fryin’.
“Before we left out th’ house, Mama sermonized the children. She told us plain an’ simple, ‘Touch a bite of rations an’ you’ll draw back a nub.’
“Sam couldn’t help from sometimes doin’ what he was told not to do. He wasn’t a bad boy, I declare he wasn’t. It was his brain, th’ way it worked. Tell him to do one thing, he was liable to up an’ do th’ direct opposite.
“The auction was goin’ on an’ people were standin’ around or sittin’ in chairs they’d toted, and th’ auctioneer and your gran’pa were up there on a kind of stage, talkin’ through a bullhorn. I saw somebody else up there, too, a handsome young white man.”
“My father.”
Peggy looked up. “Yes, your father.”
“He was sixteen,” he said.
“Yes. Sixteen. Do you know this story?”
“Grandpa Yancey told me.”
“I figured somebody would tell you sometime. I’d like to tell you th’ part you never heard.”
“I’d like to hear it,” he said. His mouth was dry as cotton.
“I tried to mind Mama and keep my eyes on th’ young ’uns, but I was so caught up—it was so much to see an’ smell an’ hear, they even had people playin’ banjos and fiddles, an’ somebody blowin’ cane. I think I just stood there, not even movin’ for a long time, but Sam an’ Lona, they went off ever’ whichaway.
“In a little bit, I heard a commotion over where th’ rations were cookin.’ An’ there went Sam streakin’ through the crowd with somethin’ under his shirt. Two great big white men were right in behind him.
“They caught Sam, and Sam didn’t fight or kick or even holler, he just looked around for me. I was frozen to the spot, an’ nothin’ I could do to save him.
“Boss Kavanagh hollered in that bullhorn, said, ‘Men, bring that boy over here. ’They took Sam to the foot of th’ stage.
“Boss Kavanagh looked down at Sam, he said, ‘Boy, what’s that under yo’ shirt?’
“Sam said, ‘Beefsteak.’
“Your gran’pa said, ‘Is it yo’ beef steak?’
“Sam said, ‘Is now.’
“The crowd laughed, an’ your gran’pa colored red as a beet. He turned to your daddy an’, still usin’ th’ bullhorn, said, ‘Matthew, go shut that nigger boy up in J.C.’s truck. Lock ’im in good an’ roll up th’ windows, an’ let that be a lesson to anybody else who needs it.’
“Your daddy said, ‘I won’t do it.’
“So you see, there was a little colored boy back-talkin’ him, an’ his own son back-talkin’ him—two in a row, right in front of everybody.
“Your gran’pa said, ‘Did you hear me?’ And your daddy said, ‘I won’t do it, let him go.’
“Did your Gran’pa Yancey tell what happened then?”
“Yes. He did.”
“After your daddy was pushed off th’ stage an’ broke his leg, he couldn’t get up. Those same white men came with an old door they’d been usin’ as a tabletop over two sawhorses. They laid him up on it. His leg was so broken, it flapped like th’ limb of a creek willow.
“When they carried him out to th’ truck on that door, th’ crowd parted in such a way that I was standin’ where they passed; I saw th’ blood soakin’ his shirt where he’d been whipped.
“As they went by, he looked straight in my eyes. Not many people look in the eyes of a barefooted ten-year-old pickaninny, but he did. And I knew that he saw me as a human being who had also known suffering.
“The power of that look and the depth of that feeling will be with me for the rest of my days; it shook me to my soul. It was as if God himself was in that look, and the whole of God’s grief for our brutality towards one another.
“I thought you should know that.”
He took Peggy’s hand and waited until he could speak. “What about Sam?”
“While all th’ commotion was goin’ on, Sam got away. When Lona an’ I tailed in home, there he was, happy an’ innocent as could be. He never really understood that he’d done something wrong; he just smelled meat cookin’ an’ couldn’t hold back.
“Somehow, he’d managed to hold on to that beefsteak. What he did was cut th’ meat in seven pieces, countin’ one for Jack, and put them on Mama’s best plate. We were so thankful your daddy hadn’t let him be shut up in that truck. When he passed th’ plate around for everybody to have their piece, not a word was spoken. It was my first Holy Communion.”
The splinter of light across the bare floor grew brighter. He sat holding her hand, their pulses beating strong in their palms.
“I’m glad to know that he defended Sam.” He had known this, after a fashion, from his grandpa’s story. But this version told him that and more. It was as if another piece of the jigsaw puzzle had slid into place, and a new, though as yet unidentifiable, image was emerging.
“Now I feel disrespectful,” he said, “but I must ask about the…facilities.”
“Down the hall, first door on your right. It’s Henry’s quarters. You can see your face in th’ floorboards.”
And he could.
When he returned to the living room, Peggy was standing by her chair.
“May I hold on to you?”
“Yes, ma’am. You bet.”
“My center of gravity done slipped forward. One these days, I’m gon’ tip over on my ol’ bald head.”
“Don’t even say it.”
She linked her arm in his, and led him to the south-facing window.
“Us can’t sit too long without stretchin’ good, we might get a blood clot.” She drew the draperies back and they looked out to the garden, a neat rectangle of potatoes, onions, gourd vines, beet tops, cabbage. The sunlight was nearly blinding.
“Off to th’ back, there’s Henry’s collard patch,” she said with obvious pride.
“Can’t get enough collards!”
“You never liked collards when you were little.”
It was good to be in the company of someone who’d known him as a child, who knew he hadn’t liked collards then.
“What did I like?”
Peggy chuckled. “You were crazy about fried chicken, an’ you sho liked cornbread—you could eat half a cake. Then there was baked beans an’ fried catfish and chocolate pie.”
“Oh, yes.”
“An’ hominy grits. You th’ only child I ever knew who liked hominy grits.”
“Yes,” he said, “but only with butter and lots of sugar. I sure did miss you, Peggy. And I have to tell you something. After you left, I was sad for a long time. And then I got mad. Plenty mad. I stayed mad a good while, but I got over it.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “I’m glad you got mad; it was good to get mad. And it was good to get over it.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Have we shook down that blood clot?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let’s go sit, then. The good Lord aks me to tell you everything.”
She drew the draperies against the afternoon light; the room was dark again, and cool.
“That footstool must be gettin’ mighty hard. You could draw up that armchair right there. That’s it, pull it up close to me, an’ get that nice little pillow off th’ sofa—it’ll feel good to your back.”
He did her bidding; she was right.
“My daddy passed when I was fourteen. He’s buried on th’ farm across from your gran’pa’s old place.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was a good man, I sho loved my daddy, we all did. Mama an’ us stayed on th’ farm a month or two, then they changed hands, so we moved to town. We had a dresser, a mirror, three chairs, and two bedsteads with corn-shuck mattr
esses to set up housekeepin’.”
“Did you ever see my father again before you moved?”
“I never did. Many times I looked for him to pass on the road, but I never saw him again. I heard he went off to what they call prep school, an’ then to Ole Miss. People said he lived at school an’ didn’t come home anymore.”
Like most people he’d known at Holly High, he’d wanted to go to Ole Miss, too, but early on he made the decision for Sewanee. He didn’t wish to go where his father had gone, he didn’t want to do anything that might, in some dangerous way, fashion his soul in the image of his father’s. Sewanee had been the right choice, and one that Father Polk, a Sewanee alumnus, eagerly supported. With Nanny Howard’s financial assistance and Father Polk’s enthusiasm on his side, his father had relented, though he bitterly disliked the notion of a Tennessee school.
“What was it like living in the big city of Jackson?”
“Oh, it was good in th’ beginnin’; it was th’ best thing we ever did. Lona and Minnie went to a school for colored, they could walk there every mornin’ with their lunch buckets, but with Sam th’ way he was, he couldn’t be in school. So he helped Mama an’ me take up th’ caterin’ business. We’d never heard of caterin’, we just knew people have to eat, and since they couldn’t come to us, we’d go to them.
“What I wanted to do worse than anything was go to school. I could write my name and do simple sums, but I couldn’t read. Oh, how I wanted to read like you used to read to me, just boundin’ along like a rabbit across an open field; but Mama couldn’t pull that big load all by herself.
“We got up way before daylight, Sam, too, an’ started makin’ sandwiches. Sam would put th’ mustard on, or th’ mayonnaise, we used Duke’s, an’ Mama would add in th’ ham an’ cheese, th’ lettuce an’ tomato, th’ peanut butter an’ jelly, an’ th’ baloney—we used two slices of baloney for good measure—pressed down an’ runnin’ over, like th’ Bible says. Then I wrapped everything good an’ tight an’ stacked ’em in a box an’ started off about seven o’clock, walkin’ two miles barefooted to save shoe leather.