Cold Sassy Tree (52 page)

"No'm."

"Dr. Slaughter thinks he won't make it. He said so this morning. Will, he just can't die! Oh ... I've got to tell him something. Something I can't say with Miss Mattie Lou always in there!"

She burst out crying, then all of a sudden threw her head back and went to laughing! Laughed like a crazy woman. Like she couldn't stop. Finally I got mad and shook her. "Stop, Miss Love! Ain't nothin' funny!"

"Oh, you just don't know!" Out there in the May morning she could hardly talk for laughing. "I'll tell you, Will, so you can laugh, too. You see this second wife?" She pointed to herself. "She thought she was going to have a baby, but she wasn't sure. After she was sure, she decided to wait till her husband's birthday to tell him. But"—Miss Love stopped laughing, her voice went flat—"but now he's dying, and I can't tell him because ... dear God in heaven, Will, how can I tell your grandpa right in front of your granny that he has fathered my child! He'd hate me! He wouldn't believe it was possible. Will, he has forgotten all about me and him!"

Gosh, a baby! It was going to end up just like Mama and Aunt Loma said it would.

"I can't bear it if ... if he dies without knowing. And knowing might even make him fight to live!"

"He's already fightin' to live, Miss Love. He'll fight to his last breath."

"But if he knew this, it might make all the difference!" And she burst into tears.

I didn't know what to do. Finally I said, "Miss Love, hush up. Hear?" I sounded just like Grandpa. "Ma'am, he always says when you don't know which way to turn, do something. Don't do nothin'. Listen, ain't it the fever causin' him to be funny-turned? I mean the delirium; ain't that from the high fever?"

She nodded, holding both hands to her cheeks. "We m-manage to cool him down some, but it's n-never enough."

"What if we could cool him down quicker? If he came to himself even for a minute, you could talk to him! Why don't we put him in the bathtub? It'd soak him cool a lot quicker than all that spongin'. Wouldn't it?"

"I never heard of doing that!" She was excited, then worried. "But it might chill him too much. We'd have to ask Dr. Slaughter first."

"But don't it make sense?"

"Let me think, Will." Out there by the pasture gate, she quickly took the pins out of her tousled hair, pulled it back, twisted it into a knot at the back of her head, and pinned it tight. Even with her hair so plain and her eyelids swollen from crying, Miss Love looked beautiful to me, for she had come alive!

"I could run get Loomis," I went on, excited. "Loomis could pick Grandpa up like a rag doll, Miss Love. Not jostle his ribs or anything. Just bend over easy and lay him in the water."

Hope upon us, we ran back to the house. It scared me to death when Aunt Loma rushed to meet us at the back door. "He's had a big sweat!" she shouted. "Drenched the bed! The fever's down, Love! At least for now, and he's gone to sleep! He knew me, Love!"

"Oh, thank God!" Miss Love's eyes filled with tears. "But—oh, Will, what if I've missed my chance!"

Loma said she'd go on home and tell Sister and Brother Hoyt the good news. "You stay here, Will, just in case. Love, try to get some rest."

***

I thought Miss Love would want to sit there alone with him, but she asked me to stay. Grandpa was laying on his left side, as usual. She sat beside the bed, facing him, in the same rocking chair he had sat in to watch Granny.

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.

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 arm 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.