Cold Sassy Tree (27 page)

"I would, Grandpa."

"Well, I ain't shore bout Miss Love. She was expectin' the Lord to strike me down this mornin'. When I finished preachin', she brought in some lemonade and pound cake and I said it was the best Lord's Supper I ever et, and she didn't like my sayin' thet one bit. Said it was blasphemy. When I wanted to sing some barbershop harmony, she called it sacrilegious, bein' Sunday, but fine'ly I got her goin' on the pi-ana and we had us a real good time. Ever church ought to do thet—give God a good time stead of pomouthin' and always be astin' Him to save us from temptation and sufferin' and death. Ifn you live, Will Tweedy, you go'n be tempted, and you go'n suffer, and you go'n die. Ain't no way out of it. But with the Lord's hep, you can stand up to temptation, and live th'ew the bad times, and look Death in the eye. You remember what I say, son."

"Yessir. But I'd still like to hear you explain Jesus sayin' ast God for something and you'll get it. One time I prayed for a million dollars, to test Him, and didn't get one dime."

"Thet was jest wishin'. Hit warn't prayin'."

T.R. had long since jumped down to chase something, and the mules were restless, but I liked being with Grandpa like this, just him and me. I didn't want him to quit talking. "Did Miss Love think it up? I mean havin' preachin' at home?"

"Naw, son. I did. I—well, I expect you heard bout them Methodist ladies comin' to see her last week?"

"Yessir."

"Figgered you would." His tone was hard. "Miss Love was the maddest white woman you ever saw bout thet. She come down to the store a hour or so later and blessed out the whole dang town. Then yesterd'y she got a unsigned letter in the mail. Well, it warn't a letter, jest a old newspaper clippin' bout fallen women. Hit said thangs like 'A female by one transgression forfeits her place in society forever.' Miss Love cried all night last night."

Poor Miss Love.

"This mornin' she put on her Sunday clothes, but then she got to cryin' and carryin' on agin. I said to her, 'Miss Love, why'n't you stay home?' She said, I can't. They'll know I care.' So I put it to her plain. 'Miss Love, what
good's
it go'n do, mad as you are? Ifn don't nobody speak to you or sit by you, you jest go'n be mad all over agin. We got a pi-ana. Let's have preachin' right here. Jest you and me.'

"Well, son, we had a heap better time than the dang Methodists, I gol-gar'ntee you. I unner-stand Miss Effie Belle played for them today. She's worse'n yore granny for losin' the place." Grinning, he smoothed his pencil mustache with one finger. "I made dang shore Miss Effie Belle got a earful when she got home. I said, 'The Lord loves a joyful noise, Miss Love, and here comes Miss Effie Belle up her walk. I want you to play "Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-de-Ay" and rattle the rafters! Then she can tell it all over town how we desecrated the Sabbath.' And, son, Miss Love was mad enough to do it! The sound like to knocked Miss Effie Belle over.... Well, I reckon you really had best git started."

I bet Miss Love's bosom really bounced while she rattled the rafters. I wondered if Grandpa noticed. Naw, he wouldn't.

"Miss Love's already a plumb fool bout thet hoss, son," he said then. "Come up home t'morrer sometime, hear, and see can you hep her with him."

"Yessir," I said, but I wasn't happy about it. I didn't know if I could face her.

As the wagon rolled into the street, I thought how Granny would have enjoyed their preachin' service. If it could of been the three of them, I mean. Granny used to strike as many wrong keys on the piano as Miss Effie Belle. And she'd sing while she played, holding on to each note with her voice till she could find the next one with her fingers. As far as I know, she and Grandpa never sang together, just the two of them. But whenever Miss Love came for a family dinner, Grandpa would ask her to play hymns, and we'd all sing, and nobody enjoyed it more than Granny.

One thing I knew as the mules pulled out into South Main, I was not going to apologize to Aunt Loma. I'd just have to owe her one.

Turning onto the Banks County road, I was thinking what a difference a week can make. Before we went to the mountains, I felt sure Miss Love would tell me everything that happened while I was gone. I even planned to ask her did Grandpa find out about her kissing Mr. McAllister. But now I didn't think she'd ever tell me anything personal again. Even if she did, I wouldn't know what to say to her, or what not to say, or how not to say it, because now she wouldn't trust me.

"Giddy-up there!" I yelled, reaching for the whip. "I ain't got all day, dern you. Git up, Red! Git up, Satan!"

As we rattled toward the Banks County line, what really puzzled me was how come Grandpa blessed me out about Aunt Loma but didn't say pea-turkey about my discussing him and Miss Love with a bunch of snotty boys. Gosh, it must be he hadn't heard! Folks would snigger behind Grandpa's back but not many would dare repeat it to his face. They knew that hard fist.

I didn't find out till night that Miss Love sleeping in the company room just wasn't news anymore. While us boys were up in the mountains getting our food snatched by bears and cooking our goose and all, she had announced it herself!

"I
'M BEGINNIN
' to hate her with a passion," Mama said, and I hadn't a doubt who she was talking about.

Papa was still down at the church, making up his treasurer's report, so it was just Mama and me out there on the veranda in the dark, trying to get cool. I was bone tired. Not from walking the ten miles from Grandpa Tweedy's farm. That wasn't anything. It was from the camping trip. It had finally caught up with me. At the Sunday night preachin', my eyelids had been like heavy little windows flipping open and shut.

With me sitting in the swing and Mama in the tall porch rocker, she launched into a tirade about desecration of the Sabbath. "That Woman and your granddaddy were singin' dance songs at churchtime this mornin', Will. Miss Effie Belle heard them. Anybody who don't know or care if it's Sunday has to be common as pigs' tracks."

"Grandpa ain't common, Mama." I didn't dare say Miss Love wasn't common.

"It ain't him. It's her. He never did such a thing when Ma was alive, and you know it."

"Grandpa said they were havin' church," I told her. "Just him and her, Mama, in the parlor. He prayed and preached a sermon and they sang hymns and all."

"Aw, shah. You call 'Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-de-Ay' a hymn?"

"That was after, Mama. They had church first."

Her chair stopped rocking. "How you know so much?"

"He told me all about it." I slapped at a mosquito, and the chains at the top of the swing jangled.

Mama rocked fast for a minute, then stopped dead. "Speakin' of common, did he tell you about Miss Love havin' a fuss with Miz Predmore down at the store last week?"

"Well'm, he mentioned it in passin'."

And so she told me. I knew she hoped it would make me quit taking up for Miss Love Simpson. "Miz Predmore was on the Methodist committee about the piano playin'," Mama began. "After they called on her, Miz Predmore stopped by Pa's store and was pickin' out some piece goods when here came Miss Love, hair done up fancy and dressed to the nines in a red dress and a straw hat with big red flowers on it." Mama's fan was just a-goin'. "Imagine, wearin' a red dress in public when the fam'ly's in mournin'."

Folks had criticized Miss Love the week before for wearing black as if she was grieving for Granny. Now she was awful to wear red.

As Mrs. Predmore told it to Mama and she told it to me that night on the veranda, Miss Love had flounced into the store like she owned it. She came in smiling big at two farmers who wanted Papa to extend credit for a new mule, and then greeted Mr. Cratic Flournoy, who was complaining of indigestion. Just as Camp walked in, carrying a glass of water clouded with baking soda for Mr. Flournoy, Miss Love spied Mrs. Predmore back near the millinery table, looking through bolts of cloth.

"Good morning, Mrs. Predmore!" she called, smiling her big wide-mouth smile as if Mrs. P. was her best friend and like she hadn't seen her in a week. Naturally Mrs. P. didn't speak or smile back. Fixing her mouth like saying prune, she just went on studying the piece goods.

But Mr. Flournoy, always the gentleman, lifted his glass of soda water in greeting and, as Mrs. Predmore reported later, "spoke to that hussy like she was a queen or something. Hitched up his pants over that big belly and practically bowed to her. Said, 'Mornin', Miz Blakeslee. How's the bride?'"

"Fine, sir. But, uh, I have decided not to use Mr. Blakeslee's name, Mr. Flournoy," said the bride, speaking pleasant but formal, and loud enough to be heard in the piece-goods department. "Of course that is now my legal title, but for personal reasons I prefer to be addressed in the usual way." While Mr. Flournoy and everybody else, including Grandpa, stared at her, she flashed them all a great big nervous smile.

Grandpa was standing behind the counter, his one hand resting on the cast-iron string holder. Miss Love turned to him and said in a flirty voice, "Mr. Blakeslee, don't you agree it's not appropriate for me to be called Mrs. Blakeslee?"

A funny look came on Grandpa's face. Everybody could tell he was surprised. But he just shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "If you say so, Miss Love." Then he changed the subject. "I reckon you need some hep with yore millinery stuff. Camp, go git some a-them clean pasteboard boxes for our Miss Simpson here."

There wasn't much conversation in the store while Miss Love gathered up her hat-making gee-gaws. The way she threw things in the boxes, though, it began to dawn on everybody that, underneath the smile, Miss Love was boiling mad. Mrs. Predmore knew why, of course. The others could only guess.

When Miss Love and Uncle Camp went out to load boxes in the buggy, Mrs. P. put in her two cents' worth about a wife not using her husband's name. She thought Grandpa would welcome her opinion, but he just laughed. Acted like the whole thing was a big joke. "I look at it like this, Thelma," he was saying when Miss Love came back in. "Long as she cooks good and ain't aggravating I don't really care what she calls herself. Ain't thet how you see it, Hoyt?"

Papa was embarrassed and didn't know what to say. Miss Love didn't seem to notice. ("Too brazen to even blush," Mrs. Predmore told Mama.)

But a storm was brewing inside Miss Love. I figured later she was mad not only about the church piano stool being jerked out from under her, but about her whole life: having a drunkard for a daddy, getting jilted by Mr. McAllister, and being looked on in Cold Sassy as a Yankee outsider.

Still and all, she might not of gone as far as she went if Mrs. Predmore hadn't stalked over to Grandpa and let out exactly what she thought of him and her, both.

"Mr. Blakeslee, y'all ain't got no respect for the fam'ly or for this community, either one. It ain't decent, marryin' the way y'all done, with Miss Mattie Lou just barely dead."

It was like the smile on Grandpa's face dropped right off on the floor. "Don't you bring up Miss Mattie Lou, Thelma." He banged his fist on the counter. "And don't preach at me, or Miss Love, either."

Miss Love said, "For your information, Miss Thelma, we aren't indecently married. We aren't married at all." Giving her time to gasp, she added, "Except legally."

"Now ladies, now ladies...." sputtered Mr. Flournoy.

Miss Love didn't even hear him. With her chin in the air, she said, "I keep house for Mr. Blakeslee, and that's all. In case you don't get my meaning, I'll say it plain: I'm sleeping in Mrs. Blakeslee's company room. It is not my plan to take her name or her place, except to cook and wash for Mr. Blakeslee and keep the—"

"Shet up, Miss Love!" ordered Grandpa.

She blazed out, "Don't you ever say shut up to me!"

"Hit ain't nobody else's bizness!" He was furious.

"I'll hush when everybody quits talking about me. And that won't happen till there's nothing else anybody can wonder about. Now, Miss Thelma?" She drew a deep breath and spoke like her words were sorghum syrup. "Be sure and repeat everything I've said. Tell it all over town. But do try to keep the facts straight."

During all this, the two farmers pretended to be looking at some hardware and Mr. Flournoy kept waving his hands and saying, "Now ladies ... now ladies...." And Mrs. P. kept dumping insults like she was emptying slop jars: "Love Simpson, you don't make no more sense than a chicken with its head cut off. If you're just comp'ny, like you say, and don't even want Mr. Blakeslee's name, how come you bothered to get married? I hear that up where you come from, lots of white servants stay with the fam'ly they work for."

Grandpa banged his fist again and yelled, "Thelma, you git outer my store!"

"I'm gettin'!" she shouted. "And I ain't comin' back, neither!"

Miss Love called, "Miss Thelma, let me say one thing more—"

"I ain't listenin'. It's trashy talk."

"Don't you want to know what I'll get out of this arrangement?" Her voice was impudent, but Papa told Mama she looked tired and her lips trembled. Papa said he felt sorry for her right then. As Mrs. P. paused near the door, Miss Love said, "Wait a minute and I'll tell you."

"Shet up, Miss Love!" Grandpa demanded again.

"I know what you gettin'," Mrs. Predmore retorted. "You savin' yourself from goin' single file all your life and havin' Miss on your tombstone. But bein' a wife in name only, and not even usin' the name.... Well, you really still just a old maid, ain't you?"

"He has deeded me the house," said Miss Love.

It took a few seconds for that to soak in. Mrs. Predmore put one foot out the door and said, "Well, call you Miz Greedy! First you grab Miss Mattie Lou's husband, then you grab property that should rightly be Loma's and Mary Willis's!"

Miss Love didn't answer as Mrs. P. marched out.

I need to say that for a long time Miss Love never answered those who called her Miz Blakeslee. Some folks who hadn't planned on speaking to her at all started saying, for meanness, "G'mornin', Miz Blakeslee!" But the only ones she spoke back to were the few who called her Miss Love or—for meanness—Miss Simpson.

Pink Predmore told me that what really burned his mother up was the way Mr. Blakeslee got to laughing. She heard him say, "Doggit, Miss Love, I'd shore hate for you to git mad at me. Wouldn't you, Hoyt?" Grandpa didn't give Papa time to answer before he added, "In case Thelma don't pass the word around, Miss Love, maybe you better git up at the next ladies' missionary society meetin' and say it agin. Or take out a personal advertisement in the
Cold Sassy Weekly.
"