Cold Sassy Tree (37 page)

"Not ladies?" I grinned.

She looked surprised. "Yes, of course. Men, boys, ladies, girls." I didn't say so, but I had my doubts about any lady being able to crank an engine or change a tire. If Miss Love managed to learn, I didn't think any gentleman customer would ride with her for a demonstration. I mean, for one thing she was a woman, and for another she was a woman who had married a widower when his wife wasn't hardly cold in the grave, got caught kissing another man, made a scene in public—and then dog if she hadn't gone off to New York City unchaperoned with a husband whose name she wouldn't use and whose bed she claimed not to be sleeping in. No man in Cold Sassy would dare ride in a car with Miss Love Simpson.

But nothing like that was worrying the two of them right then, and Grandpa had just about as many plans in his head as she did. Lowering his voice, he said, "Now, Will Tweedy, you ain't to tell a soul bout all this."

"Not even Papa?"

"Naw, not even him. I'm go'n tell him and everbody thet they's something big comin' in on the train in two-three weeks. And I'm go'n ast the town band and the Negro band both to come to the depot thet mornin', ready to play for a parade. But I ain't a-go'n say why. And don't you, either."

"Sir, what if somebody asts me?"

"Say you shore wisht you knew."

"What if nobody comes to the depot, Grandpa?"

"Soon as they telegraph me from New York, we go'n drape a big banner acrost the front of the store, tellin' what train to meet. And I gar'ntee you, Will Tweedy, everbody in Cold Sassy's go'n come, outer pure curiosity. And they go'n foller thet Pierce artermobile down to the store so they can see it up close. They mightn't sign up to buy one thet day, but like Miss Love says, they'll start to wantin' one. Now what you think a-all thet, son?"

What I thought was Papa would snatch me bald-headed if he saw me driving without his permission. And how could I get permission if I couldn't tell him about Grandpa's surprise?

Also, I worried whether it was possible to hop into a new automobile and drive it. What if it choked down or went dead, the whole town watching? "What if I cain't get the dern thing started?" I asked Grandpa. "Your Pierce ain't go'n start or run just like Papa's Cadillac, you know."

That didn't even give Grandpa pause. "I got a instruction book here in my grip, and you got plenty time to study it. You won't have no trouble, son. You'll drive jest dandy."

"Of course you will, Will," echoed Miss Love. She stood up. "Goodness, I'm hot. I need to get out of these clothes."

Racing my shadow home, I was almost too excited to think. I didn't know how I'd have time to go to school, give driving lessons, demonstrate cars, groom the Cadillac for Papa and the Pierce for Grandpa and the horse for Miss Love, and be Mama's colored boy and Grandpa's stockboy at the store. But I knew one thing: in a few weeks I would be at the wheel of a shiny black Pierce automobile, chauffeuring Miss Love and Grandpa and leading two bands and a parade of people down to the store.

If Papa didn't accept that Grandpa made me do it, why, I'd just take my whipping like a man.

"T
HET WOMAN
shore has got her a head for bizness," Grandpa said a few days later. He nodded in the direction of the kitchen, where Miss Love was washing up pans while waiting for her pound cake to get done. He picked a snag of chicken from his front teeth, sucked between tongue and teeth to clear out the rest of it, and then started telling me who all he aimed to sell a artermobile to.

I figured Miss Love was the one who suggested names to him. I bet she'd already figured out who would buy which car and what color, just like she knew who would buy which dress she picked out at the wholesale house in New York City. What I couldn't figure was how she got away with it. Grandpa always was one to admire business sense, but he'd never been one to let somebody else tell him what to do.

The cake wasn't out of the oven good before I got a glimpse of how Miss Love could lead him by the halter.

She came to the dining room door drying her hands and said sweetly, "Mr. B., I know now isn't the time or place to be talking about this, but don't you think it would be nice if the privy was nearer the house? Loomis could dig a pit and move it for us. What do you think?"

"I think it would stink."

"I read about some new chemicals to use."

"Doggit, woman, you got us eatin' in the dang dinin' room weekdays as well as Sundays; now you talkin' bout movin' the privy. Fore I know it, you'll be astin' for a bathroom!" He yelled that last. "Ain't I got enough to worry bout, buyin' thet dang artermobile, 'thout you talkin' bout no dang bathroom?"

Her dander went up like a flag. "Mr. Blakeslee, did I even mention a bathroom? I did not. I said let's move the privy closer to the house."

He grumped and sputtered, and then grinned at her. "Doggit, woman, I never seen the likes a-you." But he said it nice, and then swatted her on the behind as she walked past him to go get a plate for the cake.

It wasn't crude or anything, the way Grandpa flipped her, but the teasing look on his face somehow reminded me they'd been to New York together without a chaperone. And Miss Love took the flip as special, I could tell. She did a little dance all the way back to the kitchen.

I thought to myself that anybody who could get Grandpa to buy a car would have a bathroom in no time, and maybe even electric lights and a telephone. And if already, right now, she was in the family way and it was a boy, she was likely to get more out of Grandpa than Mama could stand—and heir more, too.

Gosh, having a baby uncle would be even worse than having Loma for an aunt. And where would it leave me? If Grandpa could make a pet out of Loma when she was little bitty and then just about throw her away after I was born, he sure-dog could lose track of me if he finally got him a boy of his own. Grandpa never could dote on two people at once.

Miss Love brought in the hot pound cake on Granny's best china plate, holding it high over her head, and set it down in front of Grandpa with a grand flourish. She was smiling big. "I hope it's just the very best you ever ate, Mr. B.," she said, as if she'd forgot me and wanted him to have the whole dang cake. "It's an old receipt, sir, but I added a little of this and that. I do hope you like it. The man who owns Cold Sassy's first Pierce deserves to eat Cold Sassy's best cake. Don't you think so, Will?"

Grandpa told her to quit the foolishness and cut the cake. But he grinned as he said it, and looked at her like the very air she breathed was made out of sugar and spice.

I could tell he'd already forgot about her wanting the privy moved and maybe hoping for a bathroom. But I knew she hadn't forgot. Like a cat smelling a rat, I sensed she was going to drop a hint here and an idea there and a big head-swelling compliment yonder—one this week, another next—till before Grandpa knew what happened, he would decide one day that it shore would be nice not to have to go out to Egypt on a rainy night or a cold winter morning. I didn't know how she would actually pry the money out of him, but she'd figure a way, and somehow make him like it.

Mama was in for a lot of headaches.

In the meanwhile, I had found out that a spate of kissing lasts only just so long. Like religion and silverware, it needs polishing up regular or it don't shine.

By that I mean this. For a few days after Lightfoot McLendon and I got caught in the cemetery, I could just think about kissing her and it was like we were still doing it. I could hear her little gasps and feel her arms around my neck, her body so thin and helpless against me, and as if it was happening right now, my eyes would go out of focus and I'd be breathing like I just made a home run. But the effect was wearing off fast.

And I knew Lightfoot would never kiss me again.

Still and all, when school started next week I could at least look at her and talk to her. I'd find some way to let her know she wasn't a cheap something in my eyes.

The day school started, I was so nervous I could hardly eat my breakfast. What if Lightfoot cut me down with a cold stare? What if she slapped me? But maybe—I dared to hope it—maybe her eyes would light up and she'd smile as if just seeing me was like mountain sunshine breaking through the gray mists of morning. I didn't believe for a minute that her aunt wouldn't let her come back to school. By the time I got there, all I could think about was finding a way to touch her hand or her arm without anybody seeing.

Lightfoot didn't come.

Hosie Roach hurried in just before the second bell. As usual, he was dirty and uncombed. Trying to sound casual, I managed to ask him at recess if Lightfoot McLendon had gone back to the mountains. He said, "Naw, she's a-workin' at the mill."

"She gettin' on all right?" I asked like you'd ask about somebody's grandmother, just being polite. But I made the mistake of blushing.

"What's it to you how she's a-gittin' on?"

"Gosh, Hosie, what's it to you? I just ast. I heard her daddy died and all and I'm just—astin'."

"Yeah, her daddy died. But that don't make it no town boy's bizness how she's gittin' on."

"Says who, linthead?" I snarled, and we went at it.

When Miss Bertha broke up the fight, for once she didn't send us to the principal for a whipping. Instead, she sent us next door to chop stovewood for old Mr. Billy Whisnant. Me first, then Hosie. Miss Bertha roomed upstairs at the Whisnants' house, so I figured Mr. Billy had put her up to it. Him being bent with rheumatism, he couldn't do work like that anymore himself.

Well, I fixed Mr. Billy. And when it was Hosie's turn with the ax I told him what I'd done and he laughed and did likewise. For three days straight, every time I or another boy misbehaved, we had to go over there and chop wood.

Then Mr. Billy chanced to take in an armload of it.

He came storming over to the schoolhouse, face red and fists clenched. Busting into Miss Bertha's Latin lesson, he yelled, "Doggit to heck, I ain't go'n let no more a-you dang boys cut no more a-my dang stovewood!"

What we'd done, haw, and like I say it was my idea, we had cut every stick exactly four inches too long for the Whisnants' kitchen stove.

Worrying about driving Grandpa's automobile soon put Mr. Billy out of my mind. It even put Lightfoot out of my mind.

When Grandpa found out why I wasn't driving the Cadillac anymore, he just brushed it off. "I ain't heard yore daddy say you cain't drive my Pierce."

"No, sir, but he don't know about that."

"And long as he don't, he cain't say don't drive it."

Miss Love didn't fold her hands while waiting for word from the Pierce Company. She put up tomatoes and corn out of Granny's garden, made cucumber pickles, sewed new dining room curtains, made big black hats with black plumes for Mama and Aunt Loma, and got her horse broke to the bridle and bit.

It was Monday a week after school took in before the telegram came. I don't know how Miss Love managed it, but she got the telegraph operator to swear not to tell anybody what it said, namely, that the Pierce would arrive the following Saturday.

That would be a dandy day for it. Everybody came to town on Saturdays.

Miss Love made a banner out of white sheeting and painted big capital letters on it that said:

BLAKESLEE'S BIG SURPRISE
IS ON THE WAY
MEET THE I'.40 SATURDAY!
BANDS, PARADE, FREE GIFTS!

Grandpa had balked at free gifts, but Miss Love said the wholesale house in New York gave her a big boxful of sample thread, which would do for the ladies, and he could order stick candy and chewing gum to hand out to the men and children. Free gifts would get people into the store, she said.

Grandpa looked at her like she was just the smartest businessman in the world.

That night she and I went to the store and hung the banner out of a second-story window. Next morning everybody in Cold Sassy was talking about it—nobody more than Papa, Uncle Camp, Cudn Hope, and Uncle Lige, who were right put out with Grandpa for not letting them in on the secret. When Uncle Lige said so, Grandpa just grinned and said, "Hit's go'n be a grand fancy day. Y'all be sure and git to the depot on time."

Naturally, folks asked me what it was all about. A lie being an ever-present help in time of trouble, I just said, "Gosh, I wish I knew!"

Tuesday after school, walking through Grandpa's house on my way out back to clean the horse's stall, I saw Miss Love's New York traveling suit draped over the rocking chair in her room, airing out, and her linen duster and veil hung on a wall nail. She herself was in the dining room, pinning pattern pieces on a length of dark blue serge. She looked up at me and smiled. "I'm making Mr. Blakeslee a suit." Opening her scissors into a big V, she started cutting. "I want him to look modern and successful for the parade. It's good for business."

"Yes'm, I reckon."

I went down there again right after supper on Friday evening, before the big day. I was about to bust with excitement, and at home all I could say was "Wonder what Grandpa's plannin' tomorrow, Papa?" or, "I cain't wait to see what's comin' in on the train."

I had already eaten, but I sat down with them and had some blackberry jam and buttered biscuits while getting around to telling my idea. "You finished the suit, Miss Love?" I asked.

"All except hemming the pants."

"Grandpa?" I said then. "Why don't you get Papa to bring his Cadillac to the depot? You don't have to tell him about your Pierce. Just say be there."

Miss Love took it right up. "And Mary Willis and Loma and Camp could ride with him! We can squeeze in Mary Toy between you and me, Mr. Blakeslee, and it will be a nice family affair!"

"Gosh a'mighty, why didn't we think a-this before, Miss Love? Two artermobiles is twice't as many as one!"

Tell the truth, the reason I wanted Papa to be in on it, I wouldn't have to worry so much. He might be mad about Grandpa making me break punishment, but if the dern thing wouldn't start, or broke down halfway to the store, he and I together might could figure out the trouble.