Leaving Cold Sassy (9780547527291) (12 page)

“But you didn't do it,” I said.

Sanna gave a helpless little shrug. “Sister Maggie wouldn't hear of it. She kept saying, ‘You'll just end up an old maid in the jungle. With you being so particular, I can't imagine you living in a dirty hut in a village full of savages. They don't have any dentists or doctors in Africa. You'll get leprosy and jungle fever and I don't know what all.' Sister Maggie told me about a young missionary lady who got all her teeth pulled on a visit home so she wouldn't have to worry about toothaches in Africa. Will, I'm ashamed to admit it, but after Sister Maggie said that, God's call got weaker.”

I told Sanna I was glad she didn't end up in the jungle, since I wouldn't be there.

“I felt so guilty. Jesus said, ‘Go ye into all the world,' but Sister Maggie kept saying, ‘Don't go, don't rot your life away after all the advantages we've given you.' I couldn't bring myself to go, with her so opposed. It seemed unappreciative. But I've always regretted it.”

I knew what it was like to have somebody pushing and pulling at you. “Grandpa Blakeslee always expected me to come into his store business,” I told her. “He had a fit when I said I wanted to be a farmer.”

“I can see why,” she said, wrinkling her nose as if she'd had a whiff of pigpen.

“Grandpa died when I was fifteen, so it never came to a head. The choice, I mean. But if Grandpa had lived and kept aggravatin' me about the store, I'd have just got more hard-headed. I'm that much like him.”

She smiled. “Well, I'd hate to see you get old behind a mule, Will. This way you aren't exactly wasting your degree, and you get paid every month.”

“I aim to farm someday.” I said it real firm. “Soon as the war's over, Papa's go'n buy the land and the home place from his daddy out in Banks County and give it to me. I'll take you out there one day, Sanna, to see Grandpa Tweedy. He's the world's laziest man. He married a widow woman named Miz Jones, and that's what he still calls her. Too lazy to change it. He used to sit on the porch all day swattin' flies, and he had a pet hen to peck up the dead ones. Now the hen's dead, so he just sits there.”

“I think you like him,” she said with a laugh.

“I hated him when I was a boy. But I don't have to mind him now.”

Sanna hadn't mentioned Hugh again. You don't help somebody forget anybody if you keep bringing up the subject, so I didn't, and pretty soon I forgot about him myself. But I did ask Miss Love one day if Sanna was getting much mail from Jefferson.

“No,” she said. “Sanna told me she wouldn't be seeing the young man anymore. I never thought that would be the end of it, but I guess it was.”

Miss Love took the opportunity to tell me how nice Sanna was, how she kept her room neat as a pin and her clothes immaculate. “She reminds me of Mrs. Villy, a woman I knew in Baltimore. After every rain Mrs. Villy got out a stepladder and wiped off the outside of all her windows. I really like Sanna,” Miss Love continued. “She never complains about anything, which is more than I can say about the others, especially Issie. Issie says her mattress is too hard, it's hot up there, she wishes she didn't have to go next door for meals, and she fusses about Sanna hogging the bathroom. Sanna can spend an hour in the tub, it's true, and she's forever washing her hands. I didn't expect girls to be spilling over into my bathroom when I rented those rooms, but I've told them they can if they have to.”

That was the closest Miss Love ever came to criticizing Sanna. Mostly she kept trying to sell her to me, as if she was selling a hat or a car at the store. Any time she wasn't bragging about how neat Sanna kept her room, she was saying what beautiful taste she had in clothes. “Her Sister Maggie makes most of them, you know. Sanna says when she was learning to sew, if a seam was the least bit crooked, her sister made her take it out and stitch it again. Now she makes herself do that. I think it's admirable, don't you, Will?”

“It sounds tedious to me.”

“I mean, to try that hard, and be conscientious enough to take the time.”

One afternoon Miss Love said that when she got home from the store, Sanna was in the parlor playing the piano. “Sanna played very competently, but when she saw me, she quit.”

Later, when I asked Sanna to play me a piece, she wouldn't. Her lovely eyes were cast down and she was picking at her thumb with a fingernail. “Will, I've never told—well, my piano teacher at Shorter asked me once if I'd heard much music as a child. I said no, and she said she thought not. She thought I played mechanically, said I worried so much about getting the right notes, I couldn't play with feeling. I've never had much confidence since then—about my music. If anybody's listening, I just can't play.”

We were sitting together on Miss Love's loveseat in the parlor.

“Me neither,” I said. “Not if somebody's listenin', or if they aren't. I count it as one of my blessings, Sanna. I'm crazy about dance music, especially the way Miss Love plays it, but the most miserable six weeks of my life was that time Papa traded twenty pounds of cornmeal for a clarinet. Folks were always bringin' in things like that to the store. One time a troupe of midget clowns got financially strapped here and talked him into swappin' some tobacco and canned goods for a clown costume. He brought it home for Mary Toy to play dress-up in.”

“But what about the clarinet?”

I shifted a little on the loveseat. In her direction. “A man came to town sellin' band instruments and givin' lessons, and we had the clarinet, so Mama made me take them. Practicin' was about as prickly and borin' as pickin' up sweetgum balls. I told my teacher I hated practicin'. He said, ‘Just play a little while and then walk around the house and then practice some more.' The piece I learned on was ‘Abide With Me.' It got so I couldn't abide ‘Abide With Me,' much less the clarinet. One day I traded it to Pink Predmore for a pair of skates. Mama fussed, but I think it was a relief to her and everybody.”

By now we were somehow sitting right close on the loveseat, and she was looking up at me, saying how much more fun life would be if she were more like me, taking things as they come and not being scared to fail.

“Oh, I don't take kindly to failin', as they say in the country.” I eased my arm across the back of the loveseat behind her, getting set to casually touch her shoulder. “But if one thing won't work, I try another. It's a challenge,” I said softly. Our eyes met. The raspberry lips parted slightly. I could feel her warm breath. My arm was around her. “Like for instance,” I whispered, “I've tried a dozen times to kiss you, and you...”

She pushed me away firmly and stood up. “It's late, Will. I think you'd better go.”

I got up, stood looking down at her, moved a step closer. Slowly, slowly, I bent forward.

She moved a step back. “I thought you were different from other men, Will. Why do you keep...”

“I love you, Sanna. I love you.”

“Nobody can really be in love this fast.”

“I can. I am.”

“Then quit trying to force yourself on me. Please, Will.” She was very upset.

“I don't want to force anything. I just...”

“Good night, Will.” She gave me a quivery little smile.

I followed her to the parlor door and watched as she ran quickly up the stairs.

E
DITOR'S NOTE:
During the fall of 1917, with Will constantly on the road, he and Sanna fell in love through their letters. In the first draft of the manuscript, Olive Ann Burns told much of the story through these letters, but in her revision she intended to replace some of them with scenes in which Sanna and Will learned about each other face to face.

In the following letters Will declares his love for Sanna and makes plans to accompany her to Thanksgiving dinner in Mitchellville.

***

October 31, 1917

My dear Sanna,

I bet you haven't written me one line, but I'm going to Macon tomorrow just to find out.

I left Athens Monday, got to Camilla at ten on Tuesday, built a barn, and came on to Vidalia. We had a food-conservation meeting tonight at which Yours Truly presided and told all he knew in two minutes. We'll hold another tomorrow morning at the schoolhouse to try to get the kids to save waste paper and eat a little less of the foods needed by the Army and Navy for my boyhood pals and fraternity brothers in uniform.

I'll leave here tomorrow afternoon for Macon to get my precious letter from you, be there thirty minutes, go on to Tifton, hold meetings, go on from there to Barnesville, hold meetings, then back to Athens and then P.C. Saturday evening, when I hope to find you without a date. That's my program for the week and I'll complete it or bust.

Vidalia is a quaint little south Georgia town, with the same old moon that rides above your room at Miss Love's house. It's a beautiful night, almost perfect, but not perfect because you're not with me. I didn't really know how much I could miss you until I came way off down here.

Sanna, I know you think I'm the biggest fool in the world, but I can't help saying I love you. I knew it almost from the moment I saw Sampson's watermelon explode on your shoulder. I've tried to hold back, Lord knows. I can tell it makes you uneasy. But it's hard to have self-control when I love you so much. You'll pardon me saying all this, won't you, Sanna? Please at least consider me a true friend who's always ready and willing to help you any way I can. Ask me to do anything that will be of help to you or give you pleasure. I will do it. You are the sweetest, truest, best person I have ever known. It's after one o'clock, so be good and don't forget—

Will T.

***

Sunday, November 18, 1917

Dear Sanna,

Little ole girl, I like to talk to you, I love to think of you and be with you. I don't ask for all your time or thoughts. I just want a little of your love, though I'm not worthy of even your friendship.

I'm trying to live a better life from knowing you, and because I love you so and want to be worthy of you. Girl, you don't know how much difference you have made in me. There are things I would have done did I not know you. When thoughts come that shouldn't be in my mind, I picture your own dear self—your happy smile, your beautiful sparkling black eyes—and your image drives temptation away.

This is one dark gloomy day. Even the clouds sigh for you. When autumn leaves were in color I loved hearing you exclaim, “Oh, look at the beautiful trees!” You have brought so much sunshine into my life that this morning I noticed for the first time how dead with winter everything looks. By spring, when the maple tree outside my office window dangles its transparent yellow-green winged fruit, lit by sunlight, I hope love for me will have begun to light up your heart...

Sanna, please thank your sister for the kind invitation to stay over for Thanksgiving dinner. I'll try to make Mama and Papa see how important this is to me. If it's freezing cold or raining and you have to go on the train, I'll come to Mitchellville to get you on Sunday, weather permitting. Otherwise, I'll meet your train in Athens and ride with you to Progressive City.

Back when I was in high school, Sanna, I had a girl in any direction—-Jefferson, Franklin Springs, Wilson's Chapel, Royston. I'd hitch up old Jack, Grandpa Blakeslee's mule, and leave in the morning to reach Royston by five in the afternoon. At eight or nine o'clock I'd start back. It took all night to get back, but of course the mule knew the way home. I could just turn old Jack's reins loose, go to sleep, and wake up at Grandpa's stable. Us boys and our dogs had a lot of night life in those days. We were always slipping out to go possum or coon hunting.

Right now I'd better get to work.

As ever,
Will

***

In reply to my letter she wrote:

***

Dear Will,

I am indeed grateful for your offer to carry me to Mitchellville the day before Thanksgiving. Of course I realize you can't drive through the country if it's freezing cold or the roads are muddy and slick. I know it will disappoint your parents for you not to be at home, so I will certainly understand if you can't.

Will, I see why every girl in P.C. has been in love with you at one time or another (or so I am told) and probably half the girls in Athens. You're so anxious to please, you make people laugh and have a good time, you put yourself out for everybody, young or old. You are wonderful to Simpson. You are something of a flirt, of course, but everybody knows it's partly just your way of being friendly. I wish I could be the way you are with strangers. In two minutes it's as if they're old acquaintances.

As I've told you, I really enjoy the food at the boarding house, but now I'm not sure I can keep eating there—not since I found out the monkey can get in the kitchen.

Yesterday I finally had a real visit with Miss Hyta. She had asked me to come by for coffee after school, and we sat talking at one end of that long dining table. I've wondered about her Greek name. She said her father was a Greek scholar and it was his idea to call her Hyta. I said I'd heard she was a direct descendant of George Washington. “Who told you that?” she snapped. I said Will Tweedy, and she said, “You tell Will to get his facts straight. Everybody knows George Washington had no children, so a statement like that impugns his character.” She said President Washington was her great-great-great-uncle. His sister Betty married Fielding Lewis and they had eight children, and one of those was her grandfather's father.

So, Will, you are now set straight.

I am impressed that she is also kin to the King of England and Chief Justice John Marshall, but I liked her better after she said her mama always told her a family tree should be like a potato vine, with the best part underground. “Of course I'm proud to be descended from the Washington family, but nobody else cares about that except the D.A.R. I'm more interested in the United Daughters of the Confederacy than the D.A.R.”