Leaving Cold Sassy (9780547527291) (3 page)

What the child had spoilt was the vision of Miss Klein's loveliness. But he didn't need any hard words from me on top of what he was about to get, for here came Miss Love, yelling up the tree before she even got to it. “Simpson Rucker Blakeslee! What have you done now!” Then she saw Miss Klein, who had drooped with embarrassment, like a wet cat. “Good Lord, Sampson, what...?”

“I didn't mean to, Mother.” His voice sounded small and lonely in the sudden quiet under the tree.

Miss Love's hands were on her hips. “Why in the world did you have that watermelon up there in the first place?”

“I—I wanted to eat it in the tree. I hauled it up here! See?” He spoke proudly, holding out a zinc bucket with a long rope tied to the handle.

“You let that bucket down right now!” Miss Love shouted. “Before it falls on somebody!”

“Yes, ma'am.”

In seconds the bucket was dangling in Miss Klein's face. Miss Love grabbed it out of the air. “Now you get down from there yourself!” I looked up just in time to see Sampson swing to a lower limb, squat, and poise himself to jump to the ground.

Miss Klein gasped. “Oh, mercy, he'll break his neck!”

“Naw, he won't,” said Mr. Boozer, taking a bite of his watermelon. “Thet boy's middle name is Circus. Wait'll you see him standin' on his mama's horse and hit a-gallopin'!”

WHUMP
! Sampson landed on his feet, almost colliding with Aunt Loma.

“Smart aleck!” Loma snapped, her face flushing.

“Wasn't that a grand leap?” he asked her with a wide smile, as if expecting applause.

Miss Love was trying to dry off the teacher's arm with a lace handkerchief. “I'm just so sorry,” she kept murmuring. Then she turned to Sampson. “Now I want to hear you apologize to Miss Klein,” she ordered.

“I already did. Didn't I, Miss Klein?” With a bare foot he kicked aside the broken watermelon slice where yellow jackets were already crawling, and looked boldly at the wet dress. “Gosh, ma'am, I really am sorry.”

Maybe he meant it, but there was the glimmer of a smirk on his face when he glanced around to see if everybody was looking at him. To old Mr. Boozer he said, “Did you watch me jump, sir?”

Just then Sampson saw and leaped on me, wrapping his arms around my neck and his legs around my waist. “Uncle Will!” he said happily. “Did you see me jump?”

“Yes, I saw.” Untwining him, I lowered him by his arms, and spoke sternly. “Now you get up that busted watermelon and put it in the barrel over yonder.”

“Yes, sir, Uncle Will.”

“And then go get Miss Klein one of those wet towels off of the sycamore stump.”

While the boy picked up the mess with a great show of being busy, Papa made introductions. “Miss Klein, Miss Clack, Miss Hazelhurst, this is my son, Will Tweedy.” He said my name proudly, as if I'd just made the honor roll. “Will, these fine young ladies are our new teachers.” Then he noticed that Miss Klein was busy waving off yellow jackets. “Son,” said Papa, “you better carry her on home.”

“You can use my car,” Miss Love offered.

“I'm too sticky,” protested Miss Klein.

“I've got my motorsickle,” I said. “Bein' sticky won't...”

“Oh, no, I couldn't!” The prospect seemed to horrify her. “I mean I haven't finished meeting people. I mean thank you but...o-o-oh!” She shrank from a yellow jacket hovering near her cheek.

“I've got the sidecar hitched on, Miss Klein.”

Sampson had come back from the trash barrel. Waving the towel, he started hopping. “Can I ride, too, Uncle Will? Please, Uncle Will? Please?”

“Hush up beggin', Sampson. Here's the towel, Miss Klein. It might help.” I wiped her face and hands and dabbed at the stickiness of the long sleeves, then handed the towel to Miss Love.

Miss Hazelhurst and Miss Clack and Papa turned back to the job at hand—greeting and meeting townspeople—and I took Miss Klein's arm. But she turned back to the boy. “I've got a thing or two to say first. Simpson Blakeslee?”

“Ma'am? You mean me?”

Miss Klein was already acquainted with Sampson, of course, being as she was living at Miss Love's house. They were bound to have talked, since he talked to everybody. Talked friendly, I'm sure. But right now the teacher was fearsome to behold.

Using her hat to fan off yellow jackets, she grabbed Sampson by the hand and marched him away from the tree and the crowd. Miss Love looked at me. I nodded. Miss Klein didn't notice us following at a distance. When the teacher stopped, Sampson stood contrite and apprehensive before her. She plopped the hat back on her head. “You look here at me,” she demanded, almost whispering, but that didn't hide her anger. “I said look at me. Not at the ground. That's better. Now, my rollbook says your name is Simpson Rucker Blakeslee, so in my classroom, you will be called Simpson.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Now, Simpson, I want to know if you think you're smart.”

He looked surprised. After glancing back at his mother and me, he said respectfully, “Yes, ma'am. Everybody in town says I'm smart—like my daddy was.”

“Can you name me the nations of the world?”

Hesitating, the boy glanced around again. “Uh, we haven't studied the nations yet, Miss Klein.”

“Do you know nine times seven, Simpson?” She slapped at a yellow jacket on her arm. Killed him dead.

“Uh, no, ma'am. We haven't learned the nines.” Poor Uncle Simpson. He dug his bare toes in the grass. “I'm s'posed to learn the nines this year, in fourth grade.” Boldly: “You s'posed to teach them to me, ma'am.”

Her voice softened. “You've had the sevens, Simpson. If seven times nine is sixty-three, what is nine times seven?”

He looked up, puzzled, then beamed. “Nine times seven is sixty-three?”

“That's good, Simpson. Now I want you to understand something else. I hope we'll be friends at home, but there are fifty-five names in my rollbook. That's a lot of children, and I'm supposed to teach all of you, and y'all are all going to learn. My classroom will not be yours or anybody else's playground.”

“Yes, ma'am. I mean, no, ma'am. I mean, yes'm, I understand.”

Loma had strolled over. She patted him on the cheek and said, “Simpson, sugar, I think you've just met your match.”

He glared at her.

Stepping up behind him, I hung my arms around his shoulders and asked, “Miss Klein, ma'am, may we still call him Sampson after school?”

She couldn't help laughing, and Miss Love laughed, and Loma, and then Sampson did. He tugged at my arm. “I need to tell you somethin', Uncle Will.”

“Well, OK, but make haste, son.”

“I got to whisper it.”

His mother shook her head. “Simpson, it's not polite to tell secrets in front of other people. You know that.”

I winked at her. “Just this once, Step-Grandma?”

“Oh, Will, you...you...” Miss Love was blustering. “You're always undermining my discipline.”

“Yes'm.” I smiled at her, shrugging my shoulders, and she stalked off, back to the party. Squatting down, I cupped my right ear forward with my hand. “All right, Uncle Sampson, the cave's open. Send in your secret.” Miss Klein and Loma were watching, and I was showing off.

Sampson whispered in my ear. I tried to look disapproving. He whispered again. I grinned, nodded, and gave him a playful jab in the stomach. “OK, son, now go play.”

When I stood up, Aunt Loma was right in front of me, her arms crossed. “You spoil him worse than Love does.”

I tapped her diamond with a fingernail. “Looks to me like that Yankee spoils you.”

“It's time somebody did,” she snapped back.

A yellow jacket was buzzing around Miss Klein in circles. “Please, Mr. Tweedy, I think I'd better...”

“Will,” said Aunt Loma, “I hope you don't really expect her to ride in that silly sidecar. She won't have a dab of dignity left.”

“Are you willin', Miss Klein? If you'd rather not, I'll...”

“Anything, Mr. Tweedy. Oh, Lord, here's two more! No matter which way I turn, they're hanging in the air!”

“We'll walk around the crowd, through these woods, to get where I'm parked.” With my hand on her elbow, I looked back and said, “Bye, Aunt Loma. See you later.”

T
HE HARRRUMPH
, harrrumph seemed deafening as we headed down the wagon road towards the park entrance. Despite I didn't go fast, Miss Klein was scared to death—braced herself in the sidecar and shut her eyes tight.

At Miss Love's house we
varoomed
around to the backyard, where I stopped under the big elm. In the quiet after I shut off the engine, a cow lowed somewhere far off and a rooster crowed. When Miss Klein opened her eyes, she looked up to the roof of leaves above us and murmured, “What a beautiful tree!”

I told her it was my Grandpa Blakeslee's favorite. “He always said
el-lum
tree, like it had two syllables, so naturally I said
el-lum,
too. Then a botany professor over at the university set me straight.”

A mockingbird lit on a high branch and commenced his song. She watched him for a minute, then lowered her gaze and smiled at me. “It wasn't a bad ride,” she said, taking off her hat. “Bumpy, but not scary. Well, Mr. Tweedy, thank you.” But she made no move to go. Her black hair glinted blue in a dapple of sunlight. A breeze stirred a loose wisp of hair across a seed that had dried on her cheek. She smelled like warm watermelon.

“You know somethin'?” I said. “Watermelon is very becomin'—to you, I mean. I don't think it would improve me any.”

She smiled again. “Maybe you don't need improving.”

“The U.S. Army says I do.”

“What do you mean?”

“They won't let me join up unless I get fat. I'm six-foot-one and weigh about fifty pounds, which...”

She laughed. “Nobody's that skinny.”

“Well, I guess a hundred pounds.”

“That can't be. I weigh a hundred and twelve myself and I'm just five-three, and...oh, you're teasing!”

“Actually, a hundred and twenty-five according to the scales they use at Papa's store to weigh out cow feed and guano. Still, that doesn't suit the Army. Like I told the recruitin' officer, if I was a hog, it'd make sense to fatten me up for slaughter. But as a soldier boy, the thinner I get, the harder I'll be to hit.” I meant to sound light-hearted, but I couldn't laugh. My hands tightened on the handlebars. “Last week in Atlanta I saw a fraternity brother. He was in Army uniform with a corporal's stripes. I hadn't laid eyes on him in a year and we were good friends at the university, but I crossed the street hopin' he wouldn't see me.”

I hadn't meant to say all that. Miss Klein looked embarrassed for me. After an awkward silence, she said, “I really must go in, Mr. Tweedy.”

I pretended not to hear her. Leaning back from the handlebars, I let my hands drop to my knees. “Over in Athens they say my work is important to the war.”

“Then you must have a very responsible position.”

“I'm what they call a county agent.”

“A what?”

“The School of Agriculture thought it up two years ago, just before I graduated. They made me county agent for Clarke County.” Miss Klein leaned forward, her hand on the handle of the sidecar's little door, but I kept talking. “I tell farmers how to farm.”

She turned towards me again. “You're a farmer?”

“No, this is a salaried job. But it's the biggest joke I ever got into. Farmers aren't exactly thrilled over havin' a fool college boy claimin' to know better than they do. When the professor hired me, I said, ‘Sir, even the hired hands will see I don't know what I'm doin'.' He said, ‘If somebody has a problem you can't solve, don't admit it. Stall till you can find out what to do.'” I paused. “But you aren't interested in all this, Miss Klein. I better let you...”

“Oh, but I really am interested, Mr. Tweedy. I was born on a farm. My daddy was a farmer. My brother is, and...”

Surprised, I said, “I bet you miss it, don't you? The farm, I mean. And the quiet, and the smell of fresh-cut hay and fresh-turned soil, and watchin' newborn lambs and calves frolic, and...”

“I don't miss any of that.” Miss Klein shook her head. “I don't miss drawing well water, either. I will never ever live out in the country again. A man trying to make a decent living on the land? That's a lot bigger joke than what you do, Mr. Tweedy. Farming is nothing but hard work and high hopes, debt and disappointment.”

“But I'll know all the new methods. Farmin' is a gamble, all right. Still, that's what keeps it excitin'.”

“I hate excitement. That's just another word for worry.”

“Farmin' lets a man work outdoors. I couldn't stand bein' cooped up in a store or office the rest of my life. Right now, though, I just want to enlist. Bein' a county agent won't mean pea-turkey to the fightin' men, the ones over here, or over there either.” I itched to pluck that watermelon seed off her cheek. “Want me to give you a for-instance, Miss Klein? Yesterday I was out in the county advisin' an old fool named Duck Lassiter how to get one row of cotton picked. How's that go'n hep beat the Kaiser?”

She looked puzzled. “One row?”

“Old Duck plowed his field in a spiral, like a snail shell, and bragged that it was go'n be the world's longest goldurn cotton row. His field hands hoed it, and they slopped the stalks with arsenic and molasses to kill the boll weevils, but they don't want to pick the cotton.” I laughed. “Cotton pickers like to take a row apiece and move down a field together. If they have to space themselves out, that's lonesome pickin'. And it'll be heavy totin' and a lot of wasted time if they have to cut across the spiral to get to the cotton wagon. I told Duck he'd have to make a road across the spiral, but he said that'd mess up his row.”