Precious Bones (28 page)

Miss Evelyn walked me through the living room and to the front door. “Bones, I have so enjoyed our visit. I do hope you will come back. Maybe next time we can play a few tunes on the piano together.”

“Yes, ma’am, I would like that. I enjoyed it, too, especially the tea party. Maybe I can come back next week.”

“That would be lovely. You are welcome anytime.”

I walked out the gate and strolled along the picket fence. I stopped and looked back at the white house. I thought I saw the silhouette of Miss Evelyn still standing behind the screen door. That house didn’t look so big or mysterious anymore; I now knew it was full of wonder and the presence of Mr. Speed.

I clutched the picture of Mr. Speed and raced the entire way home. Mama was in the back room pumping her foot up and down on her treadle sewing machine. I ran in and held the photograph in front of her. “Mama, this is Mr. Speed when he was in the army. Miss Evelyn gave it to me. The two of us went to her house, the big white one, and had a tea party with her Chinese tea set.”

Mama looked at me and raised an eyebrow, a crooked little smile on her face. “A china tea set?”

“Yes, ma’am, she said it was from China.”

“A china tea set?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s what I said, it’s from China.”

“Bones, it’s not from China. It’s a type of very fine dishes called china.”

“Well, anyway, we had a tea party, and Miss Evelyn is so nice and elegant. She looks like Maureen O’Hara. Don’t you think so, Mama?”

“Bones, it sounds like you had a wonderful time with Miss
Evelyn. Why don’t you wait until supper, when your daddy is home, to tell us all about your visit.”

“Yes, ma’am. I just hope I can wait.”

I ran into my room, then turned around and ran back out. “Mama, can I go over and see Little Man? I want to show him this picture and tell him all about Miss Evelyn.”

“That sounds like a good idea. Because you’re going to be jumping around like a flea until suppertime.” Mama stopped pedaling on the sewing machine and looked at me. “Bones, stay on the road. Don’t take any shortcuts into the swamp. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am, I will. And I’ll be back way before dark. I promise.”

I clutched my picture of Mr. Speed and ran the whole way to Little Man’s house. When I arrived I ran up the steps. As usual the front door was open. I looked inside and saw Miss Melba standing at the kitchen counter making biscuits.

“Miss Melba,” I gasped, “look at this, it’s a picture of Mr. Speed when he was in the army.”

Miss Melba’s hands were covered almost up to her elbows in fine white flour dust. She kept her hands in the biscuit bowl and leaned back for a closer look at the picture.

“My goodness, he was such a handsome young man. Where did you get his picture?”

“Miss Evelyn gave it to me. I went to her house today, and we had a tea party together. It’s the first time I ever spent any time with her. She’s a real nice lady.”

“Yes, she is. I’m so sorry for her loss. Speed was their only child. He was a smart young man with a bright future.”

“Did you know him when he was younger?”

“Oh yes. Cotton and I are quite a bit older, but I do have fond memories of him as a young boy. Along with your daddy, we all pretty much grew up here together.”

I stood in the warm familiar kitchen in front of Miss Melba and felt dumber than a doorknob. How could I not have remembered all of this? Of course they grew up together, just like me and Little Man were doing right now!

I finally caught my breath and asked, “Do you know where Little Man is? I want to show him this picture, too.”

“He’s out back at the pigpen.”

“Thanks, Miss Melba, I’ll see you later.”

I ran back down the steps. When I got to the pigpen, Little Man had just closed the gate and was walking back to the house.

“Little Man, look at this, it’s a picture of Mr. Speed in the army.”

Before he could say a word, I told Little Man all about my tea party with Miss Evelyn.

On our walk back to his house, I said, “While I was with Miss Evelyn I forgot about our troubles for a while. Now I’m back to worrying again. What if Mr. Charlie did see something. What if he saw Nolay out there?”

“Gol-durn, Bones, that’s your daddy you’re talkin’ about. You think he killed ol’ Peckerhead and that Yankee man, too?”

“No. I mean, I don’t want to think like that. But there’s so much stuff piling up in my mind. Where’s his red handkerchief? How did his knife get out in the swamps where that
man’s body was found? And the night Peckerhead died Nolay was supposed to be fishing with Ironhead, but now he says he was up in Jacksonville.”

“I still say you got to have faith in the Lord, you got to trust Sheriff LeRoy, and most of all you got to believe in your daddy.”

“I hope you’re right, Little Man. I’m doing the best I can.”

“Besides, there ain’t much we can do about it. We just got to wait and see what uncovers itself.”

When we reached Little Man’s house, I said, “I best be getting back home. Mama don’t want me out at dark. And come to think of it, I don’t much want to be out at dark, either. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I pretty much ran the whole way back home. I knew there was no such thing as Soap Sally trying to get me, but there was for sure something out there.

When I got home, I went to my room and placed the picture of Mr. Speed on my dresser in a special place where I would see it first thing every morning.

Darkness had just slipped in when Nolay pulled into the driveway and walked in the house. I helped Mama put supper on the table, and we all sat down. Before Nolay could take his first bite, I said, “I went to visit Miss Evelyn today, and she invited me inside her house. We had a tea party, with real tea cups from China—I mean, china cups. She has a piano and she knows how to play it. And she’s a Yankee from New York. Did you know that, Nolay, that she’s a Yankee and she went to college in New York? And—”

Nolay held up both hands. “Whoa, whoa, pull in them
reins a minute. You’re talking so fast I can hardly understand you.”

“Sorry, Nolay, I’m just so excited and I learned so much. Did you know Miss Evelyn was a Yankee? And that Mr. Speed is half a Yankee, and that he’s a war hero, like John Wayne?”

“Well, of course I did. You didn’t know all that? How long you known Miss Evelyn?”

“I guess my whole life. But she’s always been sort of quiet-like, and she spends most of her time in that little room in back of the store. I don’t think I ever heard her say more than a dozen words before.”

“I’ve known her as far back as I can remember, and Miss Evelyn is a mighty fine person. What difference does it make that she’s from New York?”

“You told me all Yankees were bad, that they came here to steal our land and change our way of life. But Miss Evelyn don’t seem to be bad at all. She walks around all elegant, like a movie star. And she looks like Maureen O’Hara, when she played in
Miracle on 34th Street
. And Mama thinks so, too, don’t you, Mama?”

Mama nodded. “She does resemble Maureen O’Hara.”

Nolay’s face crinkled in thought. “Bones, I don’t recall telling you that all Yankees are bad.” He glanced across at Mama. “Honey Girl, did you ever hear me say such a thing?”

“Never heard you say all Yankees were bad, but you have definitely said some unflattering things about Yankees in general.”

“I might have had a few choice words concerning some Yankees … or outsiders I’ve run across. But you can’t say they
are all bad; that would be like saying everybody from Florida is a dumb cracker. And like I’ve told you before, I’m proud to be a cracker, but I sure ain’t dumb.” Nolay munched thoughtfully on a piece of corn bread. “Bones, the world is sorta like a big ol’ pot of vegetable soup. A potato don’t taste like a onion, a green bean don’t taste like corn. Each one of ’em has their own look and flavor. But when you mix ’em all up together, they make a mighty fine-tasting soup. That’s sorta how it is. Every one of us is different, but we can still be mixed up together. You understand what I’m sayin’?”

“Yes, sir, I reckon I do.”

“It’s just that you can’t go judgin’ people by what they look like or where they come from. That ain’t important. What’s important is what’s inside, their flavor, what comes out of ’em.” He cocked his head and said, “Life is full of surprises, that’s what keeps it interesting. You take ol’ Chicken Charlie. Did you know that he don’t come from around here?”

“Mr. Charlie? He wasn’t born here? Is he a Yankee, too?”

“Nope, he’s more what you could call a foreigner, comes from a different country altogether, Germany.”

“Germany? Mr. Charlie is a German? Didn’t we fight them in the war? Aren’t they bad people?”

“Now, there you go again. Not all Germans are bad people, not all of ’em wanted to fight a war. Actually, they had to fight in two wars. The way I heard it, when the first war was going on in Germany, it was pretty hard on a lot of people. If you were different or didn’t agree with what the government
said, they just killed you or locked you up. Charlie’s mama and daddy were both killed. Somehow or other, Charlie’s granddaddy and grandma got on a ship and came to America. I wadn’t even born yet when they moved over here.”

“They came all the way from Germany to live here?”

“I don’t know about coming intentional to live here, they were just lookin’ for somewhere new and peaceful to live. Sometimes life has a way of putting you in the place you need to be. Had something to do with their religion. They were Jewish.”

“Mr. Charlie is a Jew, like Jesus was?”

“Something like that, but I don’t think he remembers he’s one. Charlie’s body grew up to be a man, but his mind stayed behind as a child.”

“How did Charlie come to live where he is now?”

“The way I heard it, my daddy showed ’em that little guava grove and told ’em they could clean a spot out and stay as long as they wanted. Well, before you knew it, them people had carved out a nice little space in them guavas and built ’em a little house. They were hardworkin’ people, and eventually my daddy took them down to the courthouse with what money they had and got ’em a legal deed to the land.” Nolay took a deep sigh, looked down at his plate, and said, “Charlie ain’t never done nothing bad to nobody, and I’m gonna see to it that nothing bad comes to him. It makes me madder than a hornet that ol’ Peckerhead was trying to pull a fast one on that old man.”

Nolay looked over at me. “Charlie don’t quite understand
what a land deed is, but I’m gonna make sure nothing happens to his land.”

I sat at the supper table and let all this information seep into me. I felt like a cup filled to the brim and spilling out over the edges. Maybe I didn’t really know any of our neighbors or even my own family.

The month of October was quickly chasing itself to an end. The dryness of autumn had stumbled in and hung fully sweet and heavy in the air. The days were shorter and the swamp was almost completely covered in a golden-brown cloak. Huge flocks of squawking ducks darkened the sky as they flew over our house on their way to Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Some would stop and rest in our swamp for a couple of days.

Old Snaggletooth’s gator hole shrank to a small bog. Her babies had grown to the size of giant brown lizards. A whole new generation of baby gators scampered around the murky waters of their birthplace. Snaggletooth was always close by, her huge body floating just under the water’s surface, her eyes sticking up like two periscopes. She was constantly on guard for animals in search of a drink or a quick meal of one of her children.

At night, the air filled with the growls, screeches, and
snarls of hungry animals roaming the dried-up swamp looking for food and water.

Sunday morning after breakfast and our chores, Nolay announced, “ ’Bout time we went and chopped us a new batch of firewood. It’s gonna start gettin’ chilly in the evenin’s.”

We went outside and climbed into Nolay’s swamp buggy. Mama brought a little straw basket filled with food and sat it on the floor between her feet.

The buggy consisted of nothing more than an old car frame with bloated tires and seats at the front and back. Nolay turned the key, and the engine coughed and rumbled to life. We headed out toward the sandy patch of longleaf and slash pine.