and me first got married.... But why don't you ever go to sleep, little
feller?"
"You know who I'd marry if I wuz gonna marry, Mama?"
"I haven't got the least inkling," she said. "Who?"
"You."
"Me?"
"Uh huh."
"You couldn't marry me if you wanted to. I'm already married to your
papa."
"Cain't I marry you, too?"
"Certainly not,"
"Why?"
"I told you why. You can't marry your own mama. You'll just have to
look around for another girl, young man."
"Mama."
"Yes."
"Mama."
"Yes."
"Mama, do you know somethin'?"
"No, what?"
"Well, like, say, like what that little ole mean kid acrost th' alley
asked me?"
"What?"
"Well, he asked me how many married rings you had on.'
"And then?"
"So I told him, told him you didn't have but one gold one. No diamunt
glass one."
"And?"
"And he said ever'body in town would git awful, awful mad at you for
losin' yore diamunt 'un."
"Did he?"
"An' he said, 'Where did you lose yore diamunt `un at?' An' so, I told
him maybe it got lost in our big house fire."
Mama just kept listening and didn't say a word.
Then I went on, "An' he asked me how come it, our big perty house got
burnt up. An' then he asked me if--if you struck a match an' set it on
fire...."
Mama didn't answer me. She just looked up away from me. She looked a
hole through the wall, and then she looked out through my bedroom window up
over the hill. She rubbed my forehead with her fingers and then she got up
off the edge of my bed, and walked out into the kitchen. I laid there
listening. I could hear her feet walking around over the kitchen floor. I
could hear the water splash in the drinking dipper. I heard everything get
quiet. Then I drifted off to sleep, and didn't hear a sound.
I AIN'T MAD AT NOBODY
It was an Indian summer morning and it was crispy and clear, and I
stuck my nose up into the air and whiffed my lungs full of good weather. I
stood on the side of the street in the alley crossing and saw Clara drift
almost out of sight toward the schoolhouse. I turned around and ran like a
herd of wild buffaloes back down the hill, around the house, and come to our
front yard, skidding to a stop. I hollered in at the window to where Mama
was finishing up the breakfast dishes and said, 'Where's Gramma at?"
Mama slid the window up and looked out at me and said, "This is
Grandma's day to come all right, how'd you know?"
"Clara told me," I told Mama.
"And why're you so fussed up about Grandma coming, young sprout?" Mama
said to me.
"Clara said Gramma'd take me with her to trade her eggs."
"Who is she, might I ask you?"
"She's my big sister. She's bigga 'nuff ta tell me where all I can go,
ain't she?"
"And I'm your Mama. Could you tell me what I'm suppose to be able to
tell you?"
"You can tell me I can go with Gramma, too."
"Oh! Well, I'll tell you, you've been having a hard time getting used
to living in this old house. So I'll tell you what. If you'll come in and
wash your face and neck and ears real good, and get both of your hands clean
enough for Grandma to see your skin, maybe I'll be right real good to you
and let you go out and stay a few days with her! Hurry!"
"Is my ears clean?"
Mama took a good look at both of my ears and told me, "This first one
will do in a pinch."
"How long's Gramma been yore wife?" I asked Mama.
"T told you a thousand times Grandma is not my wife. She's your
Grandpa's wife."
"Has Grampa gotta husban', too?"
"No. No. No. Grandpa is a husband already, Grandma's husband."
"Nobody ain't my husban', is there?" I asked her.
Mama grabbed the washrag away from me and rubbed my hide to a cherry
red. "Listen, you little question box, don't ask me anything else about who
is kin to who; you've absolutely got my head whirling around like a
windmill."
"Mama. Know somethin'?"
"What?"
"I ain't never gonna git real mad at you."
"Well, that is good news. Why? Whatever made you say that?"
"I jist ain't."
"You're being awful, awful good for some reason or another. Nickel.
Dime. What?"
"Not really, really mad."
"You certainly will have to change your ways a lot. You get mad at your
old mama just about every day about something. You get awful riled up
sometimes."
"That ain't worst mad."
"What kind of mad do you mean?"
"Mad that stays mad. 'At's th' kind I'm tell in' ya about. You won't
ever git mad at me if I won't ever git mad at you, will ya?"
"Never in your whole life, young feller." Mama patted my naked hide
where the cakes of dirt had just been washed off and told me, "That's the
best thing that could ever happen to all of us. Your little old head has got
it all thrashed out."
"Thrashed where? What's thrashed mean?"
"Thrash. Thrash. Means when you whip something and beat it, and well,
like Grandpa does his oats."
"I got oats in my head! Oats in my head! Yumpity yay! Yumpity yay! I
got oats in my head! Git outta my way! Git outta my way!" I made a hard run
around the kitchen.
"You crazy little monkey. Go ahead, have a good time. Just go ahead and
tear this old house down. You're my littlest baby. You're going out and stay
a long, long time with your grandma, and I won't have no little boy to drive
me crazy! Have a good time. Let's see you! Run! Holler! Loud! I'm gonna
gitcha! Gonna gitcha! Run!"
We chased all around over the front room and back through the kitchen.
She grabbed me up off the floor and swung me around and around till my feet
stuck straight out. She was laughing and I felt hot tears salty on the side
of her face. When she let me down on the floor, she knelt down on her knees
and held me up real warm, and I said, "Mama, I'll tell ya. I like ta have ya
chase me. Play. Stuff like that. Talk ta each other. Hug on each other. But
I don't like fer ya ta call me secha little boy all th' time."
"Oh, I thought so. I was looking for you to say that most any day now,"
she told me, holding me off at arm's length and looking me up and down.
"You're getting to be a mighty awful big man."
"Bigger'n I usta wuz?"
"Bigger than you used to be."
"Usta wuz. Cain't stay still."
"I know," Mama said to me, and she set down on the floor and pulled me
down in her lap, "You grow."
"Up."
"Up this way. Out this way. Across this way."
"Big."
"You can't stay still," she went on.
"Gotta hurry. Grow."
"Tell me, mister grower, this. Now, when you was just a little boy with
curly hair a little over four years old, you said to me that you never would
get mad and stay mad at me anymore. Will you still say that while you're
growing up so big so fast?"
"Fast as I grow a little, I'll tell you it again."
"You promise? You cross your heart and hope to die?"
"Cross. Double cross."
"Fine. Now look right out through that window there and tell me what
you see coming down the road?"
"Gra-mma"
"Grandma's right!"
"Hey! Hey! Gramma! Gramma!"
I snorted out the front door running to meet the buggy, waving my hands
about my head like I was signaling a battleship. When I got about halfway
down the hill, I struck my big toe against a sharp rock, and it tumbled me
so bad the tears started down my cheeks; but I started running that much
faster, for my only chance to get a free ride was to catch the buggy while
she was on the level, because once she got headed up the steep hill to our
house she wouldn't stop to pick me up.
I had tears on my face and dirt on the tears when I got to the road,
but I was there ahead of the buggy. I jumped up and down at the side of the
road and I made all kinds of signals with my hands, but Grandma just kept
looking straight ahead. I yelled, "Gramma! Hey! Gramma!" But she didn't even
as much as glance over my way.
I trotted along a ragweed ditch full of fine washed sand, and kept
hollering, "It's me! Hey! It's me! Gramma! Me!" And she just kept old White
Tom and Red Bess trotting right along, throwing more dust, straw, and chalky
manure dirt back in my face.
About six foot this side of where the level road took off up the hill
toward our house, the buggy stopped, and I made one long, sailing jump, in
between the wheels, and up into the seat beside Grandma, and she was
bouncing the whole buggy up and down laughing and saying, "Why, was that
you? Back yonder? I saw a little old dirty-faced boy standing back there,
and I says to myself, "No, that's not Woody, not my Woodsaw.'"
Sweat was in little bumps on Grandma's face, because she was so hot and
her whole face was bouncing with the buggy because she was so fat. A black
hat with some flowers on top and a big pin that always made me wonder if it
wasn't sticking right on through her hair and head from one ear to the
other. Gray hair commencing to make a stand that had come from hoeing' and
working a crop of worries for about fifty years.
"I was clean when I seen ya comin'. Then I started a runnin', an'
stumped my big toe on an оl' rock. Hurt. Real bad. Gimme th'
lines."
She put one arm around me and handed me the long leather reins, and
told me, "Yes, you look like my little grandson now. I can tell by the shape
of your head that's my Woodchuck."
I stood up on the floorboards and held both of the big reins in one
hand. It was more than a handful, but I managed to wave at Mama. "Hi! Hi! I
got 'em! I got 'em! Hi! Lookit me! See me drive?"
I jumped out of the buggy in front of our house and Grandma met me
coming around the horses. She put both of her hands on her hips and
straightened her corsets up a little and smiled at me, and said, "Well, you
are a smart feller. Already know how to tie a slipknot on a buggy wheel."
I spent the next few minutes looking at the knot I'd tied on the buggy
spoke, tracing the reins up over the horses' backs, and up to the bits in
their mouths. I handled the loose bit and the steel shined in the sun. When
I rubbed Tom's bald spot between his eyes, Bess looked over at me kind of
lonesome like, so I rubbed her, too. I walked around and around the buggy,
and it smelled like strong paint and hot leather. At the back were seven or
eight gallon buckets, all full of milk and cream and clabber to take around
to folks in town.
I could hear Mama and Grandma talking through the kitchen window.
Grandma was saying, "You're not looking any too good, Nora. You're
working too hard. Straining yourself. Something. I don't know. What is it?"
"Why, I feel all right; do I look bad? Just everyday housework. Nothing
else."
"Something else, too, young lady. Something else. This old house.
That's what it is. This old house is so old and rotten and so awful hard to
keep clean."
Grandma was leaning back in a big wide chair that just about fit her,
sizing Mama up and down. A few gray hairs had got loose from her hairpins,
and she was pressing them back with her hands, and pinning them down where
they belonged.
"We're about to get all straight again," Mama said.
"Here. Something's wrong around here. Tell me the truth before I go. I
just got to know."
Mama rubbed her hair back out of her eyes and said, "I feel good, I
feel good all over. I work hard and feel good, but I don't know. Just seems
like right in through my head some way or another, something. Little dizzy
spells."
"I thought so," Grandma told her, "I thought so. I could tell. You
can't fool an old fooler, you know. Might fool your own self a little. But
not me. Not your old Mama. If it was one of your own kids sick, you'd be
able to tell it a mile away. I'm the same way about my flock of kids. I know
when one of them is out of kilter. I put diapers on you and I washed your
ears a million times and I sent you off to school in dresses we made
together, and if you just so much as blink one eye crossways, I can tell it.
You promise to get the doctor down here and let him look you over!"
"Milk will sour in the buggy."
"Oh, to the dickens with milk and butter, Nora! I'm talking sense.
Promise me you'll get the doctor down. Have him come down every few days for
a while. He can keep up with you, and do you some good."
"Your eggs will hatch out. Well, all right, all right. I'll get the
doctor. Here, kiss me good-bye." Mama kissed Grandma on the forehead.
Grandma crawled back into the buggy seat and found me perched up beside
her. "What about this young jaybird going home with me? Is it all right with
you? Will you miss his hard-working hands around the place here?"
Mama was standing in the yard waving. "I will! 'Bye! I'll tell Papa
you're gone. He'll miss you!"
The team knocked dust up between their legs and it was good because the
little biting flies couldn't bother their ankles. Grandma was letting me
hold the reins.
She told me, "Stop here a minute or two." I pulled the team to a stop.
"Get three pounds of butter out of the back and take it up to Mrs. Tatum's
door. Get the money. Don't squeeze the butter too hard, it'll have your
finger marks on it."
I knocked on the door and handed a lady three pounds of butter and got
a dollar bill and a twenty-five-cent piece in the palm of my hand. It felt
like some kind of magic sheet of paper and a magic piece of silver. I handed
it up to Grandma and she yelled, "Thank you, Mrs. Tatum! Mighty fine
weather! Thank you!'' And Mrs. Tatum yelled back, "I can just smell a blue
norther on top of these pretty days!"
We drifted on down the road a few more blocks, passing a lot of
scattered houses, and I held the reins again, being awful careful to hold
them up plenty high in the air so the people all along the road could see I
was ramrodding this driving business. Grandma just sort of smiled and said,
"Turn here to your right. Which a way's my right? North. Cold up there.
Hurry and make your turn. Stop over there in front of that little white
house. Get out and take Mrs. Warner three pounds of butter. Then come back
and take three buckets of milk. That family of hers is getting bigger and
hungrier all of the time. I don't think her boy is working anymore down at
the gin."
"Howdy do," I said to Mrs. Warner, and she said, "Why, Mrs, Tanner's
got a mighty good little boy working for her now. Isn't three big heavy
pounds of butter a little too heavy for you?"
"Nope." I ran back to the buggy and piled in again.
"Now, do you see that little old broke-down shack over there in under
that black walnut tree?"
"Yeah, I see it. Say, Gramma, why didn't Mrs. Warner gimme no dollar
an' no quarter? I see th' shack."
"Mrs. Warner does a charge account with me. Sews. Fixes clothes for my
whole family. Now this next lady's name is Mrs. Walters. Take two pounds of
butter to her. Then come back and take three buckets of milk."
I walked up to the little shack and tried to keep my feet on a rotten
plank that was used as a boardwalk. It was too rickety and caused me to lose
my balance. I stumbled and dropped one of the pound squares of butter and I
felt like one of Oklahoma's worst outlaws when I saw the wet cloth unroll,
and the butter roll out across the ground, picking up little dark rocks and
a solid coat of hard dust. I was standing there with tears in my eyes, and
more coming all of the time, when I heard somebody talking in my ear.
"I was watchin' you frum th' kitchen window. My, my. What a nice little
boy yo' gran'ma's got to go 'roun' an' carry her buttah an' milk.
I oughtta knowed you couldn' make it ovah that оl' trippy boardwalk. Lordy,
me! Jes' lookit that nice big yeller poun' о buttah all layin' theah in my
ol' dirty, filthy yard! Oh, well don' you git no gray head 'bout it, little
'livery man. I can use it all right. See heah? I can jes' scrape, scrape,
scrape, an' then they won' be too much wasted."
I finally got up strength enough to mumble out, "Stumped my toe agin'."
"Is he all right, Matilda?"
"Sho', sho'! He's all right. Jes' a little toe stump. Shoot a 'possum,
I goes 'roun' heah all barefoot jes' like you do. See my ol bare foot, how
tuff 'tis? Come right on in through th' front room heah, that's right. I bet
you this is th' firs' time you evah wuz in a black niggah's house. Is it?"
"Yes ma'am."
"I don' hafta tell you no mo' than what yo' eyes can already see, do
I?"
"No ma'am."
"You leas'ways sez, yas ma'am an' no ma'am, don' you?"
"Yes'm."
"An' me jes' an ol black niggah. Hmmm. Sho' do soun' good."
"Are you a nigger lady?"
"Whatta I look like, honey?"
"Are you a nigger 'cause you're black?"
"What folks all says."
"What do people call you a nigger for?"
" 'Cause they jes' don' know no bettah. Don' know what 'niggah' means.
Don' know how bad makes ya feel."
"You called your own self that," I told her.
"When I calls my own se'f a niggah, I knows I don' mean it. An' even
anothah niggah calls me a 'niggah,' I don' min', 'cause I knows it's most
jes' fun. But when a white pusson calls me 'niggah,' it's like a whip cuts
through my ol' hide."
"I gotta go bring you in some milk," I told Matilda.
"Did you speak 'milk'?" She got a big smile all over her face.
"My gramma's got you three buckets."
"Some weeks it's buttah. Some weeks eggs. An' now you speaks out
somethin' 'bout milk. Lawd God, little rattlesnakes! C'mon, I'll he'p you."
I went running through the house chasing her and said, "I'm driver 'n
d'livery boy!"
We got back to the buggy and Grandma said, "Did you tell the lady you
were sorry that you dropped her butter?"
I looked down at the dusty road and didn't say anything.
Matilda cut in and said, "Missy Tanner, any little boy that does work
fo' you's jes' mortally gotta be good. You gives me th` buttah an' th' sweet
milk, an' he 'livers it to me. My оl' man's a-gonna chomp down on that same
ol' co'nbread, an' 'stead or it a-bein' all so dry an' gritty it
sticks in yo' throat an' cuts through yo' belly, it's a-gonna be all slick
an' greasy with good ol' runnin' buttah. An' it'll go down his oozle
magoozler so slick an' easy it won't have time ta scrape his neck 'er belly
neither one. An' my kids'll git greasy all over an' wipe it off on their
ovahalls, but po' little fellas, I ain't even a-gonna cuss 'em out 'bout it
if they do; 'cause they'll be jes' like me, so hongery fo' buttah on
co'nbread, an' sweet milk, they'll jes' think they's oozin' ovah inta th'
sho' 'nuff promised lan'."
Grandma said, "I try not to ever just clean forget you."
"I knows ya do," Matilda told Grandma.
"I just wish it could be more of it more often," Grandma went on to
say.
"I wishes I could he'p you out mo' an' mo' often, too. You knows that,
don't ya, Missy Tanner?" When she looked in under the back lid of the buggy,
Matilda went on, 'I'll see if I can see any of mah own kids aroun'. Pack in
two of these heah big gallion buckets. Tuckah! Tuckah!''
"Yes'm. Heah I is! Watcha wan'?"
"Undo yo'self, Tuckah Boy, undo yo'self! Come out heah an' see with yo'
own big eyes what all's a-gonna grease dat belly o' yo's! Sweet milk! 'Nuff
ta fatten an' raise fo' hogs ta butchah!"
Tucker flew out from behind a patch of weeds, and then I saw three or
four other little heads shoot out and stand up and look and think and
listen.
Grandma smiled and said, "Hi, Tuck! Still playing in that old patch of
gimpson weeds, I see."
"Howdy do, Miss Tanner."
Matilda handed me a gallon bucket and then she handed Tuck one. Then
she said, "Tuck, this is Mistah Woodpile. Mistah Woodpile, dis heah is my
boy, Tuckah."
I shook hands with Tuck and we said, "Glad ta know ya."
Then he laughed at the top of his voice and grabbed a bucket of milk
between his two hands, bent over it with his face almost touching the top of
the milk, his breath blowing rings out across it, saying, "Good оl', good
оl', good ol' milk! Good ol', good ol', good ol' milk!"
For the first two or three miles we just trotted along west down the
Ozark Trail Half a mile west past the Buckeye schoolhouse, we saw two saddle
horses tied to the fence, the Black Joker, wild and mean, that Grandma's
oldest boy, Warren, rode; and an old tame family horse that the two younger
kids, Lawrence and Leonard, rode double.
"I see Warren's sneaked out that Black Joker horse and rode him to
school again. That fool horse is loco."
I set there in the seat all loose and limber, both knees under my chin,
sort of thinking, and then I told Grandma, "Mama'll need me home."
Grandma looked down at me and she put her arm around me and pulled me
over close to her in the buggy seat, and I held one rein in each hand and
let both hands fall down across her lap. "You're worried, too. You're a
worried little man, that's what you are, a worried little man."
"Gramma."
"Yes."
''You know somethin', Gramma? My mama don't never go out an' visit th'
other people acrost th' alley."
"Why not?"
"She jest stays an' stays an' stays home in that ole Lon'on House."
"Do any of the neighbor ladies ever come around to visit and talk with
Nora?" Grandma asked me.
"Huh uh. Never nobody."
"What does she do? Read a book?"
"Jest sets. Looks. Holds a book in 'er lap mosta th' time, but she
don't look where th' book's at. Jest out across th' whole room, an' whole
house an' ever'wheres."
"Is that right?"
"If Papa tells Mama somethin' she forgot, she gits so mad she goes off
up in th' top bedroom an' cries an' cries all day long. What makes it?" I
asked Grandma.
"Your mama is awful bad sick, Woody, awful bad. And she knows she's
awful bad sick. And it's so bad that she don't want any of you to know about
it ... because it's going to get a whole lot worse."
It was a minute or two that Grandma didn't say a word, and neither did
I. I stared along the side of the little old road. The rain had come and the
waters had run, and the road had wrinkled up like an old man's skin. Over
across the tops of the weeds I saw Grandma's big high cornfield.
"Gramma," I finally spoke up, "is Tom an' Bess trottin' fast 'cause
they wanta git home quicker?"
She didn't move or change the blank look on her face much. She said, "I
suppose they do."
"Is one horse a girl?"
"Bess."
"One's a boy horse?"
"Tom."
"They live together, don't they?"
"Same barn, yes. Same pasture. I don't know just exactly what you're
getting at."
"Can horses marry each other?"
"Can they do what?"
"Horses marry?"
"Well, now there you go again with your dang fool infernal questions. I
don't know whether horses get married or not."
"I wuz jest askin' у a."
"You're always asking, asking, asking something. And half of the time I
can't tell you the answer."
"Horses work, don't they?"
"You know they work. I wouldn't even have a cat or a dog or a chicken
on my place that didn't do his share of the work. Yes, even my old cat does
a lot of work. That reminds me, you know old Maltese Mother?"
"Оl', оl' one? Yeah. She knows me, too. Ever' time she sees me, she
comes over to where I am."
"She's got a whole bunch, seven of the nicest soft, fuzzy little
kittens that you ever saw."
"Seven? How many fingers is seven?"
"Like this. Here. All of the fingers on this hand and two fingers on
this hand. That's right."
"Are they good little kittens?"
"Now, what could a little kitten do, anyway, to be mean? They're the
best little fellers you ever saw. Sleepers. You never saw anything sleep
like these little baby cats."
"Where did ole Mother Maltese go to come back with this many little
baby kittens?"
"Out in the trees somewhere, somewhere out in the grass. She found one
little kitten here, and one little kitten over there, and one or two back
across yonder, and that's how she got all seven."
"Is it?"
"Certainly is."
"Why couldn't old Mama Maltese go and find all seven of 'em in jes' one
place?"
"Listen, young man, you'll just have to ask the mama cat. Watch your
horses there, straighten yourself up. You remember we're coming to the gate?
You jump out and open it."
I saw the old barb-wire gate coming and said, "Me? Shore! Shore! I know
ever'thing ya gotta do ta open a gate!"
The gate was tough. I put one arm around the post that was set in the
ground, and the other arm around the loose gatepole, and got sort of a
headlock on them both. I heard Grandma holler out, "I see the boys riding
down the road yonder! Come on!"
Then I heard a bunch of horses' hoofs coming down the road, and I
looked up and saw just a big white-looking cloud of dust coming at me. Out
of the dust I could hear the three boys whooping and barking, "Wwaaahoooo!
Yip! Yip! Уууууiiiррреее! Looky ooouuuttt! Woodrow! Looky outttt!" The
thought of getting tromped under the horses' feet caused my eyes to fly open
like a goggle-eyed bee, and my two ears stood straight out from the sides of
my head.
My first thought was to drop the gatepole and run off into the weeds to
get clear of the horses. The boys were still coming straight at me and
yelling, "Gonna git run oovver! Run overr! Looky outtt, Woodrow! Gonna git
run over an' killed!"
The boys and the horses were within ten foot of me, when I decided that
I'd just hold the gate shut. I happened to take one last look back at the
little wire loop on top, and it had slipped into the notch where I'd been
trying to put it. The gate was shut good as she ever was. I fell down off of
the brace post backwards and scrambled up to my feet again, and made the
worst face I could, and yelled back at the boys, "Ya! Ya! Ya! Thought you
wuz smart! Thought you'z smart!"
Both horses run keeeblamm into the gate. Warren, riding the Black
Joker, was traveling too fast to turn or stop, or even slow down. Lawrence
and Leonard had figured on the gate being open, and their own dust had
blinded them. Their horse stopped so quick that the boys slid right about a
couple of feet up onto the horse's neck; the horse waved his head a time or
two and threw both kids down amongst the wires where Warren was rolling
around.
All of this time I mostly just run about three times as fast as the
wild horses, till I come to Grandma's buggy. I mounted the back of it, set
there all humped up, and watched the crazy rodeo back at the gate. There was
the Black Joker stamping around still crying and squeeling a little, over
yonder in the west corner of the cotton field; and over there in the east
corner, in a few wild weeds, just on the edge of the cotton patch, there was
the horse without a name; and yonder in the middle of the whole thing there
was a cloud of Oklahoma's very best dust, that looked about like where you'd
heaved a hand grenade; you might not believe it to stand back off and look
at it, but somewhere in that dust I knowed there was three awful tough boys.
You couldn't see the boys. Just the dust fogging up. But you could see a few
slivers of barb wire wiggling in the sun.
"Warren! Lawrence! Leonard!'' Grandma was just about to yell
her yeller out. "You boys! Where! Wait! Are you hurt!"
She waded into the dust and was fanning both arms, reaching in around
the loose wires and fishing for mean boys. Then all I saw was her hat
bobbing up and down as she bent over and stood up, and bent over again,
hunting for kids. In a few minutes the dust crawled off of its own accord,
like a big animal of some kind, away from the gate, across the little rutty
road.
"Pore ol 'Gran'ma! Leonard's got killed, an' Warren's got killed, an'
Lawrence got killed." I was setting on the back end of the buggy, looking.
Tears the size of teacups was oozing down my cheeks and I could taste the
slick salt when the tears run down to the corner of my mouth.
"Warren! Warren!" Grandma called. "What are you doing over here in this
old ditch! Are you hurt bad?"
Warren got up and tried to brush the dirt off of his self; but his
school clothes was so full of holes and rips that every time he brushed, he
tore a bigger hole somewhere. He was sobbing and his whole body was jerking,
and he told Grandma, "It was that little ornery runt, Woodrow, done it! I'm
gonna cave his head in for 'im!"
"Now, you just hold yourself, Mister Rough Rider," Grandma told Warren.
"Woodrow was doing the best he could. He was closing that gate for me. You
bigger boys had no reason to come ridin' down the road yelling and trying to
scare a little kid to death. I don't care if it did skin you up a little,
you need it." Then she got to looking around for another boy, and she found
one laying flat of his belly out in a clump of sumac bushes, and it was
Leonard puffing and blowing like he'd been shell-shocked in four wars.
"Leonard! You dead?" Grandma said to him.
Leonard jumped up so quick that it would have made a mountain lion look
slow, and he started running toward the buggy as hard as he could tear,
squawling out, "I'm goin' ta beat that little skunk inta th' ground. Goin'
ta tear him up just like he tore me up!" And he kept coming for the buggy.
I was breathing pretty hard, and sometimes not at all. I knew what he'd
do. I let myself just sort of slide over the back of the buggy seat and down
onto the cushion, and held the reins as tight as I could and bit my tongue,
and looked out over the horses' backs toward the house.
Grandma found Lawrence in the same patch of weeds, skint up just about
like the other two, some hide and some duds and some hair missing. Leonard
was climbing up on the buggy seat beside me. He drew his hand back and made
a pass at my head, and I ducked to one side and let the lick fly past. He
hit the back of the buggy seat with his hand and that made him a whole lot
madder. The next lick he swung, he caught me square on the side of the head,
and my ears rung like a steam саlliope. I fell down on the seat with my
hands covering my head, and he rung two or three harder ones around over my
skull. I squeezed out of his grip, but I banged my head on the sharp corner
of a heavy wooden box in the bottom of the buggy, and when I touched my hand
to the knot that raised up just above my ear, and seen blood all over my
fingers, I let out a scream that rattled pecans in trees for a mile around.
The horses heard me, and jumped like they'd been blistered with a
lightning whip. They jerked the loose reins out of my hand. Tom made a lunge
in his harness, a leather strap broke; then Bess got scared and jumped
sideways, and snapped a hitching chain; and then both horses started
snorting, laying their ears back, and running for the barn just like a
cyclone. Leonard fell back on the cushion of the buggy seat. I was still
doubled up in a ball rolling around with the wooden box on the floor boards.
Neither of us could get a chance to jump. The horses kept loping faster and
after they got the buggy in motion, they broke out into their hardest run.
Leonard got madder than ever, and every time the horses' hoofs hit the
ground, or the wheels went around, he would give me a good kick in the back.
He was barefooted and he didn't hurt me much, but when he saw he wasn't, he
decided just to put both of his feet on my neck and try to choke me. The
buggy wheels bounced against rocks, hit roots, and jolted both of us out of
our wits.
Grandma was within three feet of the buggy when the horses broke and
run away, and I could hear her hollering, "Whoa! Whoa! Tom! Bess! Stop them
horses! God Almighty! There's a hundred sticks of dynamite in that buggy!"
I heard the horses grunt, and heard the water in their bellies jostle
around, heard the air snorting through their nostrils, and their hoofs
beating against the ground.
"That box you're leanin' up against is fulla dynamite!" Leonard
hollered.
"I don't care!" I yelled at him.
"If this buggy turns over, we're gonners!" he told me.
I told him, "I cain't stop 'em!"
"I'm goin't' jump! Leave you with it!" he bellered.
"Jump! See if I care!" I told him.
Leonard got up and stood with his feet in the seat, and the first time
he got his chance, he piled over the side, and hit rolling through a patch
of bullhead sticker weeds. All I saw was the seat of his britches as he flew
over the wheels. And that left me banging all around over the floor of the
buggy with nothing but a box of dynamite, and TNT caps, to keep me company.
The post of the gate swung past, and I let out my breath when we missed it
by about an inch; but I looked ahead of the horses and saw that the whole
barn lot was standing full of things that we couldn't miss. Straight ahead
was a steam tractor, and beside that was a couple of wagons with their
tongues propped up on their singletrees. Here was a hog-oiling machine. A
pile of corn cobs was in our path. I could picture Grandpa's barn, barn lot,
all of his plows, tools, and machinery, blowing up over the tree tops; but
the old horses knew more about this place than I did, and they made a big
horseshoe bend around the thrasher, cut in real quick to shave the tractor,
sidestepped a little to pass the pile of cobs, and then curved wide again.
But when they made a run for the barn door, I told myself good-bye. The
whole barn was stacked full of more wagons, machinery and plows, and there
was a concrete slab running across the ground just as you went in the door,
which I knew was enough of a hump to throw that box of dynamite plumb out of
the buggy. With my ear against the box, I could hear the big sticks thumping
about inside.
But, all at once, the horses come to the door. They wheeled sideways
again and stopped; horses aiming one direction, and the buggy another.
For a minute I just laid there hugging the box. Then I made a quick
high dive over the seat, and lit on the ground. Warren and Leonard come
riding up and jumped off of their horse.
"You little devil, you! You've caused us enough trouble!"
Warren made a run and grabbed me by the neck. "Come on, Leonard! I got
'im for ya! Here th' little bastard is! Beat th' livin' hell out of 'im!"
"Hold `im!" Leonard was saying. "Hold 'im till I can get my belt loose!
I'm gonna whop blisters on yore little hide that a dollar bill won't cover!
Yore whole dam family ain't nuthin' but bad luck! Hold `im, Warren!"
Leonard took a few seconds to unloose his belt buckle and get it pulled
out of the loops. I was kicking and crying, not loud. I didn't want Grandma
to think I was bellering so's she could hear me; but I was fighting. I was
using every cuss word that ever was or ever will be.
Your old blisters won't hurt me. Your old stropping belt won't hurt
long. Your old arm will give out. You don't know. You think you're scaring
me. You think you're takin' some of my fight out of me. You'll
whip me now, and I'll look like I'm cryin', but I won't really be cryin'.
I'll be havin' tears in my eyes because I'm mad at you. My family can't help
what happened to them. My mama can't help what happened.
You used to be friendly and nice to my mama when she was pretty and
healthy, and people was nice to you because you was my mama's brothers. But
then, when she had some bad things happen to her, and lost her pretty house,
and got sick, and needed you to treat her 'nice, you stand off and how'l and
bark like a crazy bunch of coyotes, and laugh and poke fun at us. It makes
me tough enough to stand here and let you whack me acrost the back and the
neck and ears, and blister my shoulders with that little old flimsy leather
strop, and I don't even feel it.
I was thinking these things, but I only said, "Cowards! Two on one!"
"Here's one across yer bare legs, you little runt, just to remember
that you caused us a lot of trouble!" And Leonard wrapped the belt around my
legs.
"Hurts, don't it? I want yuh to feel it plumb down to yer bones! I want
it to hurt! Does it?"
"Don't," I told him.
"What? You mean I ain't comin' down hard enough on this here belt?"
Leonard doubled the strap up in his hands and said, "I can make you say,
'hurt'! I'll give it to you doubled up an' double hard! I'll make you crawl
up to me on yer hands and knees and say, 'hurt'!" He was beating me one lick
after another one, all over my body, stinging, raising ridges, making
bruises and welts. I was fighting Warren, trying to get loose from his grip.
"Lemme loose! I want loose! I'll stand right here!" I told him.
"Say, 'hurt'!" Leonard brought down another hard one around my bare
legs.
"Turn me loose! I won't run!" I told them.
And then Warren loosened his hold on my arms, and said, "I'll just see
if you've got nerve enough to stand up like a man and take your beatin'!" He
let go of me, and I stood there looking at Leonard while he drew back to
give me some more of the strap.
"Say it hurts!" Leonard said. "I want to know I ain't been wastin' my
time! Say it hurts!"
Warren warned me from behind, "Better say what he wants you to say.
It'll be over quicker. Go ahead. Say it's hurtin'!"
"Won't," I said back at him.
"You little hard-headed, hard-luck sonofabitch! I'll make you say what
I want, or I'll beat you into the ground!" Leonard started striking first
from one side, and then the other, without even taking time to say a word or
to breathe in between. 'Talk like I tell yuh ta talk!"
"Ain't," I told him.
Then Grandma spoke up right behind Leonard's back and said, "No, you
don't, you young Kaiser Bill! You're too dang mean to be a living son of
mine! Give it here!" Almost before he knew it, she yanked the belt out of
his hand, and Leonard ran about twenty feet away and stood there shivering.
He knew that Grandma was hell on wheels when she got her dander riled up.
Warren was talking up for Leonard. "That dam little old stinkin'
Woodrow was the cause of the whole thing, Ma."
"Hush your trap!" Grandma turned to Warren and said, "You're just as
much in on this as your mean brother is! And you're running your old ma
crazy, both of you together!" She wadded the belt up into a little ball in
her two hands. Lawrence stood beside Grandma, not saying much, just looking
at first one of us and then the other.
"I don't know," she said, standing there with big tears rolling down
her cheeks, "I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to try next!''
The three boys were wiggling their feet and toes around, ducking their
heads, looking at the ground, but not saying a word.
"Any of you young studs got anything to say for yourselves?"
Leonard talked out and said, "What good's he doin' us by comin' around?
We don't wanta hafta play with `im. We ain't a-gonna let 'im foller us! He's
just ol' Nora's little ol' sickly runt. I don't like 'im, an' I hate his
guts!"
Grandma made about four quick steps and grabbed Leonard by the shirt
collar. She wound her hand around a time or two in his shirt till she had a
good hold on him, and then she started pushing him backwards, taking big
long steps, and he was falling back, listening to her say, "I've told you
this a dozen times before, young buck! Nora is just as much my little girl
as you are my little boy, get that? Nora's dad was just as good, and some
ways a whole lot better than your dad! He was my first husband! Nora was our
only child!" She jammed him back up against the side of the barn and every
time she'd tell him a word, she'd push him back a little harder, trying to
jar him into thinking. "No. Nora's not like you. No. I remember how Nora
was, even away back when she was just your age. She went to my little
schoolhouse where I taught, over on the Deep Fork River, and she read her
books and got her lessons, and she helped me mark and grade the papers. She
liked pretty music and she sung songs and played her own chords on the
piano; and she learned just about everything pretty that she got a half a
chance, just half a chance to! She made herself at home everywhere she went,
and people liked her; and I was always proud of her because ... she ..." and
Grandma turned her head away from the boy up against the barn; and her hand
fell open and the belt fell down onto the ground, and she said, "Leonard,
there's your belt. There. Laying on the ground, there. Pick it up. Put it
back in your britches. They're falling off. Come on. Come over here by the
wagon. I'm going to set myself down there on the tongue. Here, now, come on
over here, all of you boys, and your ma's going to hug all of you. And I
want you to put your arms around me, too, just like you always did. Just
like everything was all right."
Grandma rested herself by sitting down on the wagon tongue, and the
boys looked out of the corners of their eyes at each other, and walked over,
a little slow, but they walked, and put their arms around her; loose at
first, and she used her own hands to take hold of their arms and make them
tighter around her neck and shoulders. When she did, the boys hugged her
tighter, and she closed her eyes, and moved her head from one side to the
other, first brushing the bosom of one kid, and then the shirt, and the
shoulder of another.
She kept her eyes closed and said, "Woodrow, don't stand away over
there by yourself. You belong in my lap here. Come on and crawl up. That's
it. You belong with your little old curly head snuggled right close up, just
like that. God, this is good! Yes, all of you are my boys, doing the best
you've been taught. All of you will make mistakes, but, Lord, I can't make
any difference between you!"
There wasn't a sound out of any of the boys. I was holding my head up
under Grandma's mouth, listening to her talk real slow and long and soft;
and my eyes dripped tears down across the front of her bosom and faded her
town dress. The other three boys moved their heads, kept their eyes down.
"I'm sorry, Ma."
"Me, too, Ma."
"Don't cry, Maw."
"Gramma, I ain't mad at nobody."
NEW KITTENS
Up at the house an hour later, Warren and Leonard had poured water and
washed their cuts clean, and drifted off into the house getting on some
clean clothes. Grandma talked a little to herself, getting some coffee
ground for supper. Lawrence trotted out into the yard in a few minutes and I
set on the stone steps of the porch and watched him. He pranked around under
the two big oak trees and then walked around the corner of the house.
I followed him. He was the littlest one of Grandma's boys. He was more
my size. I was about five and he was eight. I followed him back to a
rosebush where he pointed to old Mother Maltese and her new little bunch of
kittens. He was telling me all there is to know about cats.
First, we just rubbed the old mama cat on the head, and he told me she
was older than either one of us. "Cat's been here longer'n me even."
"How old is оl' mama cat?" I asked Lawrence.
"Ten."
"An' you're jest eight?" I said.
"Yeah."
"She's all ten fingers old. You ain't but jest this many fingers old,"
I went on.
"She's two older'n me," he said.
"Wonder how come you th' biggest?"
"Cause, crazy, I'm a boy, an' she's a cat!"
"Feel how warm an' smooth she is," I told him.
"Yeah," he said, "perty slick, all right; but th' little 'ums is th'
slickest. But ol' mama cat don't like for strangers ta come out here an'
stick yore han' down in her box an' feel on her little babies.''
"I been out here 'fore this," I told him, "so that makes me not no
stranger."
"Yeah," he told me back, "I know that; but then, you went back ta town
ag'in, see, an' course, that makes you part of a stranger."
"How much stranger am I? I ain't no plumb whole stranger; mama cat
knowed me when I wuz jest a little teeny weeny baby; jest this long;
an' my mama had ta keep me all nice an' warm jest like them
little baby cats, so's I wouldn't freeze, so's nuthin' wouldn't git me." I
was still stroking the old cat's head, and feeling of her with my fingers.
She was holding her eyes shut real tight, and purring almost loud
enough for Grandma to hear her in the house. Lawrence and me kept watching
and listening. The old mama cat purred louder and louder.
Then I asked Lawrence, "What makes 'er sound that a-way in 'er head?"
And he told me, "Purrin', that's what she's doin'."
"Makes 'er purr?" I asked him.
"She does it 'way back inside 'er head some way," Lawrence was telling
feller?"
"You know who I'd marry if I wuz gonna marry, Mama?"
"I haven't got the least inkling," she said. "Who?"
"You."
"Me?"
"Uh huh."
"You couldn't marry me if you wanted to. I'm already married to your
papa."
"Cain't I marry you, too?"
"Certainly not,"
"Why?"
"I told you why. You can't marry your own mama. You'll just have to
look around for another girl, young man."
"Mama."
"Yes."
"Mama."
"Yes."
"Mama, do you know somethin'?"
"No, what?"
"Well, like, say, like what that little ole mean kid acrost th' alley
asked me?"
"What?"
"Well, he asked me how many married rings you had on.'
"And then?"
"So I told him, told him you didn't have but one gold one. No diamunt
glass one."
"And?"
"And he said ever'body in town would git awful, awful mad at you for
losin' yore diamunt 'un."
"Did he?"
"An' he said, 'Where did you lose yore diamunt `un at?' An' so, I told
him maybe it got lost in our big house fire."
Mama just kept listening and didn't say a word.
Then I went on, "An' he asked me how come it, our big perty house got
burnt up. An' then he asked me if--if you struck a match an' set it on
fire...."
Mama didn't answer me. She just looked up away from me. She looked a
hole through the wall, and then she looked out through my bedroom window up
over the hill. She rubbed my forehead with her fingers and then she got up
off the edge of my bed, and walked out into the kitchen. I laid there
listening. I could hear her feet walking around over the kitchen floor. I
could hear the water splash in the drinking dipper. I heard everything get
quiet. Then I drifted off to sleep, and didn't hear a sound.
I AIN'T MAD AT NOBODY
It was an Indian summer morning and it was crispy and clear, and I
stuck my nose up into the air and whiffed my lungs full of good weather. I
stood on the side of the street in the alley crossing and saw Clara drift
almost out of sight toward the schoolhouse. I turned around and ran like a
herd of wild buffaloes back down the hill, around the house, and come to our
front yard, skidding to a stop. I hollered in at the window to where Mama
was finishing up the breakfast dishes and said, 'Where's Gramma at?"
Mama slid the window up and looked out at me and said, "This is
Grandma's day to come all right, how'd you know?"
"Clara told me," I told Mama.
"And why're you so fussed up about Grandma coming, young sprout?" Mama
said to me.
"Clara said Gramma'd take me with her to trade her eggs."
"Who is she, might I ask you?"
"She's my big sister. She's bigga 'nuff ta tell me where all I can go,
ain't she?"
"And I'm your Mama. Could you tell me what I'm suppose to be able to
tell you?"
"You can tell me I can go with Gramma, too."
"Oh! Well, I'll tell you, you've been having a hard time getting used
to living in this old house. So I'll tell you what. If you'll come in and
wash your face and neck and ears real good, and get both of your hands clean
enough for Grandma to see your skin, maybe I'll be right real good to you
and let you go out and stay a few days with her! Hurry!"
"Is my ears clean?"
Mama took a good look at both of my ears and told me, "This first one
will do in a pinch."
"How long's Gramma been yore wife?" I asked Mama.
"T told you a thousand times Grandma is not my wife. She's your
Grandpa's wife."
"Has Grampa gotta husban', too?"
"No. No. No. Grandpa is a husband already, Grandma's husband."
"Nobody ain't my husban', is there?" I asked her.
Mama grabbed the washrag away from me and rubbed my hide to a cherry
red. "Listen, you little question box, don't ask me anything else about who
is kin to who; you've absolutely got my head whirling around like a
windmill."
"Mama. Know somethin'?"
"What?"
"I ain't never gonna git real mad at you."
"Well, that is good news. Why? Whatever made you say that?"
"I jist ain't."
"You're being awful, awful good for some reason or another. Nickel.
Dime. What?"
"Not really, really mad."
"You certainly will have to change your ways a lot. You get mad at your
old mama just about every day about something. You get awful riled up
sometimes."
"That ain't worst mad."
"What kind of mad do you mean?"
"Mad that stays mad. 'At's th' kind I'm tell in' ya about. You won't
ever git mad at me if I won't ever git mad at you, will ya?"
"Never in your whole life, young feller." Mama patted my naked hide
where the cakes of dirt had just been washed off and told me, "That's the
best thing that could ever happen to all of us. Your little old head has got
it all thrashed out."
"Thrashed where? What's thrashed mean?"
"Thrash. Thrash. Means when you whip something and beat it, and well,
like Grandpa does his oats."
"I got oats in my head! Oats in my head! Yumpity yay! Yumpity yay! I
got oats in my head! Git outta my way! Git outta my way!" I made a hard run
around the kitchen.
"You crazy little monkey. Go ahead, have a good time. Just go ahead and
tear this old house down. You're my littlest baby. You're going out and stay
a long, long time with your grandma, and I won't have no little boy to drive
me crazy! Have a good time. Let's see you! Run! Holler! Loud! I'm gonna
gitcha! Gonna gitcha! Run!"
We chased all around over the front room and back through the kitchen.
She grabbed me up off the floor and swung me around and around till my feet
stuck straight out. She was laughing and I felt hot tears salty on the side
of her face. When she let me down on the floor, she knelt down on her knees
and held me up real warm, and I said, "Mama, I'll tell ya. I like ta have ya
chase me. Play. Stuff like that. Talk ta each other. Hug on each other. But
I don't like fer ya ta call me secha little boy all th' time."
"Oh, I thought so. I was looking for you to say that most any day now,"
she told me, holding me off at arm's length and looking me up and down.
"You're getting to be a mighty awful big man."
"Bigger'n I usta wuz?"
"Bigger than you used to be."
"Usta wuz. Cain't stay still."
"I know," Mama said to me, and she set down on the floor and pulled me
down in her lap, "You grow."
"Up."
"Up this way. Out this way. Across this way."
"Big."
"You can't stay still," she went on.
"Gotta hurry. Grow."
"Tell me, mister grower, this. Now, when you was just a little boy with
curly hair a little over four years old, you said to me that you never would
get mad and stay mad at me anymore. Will you still say that while you're
growing up so big so fast?"
"Fast as I grow a little, I'll tell you it again."
"You promise? You cross your heart and hope to die?"
"Cross. Double cross."
"Fine. Now look right out through that window there and tell me what
you see coming down the road?"
"Gra-mma"
"Grandma's right!"
"Hey! Hey! Gramma! Gramma!"
I snorted out the front door running to meet the buggy, waving my hands
about my head like I was signaling a battleship. When I got about halfway
down the hill, I struck my big toe against a sharp rock, and it tumbled me
so bad the tears started down my cheeks; but I started running that much
faster, for my only chance to get a free ride was to catch the buggy while
she was on the level, because once she got headed up the steep hill to our
house she wouldn't stop to pick me up.
I had tears on my face and dirt on the tears when I got to the road,
but I was there ahead of the buggy. I jumped up and down at the side of the
road and I made all kinds of signals with my hands, but Grandma just kept
looking straight ahead. I yelled, "Gramma! Hey! Gramma!" But she didn't even
as much as glance over my way.
I trotted along a ragweed ditch full of fine washed sand, and kept
hollering, "It's me! Hey! It's me! Gramma! Me!" And she just kept old White
Tom and Red Bess trotting right along, throwing more dust, straw, and chalky
manure dirt back in my face.
About six foot this side of where the level road took off up the hill
toward our house, the buggy stopped, and I made one long, sailing jump, in
between the wheels, and up into the seat beside Grandma, and she was
bouncing the whole buggy up and down laughing and saying, "Why, was that
you? Back yonder? I saw a little old dirty-faced boy standing back there,
and I says to myself, "No, that's not Woody, not my Woodsaw.'"
Sweat was in little bumps on Grandma's face, because she was so hot and
her whole face was bouncing with the buggy because she was so fat. A black
hat with some flowers on top and a big pin that always made me wonder if it
wasn't sticking right on through her hair and head from one ear to the
other. Gray hair commencing to make a stand that had come from hoeing' and
working a crop of worries for about fifty years.
"I was clean when I seen ya comin'. Then I started a runnin', an'
stumped my big toe on an оl' rock. Hurt. Real bad. Gimme th'
lines."
She put one arm around me and handed me the long leather reins, and
told me, "Yes, you look like my little grandson now. I can tell by the shape
of your head that's my Woodchuck."
I stood up on the floorboards and held both of the big reins in one
hand. It was more than a handful, but I managed to wave at Mama. "Hi! Hi! I
got 'em! I got 'em! Hi! Lookit me! See me drive?"
I jumped out of the buggy in front of our house and Grandma met me
coming around the horses. She put both of her hands on her hips and
straightened her corsets up a little and smiled at me, and said, "Well, you
are a smart feller. Already know how to tie a slipknot on a buggy wheel."
I spent the next few minutes looking at the knot I'd tied on the buggy
spoke, tracing the reins up over the horses' backs, and up to the bits in
their mouths. I handled the loose bit and the steel shined in the sun. When
I rubbed Tom's bald spot between his eyes, Bess looked over at me kind of
lonesome like, so I rubbed her, too. I walked around and around the buggy,
and it smelled like strong paint and hot leather. At the back were seven or
eight gallon buckets, all full of milk and cream and clabber to take around
to folks in town.
I could hear Mama and Grandma talking through the kitchen window.
Grandma was saying, "You're not looking any too good, Nora. You're
working too hard. Straining yourself. Something. I don't know. What is it?"
"Why, I feel all right; do I look bad? Just everyday housework. Nothing
else."
"Something else, too, young lady. Something else. This old house.
That's what it is. This old house is so old and rotten and so awful hard to
keep clean."
Grandma was leaning back in a big wide chair that just about fit her,
sizing Mama up and down. A few gray hairs had got loose from her hairpins,
and she was pressing them back with her hands, and pinning them down where
they belonged.
"We're about to get all straight again," Mama said.
"Here. Something's wrong around here. Tell me the truth before I go. I
just got to know."
Mama rubbed her hair back out of her eyes and said, "I feel good, I
feel good all over. I work hard and feel good, but I don't know. Just seems
like right in through my head some way or another, something. Little dizzy
spells."
"I thought so," Grandma told her, "I thought so. I could tell. You
can't fool an old fooler, you know. Might fool your own self a little. But
not me. Not your old Mama. If it was one of your own kids sick, you'd be
able to tell it a mile away. I'm the same way about my flock of kids. I know
when one of them is out of kilter. I put diapers on you and I washed your
ears a million times and I sent you off to school in dresses we made
together, and if you just so much as blink one eye crossways, I can tell it.
You promise to get the doctor down here and let him look you over!"
"Milk will sour in the buggy."
"Oh, to the dickens with milk and butter, Nora! I'm talking sense.
Promise me you'll get the doctor down. Have him come down every few days for
a while. He can keep up with you, and do you some good."
"Your eggs will hatch out. Well, all right, all right. I'll get the
doctor. Here, kiss me good-bye." Mama kissed Grandma on the forehead.
Grandma crawled back into the buggy seat and found me perched up beside
her. "What about this young jaybird going home with me? Is it all right with
you? Will you miss his hard-working hands around the place here?"
Mama was standing in the yard waving. "I will! 'Bye! I'll tell Papa
you're gone. He'll miss you!"
The team knocked dust up between their legs and it was good because the
little biting flies couldn't bother their ankles. Grandma was letting me
hold the reins.
She told me, "Stop here a minute or two." I pulled the team to a stop.
"Get three pounds of butter out of the back and take it up to Mrs. Tatum's
door. Get the money. Don't squeeze the butter too hard, it'll have your
finger marks on it."
I knocked on the door and handed a lady three pounds of butter and got
a dollar bill and a twenty-five-cent piece in the palm of my hand. It felt
like some kind of magic sheet of paper and a magic piece of silver. I handed
it up to Grandma and she yelled, "Thank you, Mrs. Tatum! Mighty fine
weather! Thank you!'' And Mrs. Tatum yelled back, "I can just smell a blue
norther on top of these pretty days!"
We drifted on down the road a few more blocks, passing a lot of
scattered houses, and I held the reins again, being awful careful to hold
them up plenty high in the air so the people all along the road could see I
was ramrodding this driving business. Grandma just sort of smiled and said,
"Turn here to your right. Which a way's my right? North. Cold up there.
Hurry and make your turn. Stop over there in front of that little white
house. Get out and take Mrs. Warner three pounds of butter. Then come back
and take three buckets of milk. That family of hers is getting bigger and
hungrier all of the time. I don't think her boy is working anymore down at
the gin."
"Howdy do," I said to Mrs. Warner, and she said, "Why, Mrs, Tanner's
got a mighty good little boy working for her now. Isn't three big heavy
pounds of butter a little too heavy for you?"
"Nope." I ran back to the buggy and piled in again.
"Now, do you see that little old broke-down shack over there in under
that black walnut tree?"
"Yeah, I see it. Say, Gramma, why didn't Mrs. Warner gimme no dollar
an' no quarter? I see th' shack."
"Mrs. Warner does a charge account with me. Sews. Fixes clothes for my
whole family. Now this next lady's name is Mrs. Walters. Take two pounds of
butter to her. Then come back and take three buckets of milk."
I walked up to the little shack and tried to keep my feet on a rotten
plank that was used as a boardwalk. It was too rickety and caused me to lose
my balance. I stumbled and dropped one of the pound squares of butter and I
felt like one of Oklahoma's worst outlaws when I saw the wet cloth unroll,
and the butter roll out across the ground, picking up little dark rocks and
a solid coat of hard dust. I was standing there with tears in my eyes, and
more coming all of the time, when I heard somebody talking in my ear.
"I was watchin' you frum th' kitchen window. My, my. What a nice little
boy yo' gran'ma's got to go 'roun' an' carry her buttah an' milk.
I oughtta knowed you couldn' make it ovah that оl' trippy boardwalk. Lordy,
me! Jes' lookit that nice big yeller poun' о buttah all layin' theah in my
ol' dirty, filthy yard! Oh, well don' you git no gray head 'bout it, little
'livery man. I can use it all right. See heah? I can jes' scrape, scrape,
scrape, an' then they won' be too much wasted."
I finally got up strength enough to mumble out, "Stumped my toe agin'."
"Is he all right, Matilda?"
"Sho', sho'! He's all right. Jes' a little toe stump. Shoot a 'possum,
I goes 'roun' heah all barefoot jes' like you do. See my ol bare foot, how
tuff 'tis? Come right on in through th' front room heah, that's right. I bet
you this is th' firs' time you evah wuz in a black niggah's house. Is it?"
"Yes ma'am."
"I don' hafta tell you no mo' than what yo' eyes can already see, do
I?"
"No ma'am."
"You leas'ways sez, yas ma'am an' no ma'am, don' you?"
"Yes'm."
"An' me jes' an ol black niggah. Hmmm. Sho' do soun' good."
"Are you a nigger lady?"
"Whatta I look like, honey?"
"Are you a nigger 'cause you're black?"
"What folks all says."
"What do people call you a nigger for?"
" 'Cause they jes' don' know no bettah. Don' know what 'niggah' means.
Don' know how bad makes ya feel."
"You called your own self that," I told her.
"When I calls my own se'f a niggah, I knows I don' mean it. An' even
anothah niggah calls me a 'niggah,' I don' min', 'cause I knows it's most
jes' fun. But when a white pusson calls me 'niggah,' it's like a whip cuts
through my ol' hide."
"I gotta go bring you in some milk," I told Matilda.
"Did you speak 'milk'?" She got a big smile all over her face.
"My gramma's got you three buckets."
"Some weeks it's buttah. Some weeks eggs. An' now you speaks out
somethin' 'bout milk. Lawd God, little rattlesnakes! C'mon, I'll he'p you."
I went running through the house chasing her and said, "I'm driver 'n
d'livery boy!"
We got back to the buggy and Grandma said, "Did you tell the lady you
were sorry that you dropped her butter?"
I looked down at the dusty road and didn't say anything.
Matilda cut in and said, "Missy Tanner, any little boy that does work
fo' you's jes' mortally gotta be good. You gives me th` buttah an' th' sweet
milk, an' he 'livers it to me. My оl' man's a-gonna chomp down on that same
ol' co'nbread, an' 'stead or it a-bein' all so dry an' gritty it
sticks in yo' throat an' cuts through yo' belly, it's a-gonna be all slick
an' greasy with good ol' runnin' buttah. An' it'll go down his oozle
magoozler so slick an' easy it won't have time ta scrape his neck 'er belly
neither one. An' my kids'll git greasy all over an' wipe it off on their
ovahalls, but po' little fellas, I ain't even a-gonna cuss 'em out 'bout it
if they do; 'cause they'll be jes' like me, so hongery fo' buttah on
co'nbread, an' sweet milk, they'll jes' think they's oozin' ovah inta th'
sho' 'nuff promised lan'."
Grandma said, "I try not to ever just clean forget you."
"I knows ya do," Matilda told Grandma.
"I just wish it could be more of it more often," Grandma went on to
say.
"I wishes I could he'p you out mo' an' mo' often, too. You knows that,
don't ya, Missy Tanner?" When she looked in under the back lid of the buggy,
Matilda went on, 'I'll see if I can see any of mah own kids aroun'. Pack in
two of these heah big gallion buckets. Tuckah! Tuckah!''
"Yes'm. Heah I is! Watcha wan'?"
"Undo yo'self, Tuckah Boy, undo yo'self! Come out heah an' see with yo'
own big eyes what all's a-gonna grease dat belly o' yo's! Sweet milk! 'Nuff
ta fatten an' raise fo' hogs ta butchah!"
Tucker flew out from behind a patch of weeds, and then I saw three or
four other little heads shoot out and stand up and look and think and
listen.
Grandma smiled and said, "Hi, Tuck! Still playing in that old patch of
gimpson weeds, I see."
"Howdy do, Miss Tanner."
Matilda handed me a gallon bucket and then she handed Tuck one. Then
she said, "Tuck, this is Mistah Woodpile. Mistah Woodpile, dis heah is my
boy, Tuckah."
I shook hands with Tuck and we said, "Glad ta know ya."
Then he laughed at the top of his voice and grabbed a bucket of milk
between his two hands, bent over it with his face almost touching the top of
the milk, his breath blowing rings out across it, saying, "Good оl', good
оl', good ol' milk! Good ol', good ol', good ol' milk!"
For the first two or three miles we just trotted along west down the
Ozark Trail Half a mile west past the Buckeye schoolhouse, we saw two saddle
horses tied to the fence, the Black Joker, wild and mean, that Grandma's
oldest boy, Warren, rode; and an old tame family horse that the two younger
kids, Lawrence and Leonard, rode double.
"I see Warren's sneaked out that Black Joker horse and rode him to
school again. That fool horse is loco."
I set there in the seat all loose and limber, both knees under my chin,
sort of thinking, and then I told Grandma, "Mama'll need me home."
Grandma looked down at me and she put her arm around me and pulled me
over close to her in the buggy seat, and I held one rein in each hand and
let both hands fall down across her lap. "You're worried, too. You're a
worried little man, that's what you are, a worried little man."
"Gramma."
"Yes."
''You know somethin', Gramma? My mama don't never go out an' visit th'
other people acrost th' alley."
"Why not?"
"She jest stays an' stays an' stays home in that ole Lon'on House."
"Do any of the neighbor ladies ever come around to visit and talk with
Nora?" Grandma asked me.
"Huh uh. Never nobody."
"What does she do? Read a book?"
"Jest sets. Looks. Holds a book in 'er lap mosta th' time, but she
don't look where th' book's at. Jest out across th' whole room, an' whole
house an' ever'wheres."
"Is that right?"
"If Papa tells Mama somethin' she forgot, she gits so mad she goes off
up in th' top bedroom an' cries an' cries all day long. What makes it?" I
asked Grandma.
"Your mama is awful bad sick, Woody, awful bad. And she knows she's
awful bad sick. And it's so bad that she don't want any of you to know about
it ... because it's going to get a whole lot worse."
It was a minute or two that Grandma didn't say a word, and neither did
I. I stared along the side of the little old road. The rain had come and the
waters had run, and the road had wrinkled up like an old man's skin. Over
across the tops of the weeds I saw Grandma's big high cornfield.
"Gramma," I finally spoke up, "is Tom an' Bess trottin' fast 'cause
they wanta git home quicker?"
She didn't move or change the blank look on her face much. She said, "I
suppose they do."
"Is one horse a girl?"
"Bess."
"One's a boy horse?"
"Tom."
"They live together, don't they?"
"Same barn, yes. Same pasture. I don't know just exactly what you're
getting at."
"Can horses marry each other?"
"Can they do what?"
"Horses marry?"
"Well, now there you go again with your dang fool infernal questions. I
don't know whether horses get married or not."
"I wuz jest askin' у a."
"You're always asking, asking, asking something. And half of the time I
can't tell you the answer."
"Horses work, don't they?"
"You know they work. I wouldn't even have a cat or a dog or a chicken
on my place that didn't do his share of the work. Yes, even my old cat does
a lot of work. That reminds me, you know old Maltese Mother?"
"Оl', оl' one? Yeah. She knows me, too. Ever' time she sees me, she
comes over to where I am."
"She's got a whole bunch, seven of the nicest soft, fuzzy little
kittens that you ever saw."
"Seven? How many fingers is seven?"
"Like this. Here. All of the fingers on this hand and two fingers on
this hand. That's right."
"Are they good little kittens?"
"Now, what could a little kitten do, anyway, to be mean? They're the
best little fellers you ever saw. Sleepers. You never saw anything sleep
like these little baby cats."
"Where did ole Mother Maltese go to come back with this many little
baby kittens?"
"Out in the trees somewhere, somewhere out in the grass. She found one
little kitten here, and one little kitten over there, and one or two back
across yonder, and that's how she got all seven."
"Is it?"
"Certainly is."
"Why couldn't old Mama Maltese go and find all seven of 'em in jes' one
place?"
"Listen, young man, you'll just have to ask the mama cat. Watch your
horses there, straighten yourself up. You remember we're coming to the gate?
You jump out and open it."
I saw the old barb-wire gate coming and said, "Me? Shore! Shore! I know
ever'thing ya gotta do ta open a gate!"
The gate was tough. I put one arm around the post that was set in the
ground, and the other arm around the loose gatepole, and got sort of a
headlock on them both. I heard Grandma holler out, "I see the boys riding
down the road yonder! Come on!"
Then I heard a bunch of horses' hoofs coming down the road, and I
looked up and saw just a big white-looking cloud of dust coming at me. Out
of the dust I could hear the three boys whooping and barking, "Wwaaahoooo!
Yip! Yip! Уууууiiiррреее! Looky ooouuuttt! Woodrow! Looky outttt!" The
thought of getting tromped under the horses' feet caused my eyes to fly open
like a goggle-eyed bee, and my two ears stood straight out from the sides of
my head.
My first thought was to drop the gatepole and run off into the weeds to
get clear of the horses. The boys were still coming straight at me and
yelling, "Gonna git run oovver! Run overr! Looky outtt, Woodrow! Gonna git
run over an' killed!"
The boys and the horses were within ten foot of me, when I decided that
I'd just hold the gate shut. I happened to take one last look back at the
little wire loop on top, and it had slipped into the notch where I'd been
trying to put it. The gate was shut good as she ever was. I fell down off of
the brace post backwards and scrambled up to my feet again, and made the
worst face I could, and yelled back at the boys, "Ya! Ya! Ya! Thought you
wuz smart! Thought you'z smart!"
Both horses run keeeblamm into the gate. Warren, riding the Black
Joker, was traveling too fast to turn or stop, or even slow down. Lawrence
and Leonard had figured on the gate being open, and their own dust had
blinded them. Their horse stopped so quick that the boys slid right about a
couple of feet up onto the horse's neck; the horse waved his head a time or
two and threw both kids down amongst the wires where Warren was rolling
around.
All of this time I mostly just run about three times as fast as the
wild horses, till I come to Grandma's buggy. I mounted the back of it, set
there all humped up, and watched the crazy rodeo back at the gate. There was
the Black Joker stamping around still crying and squeeling a little, over
yonder in the west corner of the cotton field; and over there in the east
corner, in a few wild weeds, just on the edge of the cotton patch, there was
the horse without a name; and yonder in the middle of the whole thing there
was a cloud of Oklahoma's very best dust, that looked about like where you'd
heaved a hand grenade; you might not believe it to stand back off and look
at it, but somewhere in that dust I knowed there was three awful tough boys.
You couldn't see the boys. Just the dust fogging up. But you could see a few
slivers of barb wire wiggling in the sun.
"Warren! Lawrence! Leonard!'' Grandma was just about to yell
her yeller out. "You boys! Where! Wait! Are you hurt!"
She waded into the dust and was fanning both arms, reaching in around
the loose wires and fishing for mean boys. Then all I saw was her hat
bobbing up and down as she bent over and stood up, and bent over again,
hunting for kids. In a few minutes the dust crawled off of its own accord,
like a big animal of some kind, away from the gate, across the little rutty
road.
"Pore ol 'Gran'ma! Leonard's got killed, an' Warren's got killed, an'
Lawrence got killed." I was setting on the back end of the buggy, looking.
Tears the size of teacups was oozing down my cheeks and I could taste the
slick salt when the tears run down to the corner of my mouth.
"Warren! Warren!" Grandma called. "What are you doing over here in this
old ditch! Are you hurt bad?"
Warren got up and tried to brush the dirt off of his self; but his
school clothes was so full of holes and rips that every time he brushed, he
tore a bigger hole somewhere. He was sobbing and his whole body was jerking,
and he told Grandma, "It was that little ornery runt, Woodrow, done it! I'm
gonna cave his head in for 'im!"
"Now, you just hold yourself, Mister Rough Rider," Grandma told Warren.
"Woodrow was doing the best he could. He was closing that gate for me. You
bigger boys had no reason to come ridin' down the road yelling and trying to
scare a little kid to death. I don't care if it did skin you up a little,
you need it." Then she got to looking around for another boy, and she found
one laying flat of his belly out in a clump of sumac bushes, and it was
Leonard puffing and blowing like he'd been shell-shocked in four wars.
"Leonard! You dead?" Grandma said to him.
Leonard jumped up so quick that it would have made a mountain lion look
slow, and he started running toward the buggy as hard as he could tear,
squawling out, "I'm goin' ta beat that little skunk inta th' ground. Goin'
ta tear him up just like he tore me up!" And he kept coming for the buggy.
I was breathing pretty hard, and sometimes not at all. I knew what he'd
do. I let myself just sort of slide over the back of the buggy seat and down
onto the cushion, and held the reins as tight as I could and bit my tongue,
and looked out over the horses' backs toward the house.
Grandma found Lawrence in the same patch of weeds, skint up just about
like the other two, some hide and some duds and some hair missing. Leonard
was climbing up on the buggy seat beside me. He drew his hand back and made
a pass at my head, and I ducked to one side and let the lick fly past. He
hit the back of the buggy seat with his hand and that made him a whole lot
madder. The next lick he swung, he caught me square on the side of the head,
and my ears rung like a steam саlliope. I fell down on the seat with my
hands covering my head, and he rung two or three harder ones around over my
skull. I squeezed out of his grip, but I banged my head on the sharp corner
of a heavy wooden box in the bottom of the buggy, and when I touched my hand
to the knot that raised up just above my ear, and seen blood all over my
fingers, I let out a scream that rattled pecans in trees for a mile around.
The horses heard me, and jumped like they'd been blistered with a
lightning whip. They jerked the loose reins out of my hand. Tom made a lunge
in his harness, a leather strap broke; then Bess got scared and jumped
sideways, and snapped a hitching chain; and then both horses started
snorting, laying their ears back, and running for the barn just like a
cyclone. Leonard fell back on the cushion of the buggy seat. I was still
doubled up in a ball rolling around with the wooden box on the floor boards.
Neither of us could get a chance to jump. The horses kept loping faster and
after they got the buggy in motion, they broke out into their hardest run.
Leonard got madder than ever, and every time the horses' hoofs hit the
ground, or the wheels went around, he would give me a good kick in the back.
He was barefooted and he didn't hurt me much, but when he saw he wasn't, he
decided just to put both of his feet on my neck and try to choke me. The
buggy wheels bounced against rocks, hit roots, and jolted both of us out of
our wits.
Grandma was within three feet of the buggy when the horses broke and
run away, and I could hear her hollering, "Whoa! Whoa! Tom! Bess! Stop them
horses! God Almighty! There's a hundred sticks of dynamite in that buggy!"
I heard the horses grunt, and heard the water in their bellies jostle
around, heard the air snorting through their nostrils, and their hoofs
beating against the ground.
"That box you're leanin' up against is fulla dynamite!" Leonard
hollered.
"I don't care!" I yelled at him.
"If this buggy turns over, we're gonners!" he told me.
I told him, "I cain't stop 'em!"
"I'm goin't' jump! Leave you with it!" he bellered.
"Jump! See if I care!" I told him.
Leonard got up and stood with his feet in the seat, and the first time
he got his chance, he piled over the side, and hit rolling through a patch
of bullhead sticker weeds. All I saw was the seat of his britches as he flew
over the wheels. And that left me banging all around over the floor of the
buggy with nothing but a box of dynamite, and TNT caps, to keep me company.
The post of the gate swung past, and I let out my breath when we missed it
by about an inch; but I looked ahead of the horses and saw that the whole
barn lot was standing full of things that we couldn't miss. Straight ahead
was a steam tractor, and beside that was a couple of wagons with their
tongues propped up on their singletrees. Here was a hog-oiling machine. A
pile of corn cobs was in our path. I could picture Grandpa's barn, barn lot,
all of his plows, tools, and machinery, blowing up over the tree tops; but
the old horses knew more about this place than I did, and they made a big
horseshoe bend around the thrasher, cut in real quick to shave the tractor,
sidestepped a little to pass the pile of cobs, and then curved wide again.
But when they made a run for the barn door, I told myself good-bye. The
whole barn was stacked full of more wagons, machinery and plows, and there
was a concrete slab running across the ground just as you went in the door,
which I knew was enough of a hump to throw that box of dynamite plumb out of
the buggy. With my ear against the box, I could hear the big sticks thumping
about inside.
But, all at once, the horses come to the door. They wheeled sideways
again and stopped; horses aiming one direction, and the buggy another.
For a minute I just laid there hugging the box. Then I made a quick
high dive over the seat, and lit on the ground. Warren and Leonard come
riding up and jumped off of their horse.
"You little devil, you! You've caused us enough trouble!"
Warren made a run and grabbed me by the neck. "Come on, Leonard! I got
'im for ya! Here th' little bastard is! Beat th' livin' hell out of 'im!"
"Hold `im!" Leonard was saying. "Hold 'im till I can get my belt loose!
I'm gonna whop blisters on yore little hide that a dollar bill won't cover!
Yore whole dam family ain't nuthin' but bad luck! Hold `im, Warren!"
Leonard took a few seconds to unloose his belt buckle and get it pulled
out of the loops. I was kicking and crying, not loud. I didn't want Grandma
to think I was bellering so's she could hear me; but I was fighting. I was
using every cuss word that ever was or ever will be.
Your old blisters won't hurt me. Your old stropping belt won't hurt
long. Your old arm will give out. You don't know. You think you're scaring
me. You think you're takin' some of my fight out of me. You'll
whip me now, and I'll look like I'm cryin', but I won't really be cryin'.
I'll be havin' tears in my eyes because I'm mad at you. My family can't help
what happened to them. My mama can't help what happened.
You used to be friendly and nice to my mama when she was pretty and
healthy, and people was nice to you because you was my mama's brothers. But
then, when she had some bad things happen to her, and lost her pretty house,
and got sick, and needed you to treat her 'nice, you stand off and how'l and
bark like a crazy bunch of coyotes, and laugh and poke fun at us. It makes
me tough enough to stand here and let you whack me acrost the back and the
neck and ears, and blister my shoulders with that little old flimsy leather
strop, and I don't even feel it.
I was thinking these things, but I only said, "Cowards! Two on one!"
"Here's one across yer bare legs, you little runt, just to remember
that you caused us a lot of trouble!" And Leonard wrapped the belt around my
legs.
"Hurts, don't it? I want yuh to feel it plumb down to yer bones! I want
it to hurt! Does it?"
"Don't," I told him.
"What? You mean I ain't comin' down hard enough on this here belt?"
Leonard doubled the strap up in his hands and said, "I can make you say,
'hurt'! I'll give it to you doubled up an' double hard! I'll make you crawl
up to me on yer hands and knees and say, 'hurt'!" He was beating me one lick
after another one, all over my body, stinging, raising ridges, making
bruises and welts. I was fighting Warren, trying to get loose from his grip.
"Lemme loose! I want loose! I'll stand right here!" I told him.
"Say, 'hurt'!" Leonard brought down another hard one around my bare
legs.
"Turn me loose! I won't run!" I told them.
And then Warren loosened his hold on my arms, and said, "I'll just see
if you've got nerve enough to stand up like a man and take your beatin'!" He
let go of me, and I stood there looking at Leonard while he drew back to
give me some more of the strap.
"Say it hurts!" Leonard said. "I want to know I ain't been wastin' my
time! Say it hurts!"
Warren warned me from behind, "Better say what he wants you to say.
It'll be over quicker. Go ahead. Say it's hurtin'!"
"Won't," I said back at him.
"You little hard-headed, hard-luck sonofabitch! I'll make you say what
I want, or I'll beat you into the ground!" Leonard started striking first
from one side, and then the other, without even taking time to say a word or
to breathe in between. 'Talk like I tell yuh ta talk!"
"Ain't," I told him.
Then Grandma spoke up right behind Leonard's back and said, "No, you
don't, you young Kaiser Bill! You're too dang mean to be a living son of
mine! Give it here!" Almost before he knew it, she yanked the belt out of
his hand, and Leonard ran about twenty feet away and stood there shivering.
He knew that Grandma was hell on wheels when she got her dander riled up.
Warren was talking up for Leonard. "That dam little old stinkin'
Woodrow was the cause of the whole thing, Ma."
"Hush your trap!" Grandma turned to Warren and said, "You're just as
much in on this as your mean brother is! And you're running your old ma
crazy, both of you together!" She wadded the belt up into a little ball in
her two hands. Lawrence stood beside Grandma, not saying much, just looking
at first one of us and then the other.
"I don't know," she said, standing there with big tears rolling down
her cheeks, "I don't know what to do. I just don't know what to try next!''
The three boys were wiggling their feet and toes around, ducking their
heads, looking at the ground, but not saying a word.
"Any of you young studs got anything to say for yourselves?"
Leonard talked out and said, "What good's he doin' us by comin' around?
We don't wanta hafta play with `im. We ain't a-gonna let 'im foller us! He's
just ol' Nora's little ol' sickly runt. I don't like 'im, an' I hate his
guts!"
Grandma made about four quick steps and grabbed Leonard by the shirt
collar. She wound her hand around a time or two in his shirt till she had a
good hold on him, and then she started pushing him backwards, taking big
long steps, and he was falling back, listening to her say, "I've told you
this a dozen times before, young buck! Nora is just as much my little girl
as you are my little boy, get that? Nora's dad was just as good, and some
ways a whole lot better than your dad! He was my first husband! Nora was our
only child!" She jammed him back up against the side of the barn and every
time she'd tell him a word, she'd push him back a little harder, trying to
jar him into thinking. "No. Nora's not like you. No. I remember how Nora
was, even away back when she was just your age. She went to my little
schoolhouse where I taught, over on the Deep Fork River, and she read her
books and got her lessons, and she helped me mark and grade the papers. She
liked pretty music and she sung songs and played her own chords on the
piano; and she learned just about everything pretty that she got a half a
chance, just half a chance to! She made herself at home everywhere she went,
and people liked her; and I was always proud of her because ... she ..." and
Grandma turned her head away from the boy up against the barn; and her hand
fell open and the belt fell down onto the ground, and she said, "Leonard,
there's your belt. There. Laying on the ground, there. Pick it up. Put it
back in your britches. They're falling off. Come on. Come over here by the
wagon. I'm going to set myself down there on the tongue. Here, now, come on
over here, all of you boys, and your ma's going to hug all of you. And I
want you to put your arms around me, too, just like you always did. Just
like everything was all right."
Grandma rested herself by sitting down on the wagon tongue, and the
boys looked out of the corners of their eyes at each other, and walked over,
a little slow, but they walked, and put their arms around her; loose at
first, and she used her own hands to take hold of their arms and make them
tighter around her neck and shoulders. When she did, the boys hugged her
tighter, and she closed her eyes, and moved her head from one side to the
other, first brushing the bosom of one kid, and then the shirt, and the
shoulder of another.
She kept her eyes closed and said, "Woodrow, don't stand away over
there by yourself. You belong in my lap here. Come on and crawl up. That's
it. You belong with your little old curly head snuggled right close up, just
like that. God, this is good! Yes, all of you are my boys, doing the best
you've been taught. All of you will make mistakes, but, Lord, I can't make
any difference between you!"
There wasn't a sound out of any of the boys. I was holding my head up
under Grandma's mouth, listening to her talk real slow and long and soft;
and my eyes dripped tears down across the front of her bosom and faded her
town dress. The other three boys moved their heads, kept their eyes down.
"I'm sorry, Ma."
"Me, too, Ma."
"Don't cry, Maw."
"Gramma, I ain't mad at nobody."
NEW KITTENS
Up at the house an hour later, Warren and Leonard had poured water and
washed their cuts clean, and drifted off into the house getting on some
clean clothes. Grandma talked a little to herself, getting some coffee
ground for supper. Lawrence trotted out into the yard in a few minutes and I
set on the stone steps of the porch and watched him. He pranked around under
the two big oak trees and then walked around the corner of the house.
I followed him. He was the littlest one of Grandma's boys. He was more
my size. I was about five and he was eight. I followed him back to a
rosebush where he pointed to old Mother Maltese and her new little bunch of
kittens. He was telling me all there is to know about cats.
First, we just rubbed the old mama cat on the head, and he told me she
was older than either one of us. "Cat's been here longer'n me even."
"How old is оl' mama cat?" I asked Lawrence.
"Ten."
"An' you're jest eight?" I said.
"Yeah."
"She's all ten fingers old. You ain't but jest this many fingers old,"
I went on.
"She's two older'n me," he said.
"Wonder how come you th' biggest?"
"Cause, crazy, I'm a boy, an' she's a cat!"
"Feel how warm an' smooth she is," I told him.
"Yeah," he said, "perty slick, all right; but th' little 'ums is th'
slickest. But ol' mama cat don't like for strangers ta come out here an'
stick yore han' down in her box an' feel on her little babies.''
"I been out here 'fore this," I told him, "so that makes me not no
stranger."
"Yeah," he told me back, "I know that; but then, you went back ta town
ag'in, see, an' course, that makes you part of a stranger."
"How much stranger am I? I ain't no plumb whole stranger; mama cat
knowed me when I wuz jest a little teeny weeny baby; jest this long;
an' my mama had ta keep me all nice an' warm jest like them
little baby cats, so's I wouldn't freeze, so's nuthin' wouldn't git me." I
was still stroking the old cat's head, and feeling of her with my fingers.
She was holding her eyes shut real tight, and purring almost loud
enough for Grandma to hear her in the house. Lawrence and me kept watching
and listening. The old mama cat purred louder and louder.
Then I asked Lawrence, "What makes 'er sound that a-way in 'er head?"
And he told me, "Purrin', that's what she's doin'."
"Makes 'er purr?" I asked him.
"She does it 'way back inside 'er head some way," Lawrence was telling