loft. I stole to the window to make certain no one was spying. I pretended to be Great-Grandfather Howard, then Samson straining against the pillars, next Daniel Boone, and lastly the stern, commanding figure of Capt. Nathan Edmonds, boots and all. “Where’s the son-of-a bitch hiding?” I demanded of the walls. I strutted around like Uncle Everett.
When not in the loft, I would sneak down to the creek and pretend I was my father. I would rush into the cold water, clutching a tobacco stick, firing at the hidden enemy, only to fall riddled by bullets and shrapnel. If I survived that initial assault, I’d crawl up the opposite bank and search for my father among the reeds. When I came in, wet and muddy, my overalls clogged with clay and tiny granules of grit, my mother would bend down and hug me, for she knew what I had been doing. My “wounds” were nothing in comparison with hers. “Tommy! O God, Tommy! Let’s get you cleaned up, before supper.”
As spring blended into summer, one seasonal demand followed another: from the setting out of the young tobacco plants, to the first hay mowings, to the building of haystacks, to the harvesting of wheat, with its throngs of tenant farmers from our own and Uncle Everett’s farm, joining in with their muscle and toil to thresh and bag sack after sack. And the meals that accompanied those hot sweaty days! Plates heaped with fried chicken, mounds of mashed potatoes, bowls of gravy, beans, corn, sliced tomatoes, deviled eggs, biscuits, fresh pies, and endless rounds of tea. It required all the labor force of the two farms to sponsor these events. Then a second and, if lucky, a third hay mowing followed, with days spent suckering and pulling fat green worms off the tall tobacco crop. Finally, came the cutting and spearing of the long tobacco stalks to haul and hang them in their respective sheds, where the crop would season until late fall to mellow and transform into aromatic shafts of fine, golden leaves.
These hot days of summer permitted little respite for the men who labored from before the rising of the sun until long after its setting. Earl alone would take breaks and come down to the house for a nap in the old slave cabin. While he slept on a pile of burlap sacks on the ground floor, I’d engage in my escapades and imaginary sorties in the loft. My grandmother, however, coveted my afternoon playtime for designs of her own.
“Tommy, get in here! An idle mind is the devil’s workshop. You’ll be going to school this fall. There’s reading and writing to do. Now take your nap, and then we’ll work a little, after it grows cooler.”
Actually, I welcomed these reprieves, because the afternoon heat often climbed into the nineties, and the fields provided no recess from the sun. After a brief nap, she would wake me and bring me a glass of watered-down tea. Sometimes I would have sweated so much I could smell my own sour body. Her remedy for that was a cold wet washcloth that often reeked as badly as my body odor.
“Now, go into the parlor, and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I’d obey and pull from one of the shelves a favorite storybook or a volume of The Encyclopedia of Knowledge. By now, with her help, and sometimes unassisted, I could pick my way through a paragraph and read it aloud to her satisfaction. She had to help with all of the long words, but she exulted in doing so.
Afterwards, she’d play records from her collection of classical music. The huge player would only accommodate one record at a time, but she was intent on my acquiring a taste for refined music, as well as deriving pleasure from it herself. Those were arduous times for a six-year old, especially if the recordings were one of Rossini’s Concertos for flutes and violins, or something equally effete and sissified. Not that I disliked her selections, but I preferred the French horns of a Wagner or Beethoven symphony, or even a sad Mozart piece, or lively Brahm’s medley of folk dances, to the lethargic or bouncy melodies that brought her peace.
Then came release! And out into the hallway I would run, passed the ever-so elegant Quelle and her quiescent pigeons, passed the scornful gaze of the Captain and his father in turn, and out the door and across the porch and into the cool lush grass under the enormous elms that shaded the front yard. Time to play again, or race toward the barn in hopes of riding the weary draft horses down to the creek.
And so passed the summer. Until mid-August. And Aunt Rachel’s return, in time for my mother’s wedding to Mr. Chappels. Only something equally momentous occurred, simultaneous with her arrival.
Pearl came out to the cab to greet her, along with my mother and grandmother and Uncle Everett, who had dropped by. Before Pearl could say a word, she suddenly grew greenish-pale, turned away toward the house, and vomited in a ditch along its dank foundation. Everyone stared in disbelief.
“Are you all right?” my mother asked.
Pearl hugged her sides. She couldn’t stop the retching. A pasty gray cast slipped across her face. Her lips turned blue. She wiped her mouth and hurried toward the back porch.
“Pearl!” my grandmother called in a loud voice. “Is that what I think it is? Tell me! Don’t you dare run off like that!” Grandmother’s face burned with splotches of red; her dark eyes had hardened, and sweat beads glistened on her forehead and about her thin eyebrows.
“Mama, for heaven’s sake!” exclaimed my mother. “What’s gotten in to you? Can’t you see, Pearl’s sick.”
“Sick? Or pregnant? I’ve been watching her. I say she’s heavy with child!”
A frightened Pearl covered her face with her hands and began to weep.
“Oh, Pearl!” my mother said. “Mama, don’t scold her like that! Can’t you see she’s frightened?”
Aunt Rachel paid Ralph, who glanced uneasily toward Uncle Everett and drove away.
“Who’s the one?” my grandmother demanded. “Don’t you lie to me, you . . . sneaking . . . little . . . hussy!”
“Mama!” objected Uncle Everett. “My God, leave her alone. She needs our help. Pearl, go on to your room. We’ll talk about this later.”
“No! We’ll talk about it now!” huffed my grandmother. “Look at her stomach! It’s already beginning to show. I’ve kept my lips tight long enough. Oh, the ruin of it! Answer me! Who did it? I want to know right now!”
“It was Jessie’s friend, from Meadowview. It happened the night they come over here to help search for Ouida,” sobbed Pearl.
“‘Happened?’ And how many more times after that?”
“Only onced more. I’ve been afraid to say anything.”
“And where is this friend now? Huh? Tell me that! Or can you?”
“Mama, stop it! Stop acting like a shrew. Control yourself,” Uncle Everett contested. “Pearl, we’ll see a doctor first thing in the morning. Don’t worry. You can stay at my place, if you have to. And that’s a promise!”
“Yes, sir!” she snuffled back her tears with gratitude.
“Mama, you should be ashamed of yourself! Ashamed!” he reiterated.
He glanced toward my mother and then down at his feet. “Come on, Rachel. Let’s help these people in their house, before they start wallowing in more pity and blame.” All that he said with an angry glare toward his mother and with embarrassment toward my own. With a heaviness of spirit, all six of us entered the house by way of the front porch. Even Pearl. Aunt Rachel held her arm, while Uncle Everett carried Aunt Rachel’s two suitcases in and set them down in the hallway. As we entered, I looked up toward the old Captain. Even his countenance seemed a bit downcast. He
