Cold Sassy Tree: Chapters 31–40

With no inkling of what was to come, I left there on top of the world.

She blushed a little. “I don’t mean I think you could sell’m. They’re too—well, most editors would call them vulgar. But they’ll do fine for writing practice.”

Aunt Loma never missed a chance to mention LaGrange College, where she had studied elocution and expression.

But of course she was mean and vindictive in a way Grandpa wasn’t.

Next morning at breakfast she was downright ecstatic. “I didn’t sleep a wink, Hoyt! Just laid there turnin’ over and over in my mind what I’ll pack and what all I got to do. My tail will be in the wind from now till we leave..."

He said Mary Willis definitely wasn’t going and it was a pity to waste a free boat ticket. You know how frugal he is.

How you think it felt yesterd’y when I went to braggin’ bout you takin’ over the store some day and thet fool contradicted me?

Then, with his pencil poised over the form, Grandpa looked up over his reading glasses and asked, “Son, why ain’t you said nothin’ bout this up to now?”

By next morning Grandpa had found a way to thumb his nose at the whole dang town, so pious and hypocritical: he started giving out invites to Sunday morning preachin’ at his house.

Uncle Lige whispered to Papa, “Thet in iteself would be a miracle—hearin’ a sermon ’thout havin’ to pay for it.” Cudn Hope laughed, but Papa looked like he’d just heard heresy incarnate.

As Grandpa expected and intended, they took it like he was making fun of religion, or like he was asking folks to come to a house of ill repute and call it church.

Later, after the spirituals, Loomis and old Uncle Lem would put on a debate, all in fun.

I, for one, had a lot rather been hearing Loomis up at Grandpa’s house than listening to the Presbyterian preacher saying what’s go’n happen to you if you dance, play cards, or spend your money on “adorn-ments,” like fur coats.

Town people thought you couldn’t be too careful when it was a question of your children hobnobbing with mill folks.

To Queenie, that just meant more for her to take home. But Papa saw it as his providing a bounteous table.

In a minute here Mr. French came back, his ruddy face beaming, and took my mother’s arm.

Mama stood there on Mr. French’s arm like she was looking at a man with a tail. She was pure transfixed, mouth gaping, eyes shining.

After we ate, I started clearing out the barn shed for a garage, but couldn’t make much headway for folks dropping by to see the automobile.

Papa offered to ride Grandpa around, but Grandpa wouldn’t even get in. “A car is a fool dangerous contraption. Worse’n a bicycle,” he said.

Standing in the shade of the Cold Sassy tree, I watched their train pull out, then drove Jack home, turned him into the pasture with Miss Love’s horse, filled their feed boxes and the watering trough, fed the chickens, and got the Toy family Bible off the desk in the hall like Mama told me to.

Mama and Aunt Loma grudgingly admired the postcard salesmanship.

By time Lee Roy and I got downtown, the caravans had reached the public well near my granddaddy’s store.

Granny said after Mr. Sheffield started the mill and they could afford it, Miz Sheffield hired her a lawyer over in England, and he found out her brother had squandered everything.

There were presents all around. Derby hats for Papa and Uncle Camp, a little fur muff for Mary Toy that had a bunch of silk violets pinned on it, a book for Aunt Carrie, a beaded purse for Queenie—and for me a linen duster and driving cap with goggles, just like Papa’s!

The whole time we ate, he was telling Grandpa about our motor trips. Described every puncture, every hill, every rut and gully.

I looked down at the peach juice in my empty compote.

It wasn’t crude or anything, the way Grandpa flipped her, but the teasing look on his face somehow reminded me they’d been to New York together without a chaperone.

Grandpa never could dote on two people at once.

In the meanwhile, I had found out that a spate of kissing lasts only just so long. Like religion and silverware, it needs polishing up regular or it don’t shine.

Him being bent with rheumatism, he couldn’t do work like that anymore himself.

Grandpa had balked at free gifts, but Miss Love said the wholesale house in New York gave her a big boxful of sample thread, which would do for the ladies, and he could order stick candy and chewing gum to hand out to the men and children.

If folks saw her perched high and mighty beside him in the back seat of a shiny motorcar, they’d call her snooty, or grave-snatcher.

As Miss Love sashayed to the front of the sedan, she looked back and winked at me, and I grinned and turned on the ignition.

“You need to practice settin’ all the dohickies, and I ain’t sure you know how to crank it up yet. You get a knack for that by doin’ it.”

We had our share of cotton-gin fires, epidemics, storms, and lawsuits, of course, but the only diversion we could count on was protracted meetings, recitals, ice cream socials, fish fries, and lectures—a doctor talking up his cure for cancer, an old man telling how he tracked a mammoth moose for nineteen days back in 1856, a young fellow talking about “Across Asia on a Bicycle.”

We had our share of cotton-gin fires, epidemics, storms, and lawsuits, of course, but the only diversion we could count on was protracted meetings, recitals, ice cream socials, fish fries, and lectures—a doctor talking up his cure for cancer, an old man telling how he tracked a mammoth moose for nineteen days back in 1856, a young fellow talking about “Across Asia on a Bicycle.”

On my way home to milk, I met up with her and Mr. Beautiful, out for a late-evening canter.

There were chuckholes, too, and whenever I hit one, the rebound just about tossed Grandpa and Miss Love out of the car. I could brace myself with the steering wheel, but they didn’t grab anything except each other.

Being scared they might pitch out, I started swerving around the holes. I’d yell, “Hold on!” and Grandpa would whoop and hold Miss Love tighter, and she’d shriek and giggle like a schoolgirl.

The driver blew his horn and the lady with him waved at us. I blew our horn and we waved back. “The automobile book calls this the cameraderie of the road!” Miss Love shouted.