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Out in back of the church, they had set up a humongous tent that housed tons of food, and gallons of iced tea. Of course, they let Tom and his family go to the head of the line with the pastor and his wife. It's a good thing, too. When Tom got through and went to get a final glass of tea, he was immediately beset by a crowd of people asking him all kinds of questions. Of course, his joined-at-the-hip shadow, aka Arthur Hollis, was right there soaking in all the attention he could. His mom and dad along with his pastor and the pastor's wife sat laughing at the little tyke as he wagged his head back and forth in time with the questions and answers. Where’s a video camera when you really need it?
Everyone got quiet when a commotion was heard at the far side of the tent. When they turned to look in the direction of the commotion, they realized that it was one of their church members who was confined to a wheel chair. A young lady, her great-granddaughter, was pushing her slowly and patiently through the crowd. The wheel chair lady had a cane in one hand and was putting it to good use.
She would punch whoever was in front of her with either the end or the side of the cane and demand, "Out of my way. Let an old cripple woman through. Where's your manners? Can't you move any faster than that? Move. Move, I tell you."
Everyone but Tom knew who she was. She had been a faithful church member for years. They knew her to be mostly sweet but, at times, she was downright ornery. You guessed it. This was one of those times. As Tom looked at the crowd for some kind of explanation, most of them just smiled and shrugged their shoulders. They did not have a clue.
As she got closer to Tom she began to rant, "Out of my way. I need to have a few words with this so-called hero." Everyone had no choice but to make a path for her so she could get to Tom. As she got within cane distance, she commanded her great-granddaughter, "You can stop right here, Marci. This is as close as I want to get to the scallywag of Elmhurst. Hero? Humph!! You're no hero. You're a scamp, a cold-hearted villain, if there ever was one."
Then she looked around at the people and continued, "I don't have any idea why you give this imp the time of day. None of y'all around here are old enough to know the REAL Tom Dandridge. I grew up with him and I know plenty. Him and his sweet Ellen. Oh, she was sweet alright. Sweet as a mad rattlesnake."
The crowd was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. They looked from one to another in profound consternation. Nobody had a clue what she was talking about, especially Tom. Her references to the love of his life made him wonder if this woman had gone psycho or something.
When she knew she had every one's attention, she leaned forward in her wheelchair, looked Tom square in the eyes, pointed her cane at him and said, "Don't you even dare to pretend that you don't know what I'm talking about, Tom Dandridge. What you did to me ought to make you blush with shame. Yet, you come here, get up in that sacred pulpit and spout off about God and His love and you act like what you did to me was nothing at all. You shamed me in front of my friends, laughed about it and walked off as if you'd done nothing wrong. And I had to live with the shame of it all."
By now, everyone was stunned by the testimony of one of their beloved church members. They knew she was an upstanding member of the community. Her love for the Lord and the church she had served for years was above question. But, was there something between them that had lain silent for years that she felt she had to confront Tom with?
She looked around and saw the puzzled looks. Tom was more than perplexed. She said in a stern tone, "You don't remember me, do ya? You don't have a clue as to what I'm talking about, huh?"
Tom sputtered, "Why, ma'am, I'm sorry if I offended you....."
She interrupted him by raising her cane and making the pronouncement, "My maiden name, you feeble-minded miscreant is…Maybelle …………Hensley." Then she broke into a smile.
The name fell like a bomb shell to Tom. With eyes wide with joy, Tom fell on his knees beside the wheel chair and embraced his old school friend. Together they laughed at the prank she had pulled on him. After they had laughed until they cried, Tom finally stood up.
But, Maybelle was having the laughing fit of her life. She would stomp her feet and then beat her hands on the handrails of the wheelchair. All the time she was saying, "I got him. I finally got him. I finally got the joker. I got him. I got him. It wasn't much, but I got him."
When the two of them began laughing at each other, the rest of the crowd joined in. Not that they knew what was going on, but at the relief that Tom really wasn't all those mean things she called him.
Arthur was so relieved that he had to go get himself a drink of tea and sit down for a minute. His mom saw him and brought it to the attention of his dad and the Wallaces. Arthur's actions were even funnier than the joke. And still no camera.
Finally, Maybelle began to calm down and began to offer an explanation. "You....you....have no idea," she started between chuckles of laughter. As she pointed towards Tom, she continued, "You have no idea how long I have waited to get a chance to play ANY kind of a prank on the town prankster. Oh, that was good. Whew-eee, that was good. Marci, get your granny some tea, will you, Honey? And Tom, tell 'em, Tom. Tell 'em what you did. Whew! I am too out of breath and you tell stuff better than anyone I know. Y'all listen to this."
Then she looked around and saw Arthur and said to him, "Everybody listen but you, Master Arthur. Don't you go getting ideas like your grandpa."
We all know what Arthur did next, don't we? As he pushed his way through the crowd he was yelling, "Wait, Grandpa. Don't start yet. Wait 'til I get there. I don't want to miss a word of what I'm not supposed to hear."
Oh, yeah. The crowd laughed and Arthur beamed at the one-liner he cracked.
At the back table, Olivia declared, "That's my boy. He comes by it honest. Well, if he's gonna imitate someone, it may as well be his grandpa, huh?"
"But, Liv," objected Ryan with a sly smile, "How will we be able put up with him?"
"Arthur?" asked Olivia with a straight face.
"Yes," answered Ryan.
Without batting an eye or cracking a smile she countered, "Marry him off before he's a teenager." There was a stunned silence for 5 seconds before Olivia exploded in laughter.
Ryan looked at the pastor and his wife with a pitiful expression and pleaded, "Pray for me." However, he couldn't wait the full five seconds before his explosion.
Oblivious to what was happening across the tent, Tom began, "I guess it's up to me. But like she said, my sweet Ellen had a hand in this little prank. She heard the girls talking about how they thought some of the boys were using the caves across from the park to smoke cigarettes in. We didn't, but that didn't keep the girls from thinking we did. Anyway, Ellen told me and we hatched out a plan. She was going to tell the girls that she knew that one of the boys had taken a cigarette to the cave."
Maybelle butted in, "What Tom won't tell you is that it was him that really did take a cigarette into the cave that day. Uh-huh, I told on you didn't I? Sweet little Ellen told me all about it one day when we were reminiscing."
Then looking at the crowd she said big grin, "Yeah, sounds bad doesn't it? You want to hear something so-o-o-o sweet that it'll turn your stomach? Well, it seems that gentleman Tom picked up a cigarette butt from somewhere and put it in his pocket that day so his sweet little Ellen wouldn't be tellin' a lie. Don't that just make you sick?"
Then all of the crowd let out an, "Aw-w-w-w-w."
Tom replied, "OK, OK. Let's see the hand of someone here who hasn't done something sappy at least once in his life." As he looked around at the non-show of hands, he looked down in the troubled face of his grandson. "Uh, anybody over the age of thirty that is."
As Arthur breathed a sigh of relief, everyone chuckled. From out of the back of the crowd came, "Your day will come, Arthur. Don't worry. It'll get here soon enough." A few "Amens" agreed.
Tom continued, "Ellen and I had agreed on a plan. The girls had been sneaki
ng....no, I've got to say, they THOUGHT they were sneaking up to the mouth of the cave from both sides."
From the crowd, and the back table, came a female chorus of, "B-o-o-o-o."
"Truth's the truth, girls," Tom stated emphatically. "We waited until all of the bushes quit moving. That's how we knew they were in position and ready to SURPRISE us."
Again the female chorus sounded, "Uh-huh." "Right." Plus a, "Maybelle gets a chance to testify, you know."
Tom held up his hands, "OK. Believe what you like. Anyway, the guys built a fire in the front of the cave. The commotion of everyone moving around allowed me to get up on the ledge that was over the opening to the cave. Then, the boys started looking around to make it obvious that they were up to something. One by one, they all slipped towards the back of the cave to make it look like they were going for a smoke. Homer Baxley pulled out one of those strike anywhere kitchen matches and lit it.
“That was Ellen's cue. She said, ‘Look, they're lighting up, let's go.’ All the girls ran toward the cave with the intention of catching the boys in the act.
I had brought five rubber snakes from the house. Whoever came through the mouth of the cave first was going to get the snakes dumped on them along with the loudest yell I could muster. And, bless her heart, Maybelle won first prize.
When I dumped those snakes on her, she let out a yell louder than mine. Then she started shaking her hands like they had some yucky stuff on them and ran about two miles in three seconds all in the same spot. Then she ran out of that cave so fast that she couldn't stop when she got to the creek that ran through the park. She fell in and got soaking wet."
The tent came alive with laughter. A good dose of it came from Maybelle herself. When she finally calmed down, she said, "Tommy, Tommy, Tommy. You have made one serious error in your perception of that story."
Tom replied, "Well, I don't doubt that, Maybelle. It WAS a long while ago. What part did I get wrong?"
Maybelle answered, "Why the part where you said that I was running so fast that I couldn't stop at the creek and that I FELL in."
Tom furrowed up his eyes and asked, "That's not the way it happened?"
"No, sir, not at all," said Maybelle emphatically. "I purposely ran to the creek so I could JUMP into it."
Curiosity got the best of Marci, "Granny. You ran TO the creek to JUMP into it? Why"
"Well, if you must know," Maybelle tried to sound aloof and huffy but she started chuckling as she responded, "Tom had scared me so bad that I was wetting my pants there at the mouth of the cave and I didn't want ANYONE, especially those boys know that I had wet my pants. The only thing I could do to save my 'tomboy' reputation was to run and jump into the creek to cover up."
Marci about fell over laughing, "Granny, you didn't."
"Yes, I did, child. I most certainly did," answered Maybelle. As she lifted her handkerchief to wipe the tears from her eyes, she glanced at her watch. "Oh, Honey. You need to get me home. I need to take a nap if I'm going to be able to go to the civic center to BRAG ABOUT PULLING ONE OVER ON TOM."
Pastor Wallace stood up, "Hey folks, she's right. Let's get shaking and get this stuff put up so we could all be there on time."
As Marci wheeled her granny toward the parking lot, Maybelle called out back at Tom, "Hey, you old goat, you ain't going to preach the same old boring sermon you preached this morning are you? If you are, I'm not going to waste my time coming."
Not to be outdone, Tom bantered, "I guess you'll just have to come to find out."
She answered, "I'll boo ya if you do."
Tom turned to start helping folks put stuff away. However, they would have none of it and promptly escorted him out from under the tent and sent him on his way.
As he walked to the car, he thought about how good it was to see one of his old friends in this town that had changed so much. However, Maybelle was not the only friend from his past that would come back to see him. He had another surprise coming at the civic center.