“Now that’s not what I came to hear,” said Aunt Birdie to the top table.
“Let Brother Bethune warm up a little bit for the rest of us. You ain’t eaten the crust off one little wing yet,” Uncle Dolphus told her.
“One who is living but not present is Homer Champion,” Brother Bethune told them. “Homer Champion is ready to give his soul to keep on being what he is now come Tuesday: justice of the peace. Well, I haven’t heard his excuse yet, but you know something? I believe we got as many as we need without Homer.”
“Jack is a different matter,” Aunt Beck was saying, when Brother Bethune rattled a page of the Bible for attention.
“All right! Granny Vaughn is the Miss Thurzah Elvira Jordan that was, born right here in this house, known far and wide in the realms of the Baptists for the reach of her voice as a young lady. She is one of our oldest citizens today, beaten only by Captain Billy Bangs, who has reached to the age of ninety-four and still going to the polls. Granny is mighty pretty, she’s kind and courageous, sweet, loving, faithful, frisky, and outspoken. It is said that Death loves a shining mark. So we had all best be careful of Granny, precious friends, and treat her nice for the year to come, because she’s shining mighty hard. Ain’t that so, Granny Vaughn?”
Granny’s eye met his perfectly. She was sucking on a little chicken bone.
“I believe it is true that her eye can still see to thread her own needle, though we won’t make her prove it at the table,” Brother Bethune went on. “She still gets up at four in the morning, sees to her chickens—”
“As if I’d let her,” said Miss Beulah, marching to her grandmother with platter piled high with the white pieces.
“She started in at an early age, reared a lovely young lady that’s in the graveyard, and then she started all over again on that daughter’s family. And here they are, all living but one! She has had her trials in this vale of tears and still, as all can see, she’s never yet bowed her head. As I look out over that sweet old head and count ’em—raise your hands!—I see six living grandchildren, thirty-seven or thirty-eight living great-grandchildren—and others galore. I see faces from Banner, Deepstep, Harmony, Upright, Peerless, Morning Star, Mountain Creek, and one who makes the whole wide world his home.” He flung out a hand at Uncle Nathan. “According to her years, she is about to live up her life here on earth, and may expect any day to be taken, but we hope she will be spared to bring her precious presence to one more reunion.”
“When he gets as far as Jack, I’m going to tell him to slow down a little,” said Aunt Birdie. “I want to listen to every word when he forgives that sweet mortal.”
Aunt Beck said, “We want Jack to get to the table first, to be forgiven. And Gloria and the baby in their place beside him, so we can cry for all of ’em.”
“Jack won’t disappoint us,” Aunt Nanny said. “By this time he wouldn’t even know how.”
“It’s Brother Bethune that ain’t measuring up like he ought to,” said Aunt Birdie. “What he’s reeling off is tailored to fit any reunion he’s lucky enough to get invited to.”
“He uses the same old thing on all the Baptists—I expected that,” said Aunt Beck.
“You’d both take it worse if he was to come up and beat Grandpa, wouldn’t you?” asked Mr. Renfro. “Give him a little rope, ladies.”
“Granny’s granddaddy built this house. Built it the year the stars fell,” said Uncle Curtis, talking along with Brother Bethune and raising his voice a little over the preacher’s. “Jacob Jordan was his name, Captain Jordan was the way he liked to be known. He perched him here in the thick of the Indians, overlooking the stage road that come threading through the canebrakes up to Tennessee. It’s still the road that comes to the house.” He turned to gaze up at it. “It’s got a chimney stack inside that’s five foot deep and five foot wide. And after Captain Jordan’s son settled for a Carolina bride, Granny herself was born squalling in that very room, by the licking fire.”
“In August?” Elvie cried. “On the first Sunday in August?”
Granny studied her through the long narrow slits of her eyes.
“Winter used to come early around these parts,” said Uncle Percy. “Lots of old tales about those winters. I believe ’em.”
Granny put down a crumb and raised her fist ready for the next sentence.
“And by the time old Grant come over the horizon and put a cannon ball in that chimney, she was big enough to scamper out in the yard in her little flounce and boots and shame ’im for it to his face!” said Uncle Curtis.
“Just wish she’d been a year older, she’d done better’n that,” Granny said, looking amused.
“What happened to Captain Jordan?” some child prompted.
“Died brave. His son died brave. And there’s one of those Jordans, Jack Jordan, they had to starve to death to kill him,” Uncle Curtis told.
“Couldn’t dent a crack in my chimney, send all the volleys you want to,” said Granny, and she ate her crumb.
“Preacher Vaughn he grew up in Banner too,” said Brother Bethune. “Spent his whole life here.”
“Grandpa’s daddy was the builder of the first house in the town of Banner,” Uncle Curtis prompted him.
“And that’s a good smart piece away from where he ended up here,” said Brother Bethune.
“Banner’s just a good holler. It’s the road that’s winding,” said Mr. Renfro.
“I believe there’s nothing left of the first Vaughn house today,” said Brother Bethune. “Banner’s getting along without it.”
“Grandpa’s daddy raised that house out of his own oaks, pines, and cedars, and then he raised the church. He’d preach in the church on Sunday and the rest of the week he could stand on his own front porch and have it to look at,” said Uncle Curtis. “Old house burned. Though not within living memory of any except Granny.”
“When I was a boy, there’s still a chimney standing, looked big enough to roast an ox,” said Mr. Renfro. “It was backed up to the river. Then the chimney went. Then the whole back end of the bank where it stood, that went. Tumbled and sunk itself in the river. Delivered itself to the Bywy. I always got the general idea that Grandpa Vaughn just didn’t care for that at all.”
“He still had his old horse switch. Right here,” said Uncle Percy.
Granny raised her wavering finger as if it could find what to point at. It was the big bois d’arc tree, right behind her.
“Yes sir, old-timers used to call that tree Billy Vaughn’s Switch,” said Uncle Curtis. “He’d stick it in the ground when he got down from his horse, trotting up here to court Granny, and one night he forgot it. Come up a hard rain, and the next thing they knew, it’d sprouted.”
The tree looked a veteran of all the old blows, a survivor. Old wounds on the main trunk had healed leaving scars as big as tubs or wagon wheels, and where the big lower branches had thrust out, layer under layer of living bark had split on the main trunk in a bloom of splinters, of a red nearly animal-like.
“Too late to pull it up now,” said Granny, looking from one face to another, all around her table.
“Well, but there’s bodocks and bodocks growing between here and the road,” said Elvie. “They’re lining our way. They couldn’t all be Grandpa Vaughn’s horse switches from when he came riding to see Granny and get her to marry ’im.”
“Who says they couldn’t?” Granny said swiftly.
“Granny’s good husband, Preacher Vaughn, came here to this beautiful old house to live on their wedding day, and I believe he’d just surrendered to the ministry too, both at the age of eighteen. Mr. Vaughn is the living example of a real, real Baptist,” Brother Bethune was declaring, and he smiled as his hand went reaching over his face. “I wonder does he recall with me a little story. I was taken along with him as a little feller, for company, to a Methodist revival being held one August over to Better Friendship. All went well as long as he could enjoy good singing and sermons and the shade of their trees, but af
ter that, they started up one thing he hadn’t counted on, poor man. Infant baptism! Such heartfelt groans you never heard in your life as good Preacher Vaughn give out that day, with his head dropped down on the back of the bench in front of us—suffering for them poor little Methodist babies.”
A humming began to come from all the aunts at the table. When they looked at Granny, Granny looked back at them without blinking, as if she’d long ago decided how much it was worth her while to set them right about anything.
“One of the babies was Clyde Comfort,” mused Brother Bethune.
“Aycock’s daddy? I believe if Grandpa could see Mr. Comfort today, he’d groan again,” Mr. Renfro said.
“And if Mr. Comfort could see Grandpa in our midst right now, he’d turn tail another time,” said Aunt Nanny, helplessly winking.
“Oh yes, you could hear Preacher Vaughn well above them Methodist babies and the way they was crying.” Brother Bethune let out a bark of laughter. “Ain’t that so, Preacher Vaughn?”
Aunt Beck cried out in panic.
“Brother Bethune, you jumped your track a little ways back down the line there,” called up Uncle Curtis primly, while some of the young girls at the table below cackled out like old women. “You know we lost Grandpa Vaughn.”
“I declare, Brother Bethune, your memory’s come to be no longer than your little finger!” Aunt Nanny called admiringly.
“Get up to date!” shrieked Aunt Birdie.
“You’re hanging right over the Vacant Chair, Brother Bethune! You’ve left your hat in it! If it had teeth, it’d bite you!” cried Uncle Dolphus.
“Don’t you know what happened to Grandpa?” screamed Miss Beulah, her arms around Granny. “Can you think of a single other reason on earth why you should find yourself standing here at the table and making the effort to take his place at the reunion?”
“You’re right,” said Brother Bethune in a congratulatory voice, “we lost him, he left us just about exactly a year ago, at the age of eighty-nine. Stopped speaking, didn’t care any longer for earthly food, then couldn’t lift up his head, then perished. With all these blesseds around him and pleading him to stay.”
“Wasn’t that way at all,” said Miss Beulah.
“I’m sure those are just the same words he uses for everybody,” said Aunt Beck. “I advise you to get rid of him, before the next reunion.”
She whispered, but Granny looked back at her in a fixed manner. Something about her glittered—the silver watch pinned to her front, worn like the medal she’d won by Grandpa’s dying first.
“And I’m sure Granny Vaughn will forgive me for the first slip I’ve made all evening, and agree it was a mean trick to play on the new preacher, to see how far he’d go. Wasn’t it?”
“Last year’s reunion I wish we all could have skipped,” said Aunt Beck, letting out a sigh.
“Jack was gone from sight. Grandpa Vaughn was groaning so, I asked him if he couldn’t allow himself to give the history and the sermon to us sitting down. If he had, it might have saved his life!” said Miss Beulah. “We might have kept him till today.”
“He died at you-all’s reunion?” cried Aunt Cleo, and biting her lip, turned for a fresh look at Granny.
“No, Sister Cleo, he waited till after good-nights was over and good-byes was said and we’d all gone home to bed,” said Uncle Curtis.
“In the barn,” said Uncle Percy in a whisper.
“When he didn’t come to bed, and didn’t come, Granny went out there all by herself and found him, with a lantern. He’d fell over from his knees. But he had a nice sweet bed of hay under him,” said Miss Beulah fiercely.
“I’ll never forget Grandpa at that last reunion,” said Uncle Curtis. “Oh, he thundered! He preached at us from Romans and sent us all home still quaking for our sins.”
“We didn’t know, till Mr. Renfro rode the horse into the daylight to tell us, how shortly he lasted after ‘Blest Be the Tie,’ ” said Uncle Percy in a whisper.
They all stole glances at Granny. Her fingers reached for Grandpa’s watch on her dress front. She opened it for a look, quick as she’d open a biscuit to make sure it was buttered, and shut it again.
“I think we’re brave to keep coming, times like these,” said Aunt Beck. “All of us, plain brave.”
“I let my thoughts dwell for a minute on harvest time in Heaven,” Brother Bethune called, passing behind her. He’d interrupted himself to line up with the children before the cake of ice. Dense with ammonia, like fifty cents’ worth of the moon, it stood melting in its blackening bed of sawdust. He chipped some off into his cup to cool his lemonade, and came striding back talking.
“Granny Vaughn and Grandpa Vaughn—oh, they was David and Jonathan,” Brother Bethune went gleefully on. “After Grandpa left this sorry old world, Granny appeared for a while to be trailing a wing. Yes sir, we in Banner told one another, he will soon have the old lady wooed upward. We know he’s been hungry for her! I expect while we set around her here today, Grandpa in Heaven is busy wondering why in the world she don’t pick up her foot and track on up there with him. But I expect she’s got her answer ready.”
“Suppose you try taking a seat,” Granny was heard to say. “Go over there in the corner.” She pointed to the old cedar log.
“And behind him in the world Preacher Vaughn left five living grandsons, and only one keeping on with the Lord’s work today—and then it’s pretty much where and when he feels it coming over him.” Brother Bethune right-faced toward Uncle Nathan.
Uncle Nathan, back of Granny’s chair, inclined his gypsy head in acknowledgment.
Aunt Cleo pointed at him with a pie-shaped wedge of corn-bread. “You all got one in the family? Then why did you invite another one to do the preaching?” she asked them.
Miss Beulah said promptly, “Nathan’s too modest, Sister Cleo, to think he could take Grandpa’s place. Most everybody knows better than to try it.”
“Why don’t he eat, then?” asked Aunt Cleo. “If he won’t preach, why don’t he eat?”
“Sister Cleo, he didn’t come to eat either. Just make up your mind you don’t always know what a man’s come for,” Miss Beulah advised her. “And some I’d think twice before I’d ask.”
“There was only one Beecham daughter, there was Miss Beulah alone!” cried Brother Bethune. “And Miss Beulah Beecham she will ever be. And I want her to save me back some of those chicken gizzards she’s provided such a plenty of, I want to carry ’em home for my supper—does she hear me? Miss Beulah, who ain’t going to let no one in the world go hungry as long as she can trot, took for loving husband Mr. Ralph Renfro, who is yet with us today. He’s here somewhere, trying to keep up with his children and stay alive!” Brother Bethune laughed. “Beulah and Ralph all their lives has worked right in harness together, raised a nice set of girls with a boy at each end. The girls is unclaimed as yet, but the oldest one is liable to surprise us any minute.” He paused to let Ella Fay, wherever she was, stamp her foot.
“And that’s making a mistake,” Miss Beulah said, running around with the platter. “One day, Brother Bethune is going off the track and he’ll stay off.”
“I’m getting downright impatient listening for him to forgive Jack and get the hard part over,” Aunt Birdie said as Brother Bethune lifted his voice and veered away into the Renfros.
“He can’t do his forgiving till Jack gets here, unless he’s willing to waste it,” said Uncle Curtis.
“Grandpa Vaughn would have done it either first, or last, if he was going to do it at all,” Aunt Nanny said. “Not just slip it in somewhere.”
Uncle Curtis said, “He wouldn’t have done it at all.”
“Papa,” said Elvie, standing at her father’s ear, “peep behind you. Here’s them.”
At the same moment, Etoyle seized her skirt and cracked it like a whip to get the dust out, and came rushing into the yard. She butted her head into Miss Beulah’s side and embraced her.
“Lady May jumped
through the peephole! Jack caught her! But he couldn’t miss, she came like a basketball!” she cried.
“Oh, it’s not so. But what’s this?” And Miss Beulah was marching toward the wagon. Judge Moody, wincing as if his bones creaked, got down and held his hand for his wife.
“Is somebody dead up here? I never did see so many,” exclaimed Mrs. Moody.
“You see exactly how many we’ve got, with three more to be counted,” Miss Beulah cried. “And if you came here expecting to find a bunch of mourners, you’re in the wrong camp.” Now she and Judge Moody stood eye to eye over the heaped-up platter she was carrying. “I bet you a pretty I can tell you who you had to thank for your invitation. What have you done with my oldest boy this time? I can tell that’s your wife,” she went on. “And I can see you’re famished, parched and famished, in another minute you’ll drop. Trot after me. Might as well shuck off your coat, Judge Moody, and don’t dawdle.”
“He’s kept his coat on before me through it all this far—he can keep it on for the rest of the time, thank you,” said Mrs. Moody.
“Vaughn! It’s time for that spare on the porch!” yelled Miss Beulah, and Vaughn came bringing the school chair. It was a heavy oak piece with a hole bored clean through its back, the seat notched, the desk-arm cut like a piecrust all around and initialed all over. As Vaughn strong-armed it over his head, the deathless amber deposits of old chewing gum were exposed underneath.
“All right, sir. That gives you a little table all to yourself,” said Miss Beulah.
“Mama, who is that? Is that the Booger?” asked a little child from the crowd as Judge Moody wedged himself in under the desk arm, and Brother Bethune caught his eye and waved at him.
“Mrs. Judge, Mr. Renfro is busy offering you his chair—slide in. And where are your children? How many’ve you got and what have you done with ’em?” Miss Beulah asked, coming at Mrs. Moody’s heels.
“I was never intended to have any,” said Mrs. Moody, looking out from under the brim of her hat as she squeezed in between Aunt Miss Lexie Renfro and Aunt Birdie and sat on a hide-bottomed chair.