Losing Battles

  In her soft yellow lamplight, Granny smiled, showing her teeth like a spoonful of honeycomb. “She was young herself once. And if she was, I was. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

  Uncle Nathan stepped down from them and went to his pack, which was still under the tree where he had dropped it. Groping in it, he brought up his cornet and readied it.

  “Play ‘Poor Wayfaring Stranger’!” came a call.

  “Play ‘Sweet and Low’ for me!”

  When they all stopped asking, he played them “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning.” He needed nothing but his good left hand.

  “Makes the hair of my skin stand on end. Like I was pulling okra,” said Aunt Nanny. “To hear him reach with his horn like that.”

  “That’s right, that’s the way. Blow ’er over Jordan, Nathan,” called Uncle Noah Webster. “Blow Miss Julia Mortimer over Jordan.”

  Uncle Nathan held the last note. He held it till none of them listening had any breath of their own left—then he ceased. Miss Beulah looked at Granny. So did they all. Though the hills were ringing still, Granny nodded in her chair.

  Miss Beulah drew the lamp away from her face. One bit of brightness still gleamed about her—the silver wire of Grandpa’s spectacles she had put away in her lap. There behind her, spread over her chair and ready to cloak her, was “The Delectable Mountains,” known to be green and red and covered with its ninety-and-nine white sheep, but now a piece and puzzle of the dark.

  Jack and Gloria sat side by side on the old cedar log, close together, their backs to the crowd. Around them, though they appeared not to know it, the girl cousins as if with one accord began stirring about, cleaning up after the day. They cleared off the tables, carried platters and watermelon plates and cloths back to the kitchen or the back porch. The cake of ice had disappeared, the lemonade tub had nothing left but hanging crusts of sugar and a pavement of seeds. From the complaint they made, there had been little left to feed the company dogs. The cows were calling, taking turns.

  Presently Uncle Nathan passed close by the porch, going down into the yard carrying upright a hoe with rags draped about the blade in a sort of helmet. There was a cutting smell of coal oil where he walked. After a moment, a red torch shot up fire, moved; then an oval, cottony glow, like utterly soft sound, appeared in the dark—how close, how far, how high up or low down, was not easy for the eye to make sure. Then it went out, and appeared almost at once in a new place.

  “We’ve lost him, I know, to the Book of Revelation,” said Miss Beulah. “But once a year I feel like he still belongs to us. Right now, he’s burning the caterpillar nets to finish up the day for the children.”

  Their eyes as they watched all reflected the fiery nests in dancing points.

  “And at the same time, it’s a hundred thousand bad little worms that’s curled up and turned black for every touch he gives,” said Aunt Birdie. “You can be thankful for that much deliverance.”

  Uncle Nathan carried his torch past Jack and Gloria as though he didn’t see them. Neither did Jack and Gloria seem to know he went by. They sat without moving, kissing each other.

  “Mr. Renfro, do you dream at all of what’s coming next?” cried Miss Beulah.

  He didn’t move. Only, while they looked, the wilted snippet of traveller’s joy slid out of his shirt pocket and dropped to the floor.

  Granny, the moment she was touched, put up her head warily.

  “The joining-of-hands!” Miss Beulah at her side put out the cry. “Everybody stand! It’s time for the joining-of-hands!” She threw out her arms. “Where’s Jack? Sometimes just making your circle will bring him in. Stand up, catch Granny, don’t let her fall now! Pull up Brother Bethune before he’s slipped clear down out of reach! Stand up! Judge Moody, stoop a little, catch hold of Elvie’s hand. Mrs. Judge, I’ve got you.” She shook Mr. Renfro and got a cry out of him. “Drag Nathan in where he belongs!” came her urgent voice. “Now, are we a circle?”

  By now the chairs were pushed back out of the way and as many of the reunion as could worked themselves into a circle in the expanded space of the porch. The rest of them carried the circle down the steps and along the flower rows and around from tree to tree, taking in the well-piece and the log seat and the althea bush and the post with the Wayfarer’s Bell on it, encompassing the tables and the bois d’arc tree.

  “Are we a circle?” cried Miss Beulah again, and she struck off the note.

  Then they had the singing of “Blest Be the Tie.” There was only one really mournful voice—Judge Moody’s.

  “And will you give us the benediction, Brother Bethune?” cried Miss Beulah. “Are you fully awake?”

  For a moment Brother Bethune tottered, but Vaughn caught him and held him by the waist to steady him. His arm shot into the air and his voice exploded: “God go with us all!”

  “Amen,” said the voices around the circle.

  “Now,” said Miss Beulah warningly, “would anybody care for a further bite before starting on their road?”

  “I couldn’t get another bite in me if you was to stand before me with gun loaded, Beulah,” Uncle Dolphus said, leading a chorus of No’s.

  Uncle Noah Webster and Uncle Dolphus gave a brotherly shout together. Unregarded, a flower had opened on the shadowy maze of the cactus there on the porch with them.

  “Well, I reckon that’s what you’ve all been waiting for,” said Miss Beulah.

  “We scared it into blooming after all,” said Aunt Birdie, sashaying towards its tub. Little groups in turn looked down in a ring at the spectacle, the deep white flower, a star inside a star, that almost seemed to return their gaze, like a member of the reunion who didn’t invariably come when called. The fragrance, Aunt Beck said, was ahead of the tuberose.

  Only Granny sat and stared rigidly before her.

  “Leave her alone,” said Uncle Curtis.

  “Granny’s almost a hundred,” whispered Uncle Percy, trying to tiptoe going by her.

  “Granny heard the Battle of Iuka. Heard the volleys,” said Uncle Dolphus, circling around.

  “Talked back to General Grant. Remembers the conversation,” said Aunt Beck, pausing at the still chair.

  “Mrs. Moody thinks she wants to say something,” Miss Beulah said.

  “You’ve produced a night-blooming cereus!” repeated Mrs. Moody. “I haven’t seen one of those in years.”

  “Yes’m, whatever in the nation you called it, it bloomed,” said Miss Beulah. “Even if it never does us the favor again.”

  “Wait on it a little longer and there’ll be another one,” said Uncle Noah Webster. “I love ’em when they smell sweet.”

  “And not a drop of precious water did I ever spare it,” said Miss Beulah. “I reckon it must have thrived on going famished.”

  Not a groan but a long expenditure of breath was heard.

  “I think Judge Moody had best be excused to bed,” said Miss Beulah to Mrs. Moody, and she took one of the lamps and started inside. “That man’s ready to drop.”

  Uncle Homer threw out an arm to keep Judge Moody from passing. “Oh, we’re going to tend to that road better—wait till I get to be supervisor,” he said. “Roads—mosquitoes—our many cemeteries—mad dogs—floods—I’ll get my hands on all of ’em. Some day we’ll even do something about that bridge. Though no use us fixing our end any better till they fix theirs!”

  “Oscar, just beat your way around him,” said Mrs. Moody, as she herself went stepping over the sleeping twins who lay entwined on the threshold of the passage, their twin pea-shooters pressing crosses into their naked chests.

  “Here’s the company room—be careful how you step,” Miss Beulah’s voice came from inside. “And don’t bump your head. The only thing I still haven’t offered you is my nightgown—could I help you to it through the door? It’s fresh and it’s cool—I starched it this morning—and the only one to my name. It’s going on eleven years old.”

  “You didn’t suppose I would undress, did you?” e
xclaimed Mrs. Moody’s voice.

  “Do you want to let Judge Moody tell you goodnight, Granny? He’s bowing to you,” said Mr. Renfro at the old lady’s chair. “You remember Judge Moody.”

  “Thought I sent him to Coventry,” Granny said.

  Judge Moody slipped around her and followed his wife inside. His voice came out saying, “But if that’s to be our bed, I’d like this one last baby carried away from it.” When Miss Beulah returned to the porch she was holding her—it was Lady May, still dressed, and sound asleep. Gloria took her and carried her to a shadowy corner, out of the glare of the moonlight, and sat down with her, to watch the reunion go.

  Mr. Willy Trimble came up to Granny. “Then keep a close watch on this young lady, folks,” he said, putting his long, joker’s face down beside Granny’s unblinking one. “If she starts to cutting up and you-all don’t want her, send for me and I’ll come back after her and have her for mine.”

  All at once, and at the very end of her day, Granny decided to take off her hat. Elvie received it from her—it sank heavy as a setting hen in her small arms. She ran into the house with it, blowing on it, as though in its dust lived a spark.

  Granny was staying.

  “Now I got far to go. And no mule. And Willy Trimble has whispered in my ear I still got to turn around and get me back to the cemetery in the morning,” said Brother Bethune. “I’m just good enough to get her into the ground,” he said, after he’d found his gun. “She’s still being a schoolteacher about it, up in Heaven. I’m the one she couldn’t bring to school.”

  “Now you’re paying for it,” said Aunt Birdie.

  “She tried. But she just couldn’t lure me inside the school-house,” Brother Bethune went on. “I went right along with my daddy where he’s going and helped him preach. Sung the duets with him, standing on a chair. It was an outdoor life, and I don’t see nothing wrong with it yet.”

  “All right. You gave us as good today as you knew how,” Miss Beulah cried at him. “You can go if you want to.”

  “And I’ll tell you what you can give me for coming. The surprise of a nice nanny goat tied to my front porch one moonlight night,” Brother Bethune replied.

  “Granny, when it comes around to your next birthday, do you want to invite Brother Bethune and give him another chance?” asked Miss Beulah.

  “See him in Tophet first,” said Granny.

  “Granny’s going to be my next girl,” said Mr. Willy. “I lost me one girl this morning, but I believe I already found me another’n.”

  “Willy Trimble, if you come a step closer—!” cried Miss Beulah. “Didn’t you feel your foot stepped on in ‘Blest Be the Tie’?”

  “And take that jade of yours off somewhere and leave her,” Granny told him in dismissal. “She’s been cropping my flowers.”

  Brother Bethune elected to keep Mr. Willy Trimble company. They rode off together with the gun pointing up like a mast on the wagon seat between them.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” Granny asked inside a circle of her grandsons. They bent above her, squatted before her, patted her knee, took her by the hand, tried to kiss her face.

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re leaving me too?” she asked.

  “Granny, there’s stock at home waiting to be fed, and bawling, no doubt,” Uncle Curtis said gently.

  “Then what are you running off for?” asked the old lady.

  The great-grandchildren were already loading up the wagons and finally mended cars. “Love you a bushel and a peck, Granny. Many happy returns!” One by one her great-grandchildren began putting kisses on Granny’s face. They walked off from her carrying their own children stretched out in their arms, or hauled up over their shoulders, arms and legs dangling, little girls’ hair streaming silver. Children that had barely waked up carried children still asleep. The whistled-up dogs flowed at their heels.

  “Who’re you trying to get away from?” asked Granny. “Come back here.”

  “Go if you must, but you can’t get away without these!” Miss Beulah shrieked.

  At some moment during the day she had found time to run out and cut the remainder of her own flowers against their departure. She was ready to load everybody home. Here was the duplication of what they’d come bringing here—milk-and-wine lilies, zinnias, phlox, tuberoses.

  “Who’s running off with my posies?” asked Granny.

  Now the uncles were shaking hands with each other and with Mr. Renfro, then Jack.

  “Well, we brought you, Jack. We brought you back home,” said Uncle Curtis.

  “And my wife and I are much obliged to one and all,” said Jack.

  “I should say on the whole, Jack, we let you back in the ranks of the family pretty easy today. Didn’t make it too hard on you,” said Uncle Dolphus.

  “If only he didn’t have in-the-morning to go through with!” cried Aunt Birdie.

  “He’s young!” said Aunt Beck.

  “Stay,” Granny said.

  “And little-old Gloria! We made you really and truly one of us today,” said Aunt Birdie, kissing her good-bye. “You can always be grateful, and show it as well as you can.”

  “You’re one of the family now, Gloria, tried and true. Do you know what that means? Never mind! You’re just an old married woman, same as the rest of us now. So you don’t have to answer to the outside any longer,” Aunt Beck said, putting an arm around her.

  “Just put that dress away more careful when you take it off tonight. They can bury you in it, child,” said Aunt Birdie. “Put yours away like I did.”

  “If it’d been my dress, it’d stayed deep down in its trunk today! If I’d get my wedding dress out and try wearing it again in front of this crowd, I’d expect you all to fall into a hard fit of laughing,” said Miss Beulah, trying to persuade Aunt Nanny down the steps.

  “I’ll tell you something,” said Aunt Nanny with what looked like pride. “If my wedding dress could talk, I’d burn it.”

  “Reckon Lady May’s got just one little word? One little word to say about it all before we go?” Aunt Birdie cried into the oblivious face.

  “Nothing ever wakes her but the sun coming up and feeling the fresh pangs of hunger,” said Gloria.

  “I never said I wanted you to go,” Granny said.

  “Here’s one that’s staying till tomorrow,” said Miss Lexie, “Because I want to see the behavior. I’d like to see ’em finish what they started today.”

  “And because starting with tonight you got nowhere to go,” said Miss Beulah. “Unless you happen to worship sleeping between Ella Fay and Etoyle.”

  Miss Beulah stood accepting their thanks. “Fay, I was crazy about you at one time,” she told her. “Because you weren’t Lexie. And look what’s happened to you. You’re Homer’s wife.” They put their tired arms around each other.

  “Miss, you must wear stockings on your arms when you work in the field,” said Aunt Cleo, pinching Ella Fay’s shoulder. “Or they’d never be white in the moonlight like that.”

  “That’s one secret you guessed, Aunt Cleo,” said Etoyle.

  “How old is Ella Fay getting to be?”

  “She’ll be seventeen on Groundhog Day next year,” said Miss Beulah.

  “Why’s she hanging back?”

  “Now from what? I thought you were on your way!” cried Miss Beulah.

  “Sister Beulah, let me inquire, have you ever been into the deep subject with Ella Fay?” Aunt Cleo kept on.

  “Listen, will you tell us good-bye and crank up?”

  “Truly I mean it. You’ve got a growing girl on your hands.”

  “I’d as soon start worrying over Vaughn!” said Miss Beulah violently.

  “Her feet are growing,” said Mr. Renfro.

  “My mama never went into the deep subject with me. And you know what? I’ve always felt a little sorry for myself,” remarked Auntie Fay, waiting now up inside the chicken van.

  “But I haven’t been told what the commotion is all abo
ut,” said Granny. “What the headlong rush is for.”

  “Bless your heart, Granny Vaughn! Good-bye, good-bye, Jack! Brought you home by all of us working together, didn’t we? Goodbye, Beulah, sweet dreams, Mr. Renfro. Ain’t you growing faster than ever, Ella Fay?” Uncle Homer was hugging the Renfro girls. “I swear, Ella Fay, I wouldn’t be surprised if we couldn’t find a way when Tuesday dawns to let you vote.”

  “Hush up! She don’t even want to,” said Miss Beulah. “My children have learned to wait for everything till it’s the right time for them to have it. Wish somebody’d taken the time and trouble to teach a few of their elders that lesson.”

  “Jack’ll go on working the rest of his life to pay for that roof,” said Uncle Noah Webster with a mighty slap of congratulation on Mr. Renfro’s back. “You’ve got an acre of tin up there. It’ll take it all the rest of the night to cool off.” He gave Jack a fierce smile and wrung his hand as if he couldn’t stop. Then he smacked Gloria’s cheek with a last big kiss that smelled of watermelon. “Gloria, this has been a story on us all that never will be allowed to be forgotten,” he said. “Long after you’re an old lady without much further stretch to go, sitting back in the same rocking chair Granny’s got her little self in now, you’ll be hearing it told to Lady May and all her hovering brood. How we brought Jack Renfro back safe from the pen! How you contrived to send a court judge up Banner Top and caused him to sit at our table and pass a night with the family, wife along with him. The story of Jack making it home through thick and thin and into Granny’s arms for “her biggest and last celebration—for so I have a notion it is. Eh, Nathan?” He raised his arm high to salute the oldest brother. “I call this a reunion to remember, all!” he called through the clamoring goodnights. “Do you hear me, blessed sweethearts?” He swung over to Granny’s chair and folded his arms around her, not letting her go, begging for a kiss, not getting it.

  “Benedict Arnold,” she whispered. Then as Aunt Cleo came to pull him away, Granny spoke to her too, and said, “But I’ll give you a pretty not to take him.”