Cold Sassy Tree Read online

  "What we go'n do, Will Tweedy, we go'n line yore grandma's grave with these here roses."

  It took two of the blankets to cover the floor of the pit. The others he nailed into the grave's damp red-clay walls while both of us lay on the grass, me holding a croker sack blanket and a long nail, him propped on his left elbow, hammering. It was only as the last nail went in that Grandpa sagged. As if he was too tired to get up, he lay there looking down, and so did I. It wasn't awful anymore. The heavy smell of roses drifted up, and I thought I'd never seen anything as beautiful.

  A tear dropped off Grandpa's nose and watered a red rose. Seeing that, I choked up. I ached for Grandpa, grieving. And for Granny. I knew she wouldn't want to be dead. And then I thought about my friend Bluford Jackson, the one who got lockjaw after firecrackers burned his hand last Christmas. He had died soon after New Year's Day and now nearly six months later I was just finally seeing that Blu was gone for good.

  "Why'd Blu Jackson have to go and die, Grandpa?" I hit my fist on the grass. "Why'd God take him like that? He hadn't lived yet. He wasn't old like Granny. He had so many things to do.... He was scared of dyin'....I bet Granny was scared of dyin', too."

  Grandpa put his arm stub around me, and we lay there, staring down into the grave. "Like they say, the old must die and the young may die," he muttered softly. "Hit's what you git for livin'. But thet don't seem so awful as you grow older, son. You'll see." He gave a deep sigh.

  "How you go'n stand it, Grandpa? I mean goin' home every night and she ain't there."

  "Thet's what I don't know, son. Thet's what I don't know. Yore granny was—" He choked up again. When he could go on, he stretched both arms down into the grave, dropped them, helpless-like, and said, "But do I got a choice, Will Tweedy? I got to stand it, ain't I? Livin' is like pourin' water out of a tumbler into a dang Coca-Cola bottle. If'n you skeered you cain't do it, you cain't. If'n you say to yoreself, 'By dang, I can do it!' then, by dang, you won't slosh a drop."

  We lay there a while longer. Finally Grandpa sighed again and said, "I wouldn't ast the Lord to steady my hand for a thang like pourin' water into a Coca-Cola bottle. But I'll be astin' Him for hep on this." He indicated the grave. After a moment he said, "Miss Mattie Lou shore was a fool about roses." Silence again. "Two or more year ago she was out workin' in her rose garden one mornin'—did you know, boy, she's got over sixty different kinds out there?—and she said to me, said, 'Mr. Blakeslee, I wouldn't even mind dyin' if'n I could be buried in a bed of roses.' Thet's jest the way she put it. I laughed and said it would be her luck to die in the dead of winter.... Well, son, we better go git cleaned up for the funeral. Wisht it was over with. I'm plumb wore out." We both got up. "If'n I had my way, wouldn't be no sech a thang as funerals. They's jest a long hot time full a-hypocrites and kinfolks—grievin' some maybe, but mostly bein' glad to be alive theirselves and tryin' to pretend they ain't havin' a good time seein' one another."

  "It wasn't like that at Blu's funeral."

  "No, course not. They ain't no hypocrites at a youngun's funeral."

  When I brought up the buggy, Grandpa stood by old Jack, absently stroking the huge gray forehead, and looked back at the grave site. Then he spat a wonderful stream of tobacco juice and climbed in beside me. "She was a plumb fool bout roses," he said softly.

  Later, remembering that morning, I had no question in my mind: Grandpa's eloping wasn't a matter of him not loving Granny or not respecting the dead. He just needed a cheap cook.

  9

  TO ME, all that went on during Granny's sickness and dying and getting buried was more like a dream than real, till we got back from the cemetery and I watched Grandpa stop at the little pine desk in the front hall and write down her end in the Toy family Bible.

  Miss Love Simpson was standing nearby, come to think of it, as Grandpa put on his glasses and opened the Bible to the page where his and Granny's life together was written down in different handwritings and different shades of faded ink. Miss Love and I watched as he read it, muttering out loud to himself:

  "Matilda Louise Toy, born April 10, 1850, in Cold

  Sassy Community, Jackson County, Georgia.

  Married Enoch Rucker Blakeslee May 27, 1871.

  Children:

  — Mary Willis, born March 5, 1872.

  — Trix Esperance, born Jan. 19, 1873.

  Kicked by a mule and died July 1, 1880.

  — Rachel Aleez, born Nov. 25, 1875. Died

  April 5, 1877, of the smallpox.

  — Emma Frances was born Dec. 29, 1876. Died

  April 30, 1877. Pneumonia.

  — Missouri Mathis, born Wednesday Spt. 2, 1878. Died Spt. 5, 1878, of water on the brain.

  — Loma Louise was born Dec. 6, 1886.

  — Fannie Marie was born January 28, 1888, died a little Lamb of God the same day."

  Then Grandpa wrote in fresh, black, final-looking ink beside Granny's name: Died June 14, 1906.

  The Cold Sassy Weekly said it was "one of the saddest deaths that has ever grieved the people of Jackson County, because Mrs. Blakeslee was so beloved by so many."

  I saved the write-up. It had a black border and was long and fancy, beginning,

  Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep From which none ever wake to weep.... Mrs. Mattie Lou Blakeslee, a sacred mother of Israel, has gone to receive the crown of righteousness which God has promised to all those who love His appearing. Born Matilda Louise Toy, great-granddaughter of Capt. Josiah Toy who pioneered the settlement of Cold Sassy in 1804, she embraced the religion of our Blessed Master when young. Since that time her life and character has been that of a pure Christian ministering to the comfort of all, especially her beloved husband and consort, E. Rucker Blakeslee of this city, who now must walk alone. She gave up this life "As one who wraps the draperies of his couch about him and lies down to pleasant dreams." We must believe that the gates of Heaven were thrown open to receive her ransomed spirit, and that a crown resplendent with glory was placed upon her peaceful brow whilst the plaudit "Well done, thou good and faithful servant" echoed and re-echoed through the mansions of bliss....

  There was a lot more. Grandpa read it all, but instead of tearing it out to put in the Bible, he just dropped the newspaper on the floor, the way he always did when he was through with it, put his glasses in his pocket, and got up to go feed his mule.

  He went back to work the day after the funeral, which most folks thought not fitting. But as I said before, he wasn't the same. No laughter in him. No jokes or funning. No neighborly talk, and wouldn't talk about Granny, either. If a customer started saying her condolences, Grandpa would nod and cut her off with "You be needin' anythang else, ma'am?"

  He treated Uncle Camp awful during that time. One morning Grandpa pointed to a keg of nails and said, hateful, "Camp, see thet keg? I want you to roll it from one end of the store to the other till I say stop." He made Uncle Camp roll the keg all day long. When Papa asked what it was all about, Grandpa said, "I'm jest sick a-watchin' thet boy do nothin'."

  I didn't like my grandfather much that day. But I didn't like Uncle Camp, either. If he'd been a real man, he would of refused, and then either walked out or set to work like his job depended on it.

  We soon found out that Grandpa didn't go home at night when he left Aunt Loma's after supper. He went to the cemetery.

  "Yore pa walks by here and we're settin' on the veranda but he don't speak or so much as nod in our direction," Miss Alice Ann Boozer told Mama. "He don't even see us. Just turns at them iron gates and disappears like a ghost. We always stay out there till the night air cools off, you know, and many a night he still ain't come back by time we go to bed. It ain't good for Mr. Blakeslee to be by hisself at the cemetery in the pitch-black dark—or in a full moon, either, for that matter."

  I've mentioned Miss Effie Belle Tate, who lived next door to Grandpa. She told Mama that sometimes Grandpa's lamp was still on in his bedroom at two and three in the morning. "And lots a-times he goes out there to
Miss Mattie Lou's rose garden in the middle of the night to pace them paths. If it's a moon I can see him just a-walkin'. Up and down, down and up. Pore man, he's a-grievin' hisself to death. One night I come close to takin' some sweetmilk and cookies out there to him, but I didn't know what to say. He's shut us all out. I keep out'n his way."

  Miss Effie Belle wasn't the only one who didn't know how to take Grandpa.

  Folks felt a lot more easy with Mama and Aunt Loma, who would sit and cry with them and carry on about God's will and how He surely had a purpose in letting their ma die or else needed her in Heaven, one. They'd talk on and on about the final illness, the dying, the funeral, and especially about the grave being lined with roses. "Such a sweet thing," folks would say. "Such a sweet thing Mr. Blakeslee done."

  Nobody seemed to of been told that I helped.

  Then somebody would bring up about Granny's ancestors leading a wagon train from North Carolina, how they camped here on the ridge under some big sassafras trees while they were building their houses. If somebody didn't know how come the settlement was named Cold Sassy, it would be explained that mountain wagoners on the way to market used to call the place "thet cold sassyfras grove" or "them cold sassy trees."

  As often as not, before the conversation got back to Granny, somebody would say, "I think we done outgrowed the name Cold Sassy. Hit's old-fashion and tacky. We ought to do like Harmony Grove and git us a name like Commerce."

  Then they'd talk a while about how hard Miss Mattie Lou worked all her life, hinting but not exactly saying out loud that she had worked herself into an early grave—which was the same as saying Grandpa could and should of hired her a cook and a colored boy to work her garden.

  Nobody mentioned that all my life I had been her colored boy. Knowing Grandpa wouldn't hire anybody, Papa had expected me to put in a piece of every day down there. And I didn't mind. What I did mind, now that she was dead, was being in mourning.

  Because of her hair, my sister didn't feel like I did. She was glad to hide at home. What happened, while Granny was on her deathbed, Mama got up a black outfit for Mary Toy to wear to the funeral—black taffeta dress, black stockings, black slippers, and a little black bonnet. "It'll give her something to wear on trips later," said Mama. "If everything is black already, the train sut won't show."

  Unfortunately, Aunt Carrie decided early the morning of the funeral that Mary Toy's fiery red hair looked "inappropriate" for such a sad occasion. Her solution was to dye it black. "Just for today, sugarfoot," she said when my sister had a conniption fit. "We'll rinse it out tomorrow." By time Mama heard about it, it was too late to argue. And anyhow, who could argue with Aunt Carrie?

  She wasn't really kin to us. She had latched on to Granny's mother long time ago. Granny inherited her, and now she was ours—for Christmas and Thanksgiving and all the Sundays between. She used to be rich, but wasn't anymore, having lost everything during the War, including her husband. But she still acted rich and, like Grandpa, had the manner of one who expects to be obeyed. She lived in an old three-story, rundown plantation house with morning rooms and sun rooms, and porches wrapped around every floor. Aunt Carrie looked rundown herself, in her frayed sweaters and canvas and rubber Keds shoes. She wore her thin hair in a knot, and except in winter always had a flower stuck behind each ear.

  One summer she held weekly "cultural gatherings" for children. You had to recite a poem to get in. She gave us lectures on women's suffrage, Shakespeare, Beethoven, English history, and horticulture, and always had two freezers of homemade ice cream, which was why we all went. Her last lecture was on what she called "human excrement." Taking a rose out of her hair, she said it wouldn't be nearly so lovely if it weren't for human excrement, and told us children to go home and get our folks to empty our slop jars into our manure piles. Nobody let their children go to Aunt Carrie's gatherings after that, but she kept letting everybody know what happened to the excrement at her house. Aunt Carrie was stubborn.

  Which is why nobody thought to argue with her when she decided to dye Mary Toy's hair black for Granny's funeral.

  Halfway through the service Mary Toy got to sweating. Trickles of black liquid started running down her face. Seeing it, the preacher could hardly keep his mind on how good Granny had been or how it was God's will and all. Mama kept glancing at Mary Toy and finally dabbed at her face with a lace handkerchief.

  About then, Mary Toy noticed the black that was smearing off her hair onto her sweaty arms. Thinking it was black blood, she went to wailing. People in the pew behind the family said later they thought she was just missing her granny, pore child.

  Soon as we got to Grandpa's from the cemetery, Mama took Mary Toy's taffeta dress off and stuck her head in the wash basin on the back porch. The black leached right out, just like Aunt Carrie said it would. Only thing, her hair wasn't red anymore. It was purple. Soon as she looked in the mirror, Mary Toy went into mourning for her hair. She cried for hours and then days. It was a relief to everybody when, after our Glorious Fourth celebration, Cudn Temp said to her, "Sugarfoot, come on home with me and stay till the color grows out." Cudn Temp lived out on a farm in Banks County.

  Like Mary Toy, my mother was partly in mourning for herself. Because of Granny's dying, she couldn't go to New York City with Papa on the buying trip they'd been planning ever since February, when a wholesale house in New York offered the store two free tickets on the boat from Savannah and Grandpa said for Mama to go. The morning after the funeral, she insisted she wouldn't even want to go now. But tears were brimming in her eyes and all of a sudden she left the room and ran upstairs, I guess to cry. I felt sorry for her, and I knew she couldn't help feeling sorry for herself. Mama had never been anywhere much except to Atlanta, once to Raleigh, and once to Social Circle, Georgia, for a two-week visit the summer before she married.

  At first I didn't mind being in mourning. I didn't want to do anything anyhow but think about Granny. It was like I was trying to memorize her.

  One thing I already missed was pork. Granny had been providing me with ham and sausage ever since Papa decided if the Lord thought hog meat was bad for the Jews, then we weren't going to eat it, either. "Southern Presbyterians are as much God's Chosen People as Jews are," he said.

  Grandpa had laughed about that. Said he heard Presbyterians were God's Frozen People, haw. He and I thought that was funny, but Papa didn't. Anyhow, we gave up pork and got sanctified. I reckon us and Mr. Izzie, Cold Sassy's only Jew, were the only folks in town who never ate a piece of fried ham for breakfast. Well, and my friend Pink Predmore's mother. Pork gave her the trots. Mrs. Predmore was the last of seventeen children and always said the family gave out of strong stomachs before it got to her.

  Well, Granny saw to it that Mary Toy and I had our share of hog meat. After Papa's big decision, she kept leftover sausage or ham or fried streak-a-lean in her warming oven in case we came by after school. Pork didn't matter all that much to me, but the fact Granny saved me some mattered a lot. It was like getting hugged, or knowing that at the Friday speakings she would be out there in the schoolyard with Mama, sitting on a sawmill puncheon and perking up when it was Mary Toy's turn to quote from "Lord Ullin's Daughter" or my turn to give an oration from Demosthenes. No matter how bad we recited, Granny always clapped loud.

  I went up to her house about a week after her passing. I guess I hoped she would seem less dead there.

  Everything was a mess. Grandpa's bed looked like he got caught in the cover when he flopped out that morning. The top sheet trailed onto the floor. His bureau drawers were all open, and the clothes jumbled. His spit cup on the night stand was full of stale tobacco juice and smelled awful. A pile of Atlanta Constitution Tri-Weeklys, littered the floor by the cane-back rocker.

  In the kitchen I found coffee grounds spilled all over the table and burned toast in a pan on the cold stove.

  Like I said, it had never been a spic-and-span house. Granny wasn't much for cleaning up. But though her windows didn't shine a
nd her curtains drooped with dust and nobody could of eaten off her floors, she kept the bed made, the dishes washed, and things in place. She always said if a house looked neat, folks didn't notice cobwebs in the corners or dust on the mantelpiece.

  Well, it was a sight now. I guess Grandpa had been looked after for so long, he didn't know how to do for himself. Mama had tried to help him. A week after the funeral she went up there and cleaned, but next morning when Grandpa came by for his snort, he told her she had her own place to see after "and anyways, I ain't a-go'n let you work like a colored woman at my house. Hit was yore ma's duty. Hit ain't yore'n." The place looked so lonesome without Granny that I couldn't stand it. My feeling was that if I called out, she would answer from the next room. But my knowledge was that I could go from room to room all day long and never catch up with her.

  Despite I used to scour the porch for Granny and row her garden and all, I'd never done woman's work there or anywhere. But I did it that day. I wiped the kitchen table, rinsed out the spit cup, put clean sheets on Grandpa's bed, picked up clothes and newspapers. After which I just had to get out.

  In the backyard, the hens clucked and murmured as they scratched for bugs or pecked at the last dirty crumbs of wet cornmeal that Grandpa had put out for them. The chickens didn't seem to miss Granny. The garden and the flower beds did. It being June, nothing looked tired of growing yet, but it all looked neglected.

  I should of gone to weeding. Instead, I got Granny's gallberry brush-broom off the back porch and swept the dirt clean around the steps. Then I sat down on the bottom step, put my face in my hands, and commenced to mourn.

  To mourn is not the same as to be in mourning, which means wearing a black armband and sitting in the parlor, talking to people who call on the bereaved. At first you feel important. The armband makes you special, like having on a badge. But after a day or two it stops meaning anything.