Beholding Bee (11 page)

Mrs. Swift opens another jar. “What do you think?” Mrs. Potter limps over and sniffs the jar. She shakes her head.

“Well, there’s always these.” Mrs. Swift brings over a tin of tea biscuits. She pries the rusted top off and pulls a flat biscuit from inside and snaps it to see if it still crunches. It does not. She puts one biscuit on the table and one on the floor for Peabody. He sniffs it and then looks back to Mrs. Swift for something else.

“You’ll eat what’s put before you,” Mrs. Swift tells him, her hands on her hips, her voice stern. That’s all Peabody needs to hear. He gobbles the biscuit in one bite.

I nibble on a biscuit. Mrs. Potter laughs. Her face really is an apple, old and soft and folding in on itself. “Is there any cake?” I ask finally. “I really do like cake.”

Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Swift look at each other. “Well, we
haven’t figured out how to use this stove,” says Mrs. Swift. “Maybe you could show us how?”

The stove looks at least one hundred years old. I glance at Peabody.

“If we could find the fireplace, we could use that,” says Mrs. Potter. “I know it’s behind that wall. Why they ever closed it up, I do not know.”

Peabody whines, waiting for another stale biscuit. He is worried about how things are going. I try to think about blue skies ahead.

47

“She almost blew up the kitchen yesterday trying to get things ready,” says Mrs. Potter, grinning.

I go over to the stove. It is just like the stove we used at the traveling show, except bigger. There are knobs to turn and a box of matches on top. I light a match and turn the knob and in an instant a yellow flame flickers. “Well, will you look at that,” Mrs. Potter says, watching. I put the kettle on to boil.

“You said that yesterday you were getting things ready. What were you getting ready for?”

“Oh, we were getting ready for you, Beatrice,” says Mrs. Potter, offering me another tea biscuit.

I watch the two of them. I wonder if they will disappear again. “But how did you know I was coming?”

Mrs. Potter looks at Mrs. Swift and very slowly Mrs. Swift shakes her head at Mrs. Potter.

“Another biscuit?” Mrs. Swift holds a biscuit for Peabody and when the water boils, she pours tea into my cup. There is no milk in the creamer and the sugar is hard as tar, from before the rationing, and when I sip at the tea, it tastes very much like water with a little color added to it.

“I’m afraid it may be a little stale,” says Mrs. Swift, watching Peabody gobble down another biscuit. He could care less about tea.

I take another sip. Mrs. Potter tries to scrape some sugar
off the bottom of the bowl. Finally, she puts the bowl on the floor for Peabody. It turns out Peabody likes sugar very much.

They both watch me. I feel a little awkward as I chew another biscuit. I wipe the crumbs off my face.

“She looks just like Bernadette, don’t you think?” Mrs. Potter says.

Mrs. Swift shakes her head at Mrs. Potter and clears her throat.

I sit up straight. Bernadette was my mother’s name.

“We knew your mama very well,” Mrs. Potter says when she sees me staring.

“How?” I ask, leaning forward, spilling my tea. “How did you know my mama?”

“Later,” interrupts Mrs. Swift, looking sternly at Mrs. Potter. “It’s time to show you your bedroom.”

Peabody sits up and perks his ears. He is very excited about the idea of a bed, and I have never slept in a real bed, ever.

48

“We expect a bath every night before bed,” Mrs. Swift is saying as we all follow her upstairs.

“We do not need to be so particular about everything all the time,” says Mrs. Potter, “particularly when it comes to raising a child.” Her limp is quite pronounced on the stairs. She has to stop to rest several times. I wonder if I should offer her my arm.

“Now, you hush. I know what I’m talking about. I know all about raising children. A child needs a bath before bed.” She reaches the top stair and rounds a corner and continues up.

“When’s the last time you raised a child?” Mrs. Potter has stopped again. I turn just in time to see her rolling her eyes at Mrs. Swift. I giggle. Mrs. Swift looks back to see what we are finding so funny.

“And the dog sleeps outside. He can sleep with the pig.”

I pull Peabody closer, but already his ears are flopped down. I squeeze him tight.

“Mrs. Swift,” says Mrs. Potter, “the dog is used to the girl. He’ll bark and bother the neighbors and you know we don’t want that.”

Mrs. Swift pauses for a moment on the top step. “Yes, I guess you’re right,” she says slowly, thinking things through. “Just make sure he does his business out of doors.”

Peabody is humphing. I am humphing. Of course he does his business outdoors.

Mrs. Swift turns left and walks to a room where the last bit of sun is shining in, and already Peabody is wagging his stumpy tail like it is Christmas.

A big bed sits at one end of the room with four high posts and a canopy. The quilt is fresh as new cream and there are four fat pillows wrapped in lace.

“Oh golly,” I say out loud, untying and kicking off my work boots, jumping onto the bed, and bouncing around, feeling like things are starting to finally go a little right in my life. “For sweet Pete’s sake, Peabody, get up here.”

Mrs. Potter has to lift Peabody up and put him next to me, because the bed is so high, and Mrs. Swift is tsk-tsking in the corner. I myself am jumping. The bed creaks loudly with each bounce, bounce, bounce. It is very old. Peabody flops over each time I leap, so I make myself stop even though I could jump like this forever.

“This is a different time,” Mrs. Potter is telling Mrs. Swift. “Dogs sleep on beds nowadays.” She scratches Peabody behind the ears. He thumps his stumpy tail against the bed now that I am not jumping.

If I had a stumpy tail, I would wag it, too. I breathe in the wonder all around me: the little red berries and tiny sprigs of ivy skipping up the walls, the lace billowing from the four tall windows that are so big they begin at the ceiling and end at the floor, the tall dresser with no mirror on top (thank goodness), a table with a little pitcher and bowl for washing up, even towels to mop my face. The last of the sun jumps into the room and rushes all over the wood floor, which is polished. Everything smells like lemon wax.

Mrs. Swift looks at everything. “I did well, didn’t I?”

“And just who was it who carried all those buckets of
hot water? And who rubbed all that lemon oil?” Mrs. Potter is grinning.

“Now, you get in your bedgown, dear.” Mrs. Potter tells Mrs. Swift they should leave the room so I can get undressed.

When they close the door, I look at Peabody. I do not have a bedgown. I don’t know what a bedgown looks like, since Pauline and I slept in our shirts, although I can imagine.

I pull off my overalls and take Pauline’s little notebook out of my top pocket. I stuff it at the bottom of the top drawer of the dresser, under some clothes so lacy I would look like a cupcake if I wore them. Then I jump up onto the bed and climb under the sheets. They smell like new soap and rose water and are very crisp and tucked in so tight I cannot even wiggle and I would not want to move, even if I could. That is what it feels like to sleep in a real bed; you want to stay put for a while.

The peepers chirp, Peabody snores, and I am drifting off when Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Potter come back in. They stand near the bed and watch me and I pretend I am sleeping, which isn’t hard because I am so tired, and then Mrs. Potter is saying, “I told you she was the one,” and then I smile and say to myself, yes I am, good golly, yes I am, and then I must be sleeping, because the ladies are disappearing right before my eyes.

49

“All healthy children need a sunbath,” Mrs. Swift tells me the next morning while Mrs. Potter tries to get the stove to work so we can all have tea and maybe something to eat besides stale tea biscuits.

She shoos me out to the porch.

“What exactly is a sunbath?” I ask Peabody. Already the sun is climbing and the morning is one of the most beautiful I have seen. The smell of roses is everywhere. I lean back in the swing. Peabody jumps up onto my lap, and I push off. Back and forth, back and forth. I am feeling very lazy. Ellis is water under the bridge to me now. Peabody is watching a couple of honeybees around the potted geraniums. He is feeling lazy, too.

“Young lady!”

A harsh voice is so out of place here that Peabody and I both jump at the same time and Peabody’s head hits my chin. Quick as a wink, I pull my hair tight over my diamond.

A woman stands out by the gate, a small black-and-white chicken in her arms. “Yes, you! I’m talking to you.”

The woman is tall, with a thin neck and hair twisted high and tight. She has more gray hair than Ellis but not nearly as much as Mrs. Swift or Mrs. Potter, and not half as many wrinkles.

The chicken clucks and struggles in her arms. “Don’t you think you’re getting away again, you naughty little hen,”
says the woman, squeezing the hen tighter. This makes the chicken squawk louder. I look at Peabody. He is looking at the chicken.

One thing I learned from Ellis is you don’t take up with just anybody who comes asking questions. I head for the door.

“Can’t you hear me talking to you? Are you deaf or something? I said what are you doing up there?”

The warning light inside me is going on and off, on and off. I check my hair. I want Pauline.

The lady fiddles with the latch on the gate while she is holding the chicken. This crushes the chicken and it squawks and gets a wing loose. The lady stuffs the wing back under her arm.

The chicken thrashes, screaming, “Brawk-ack.”

This is more than Peabody can take. He barrels to the very edge of the porch and yips and yaps. He gets himself in such a lather about the chicken he jumps into the air, slips, flips over, struggles, and jumps up again, never for a second stopping his yapping.

The woman takes a step back. “Well,” she says to her chicken. “He’s not very friendly, is he?”

“Brawk-ack!” the chicken shrieks, struggling to get its wing loose.

“Shush,” I tell Peabody, rushing over and picking him up. He won’t stop barking, even when he is in my arms, and he just about tips me over, he is so excited about the chicken. It is very hard to hold him and my hair at the same time. While I try to get my hair to cover my diamond, Peabody breaks free and jumps out of my arms and barks furiously.

“What a racket,” the lady says, trying to hold on to her bird.

“Peabody, knock it off.” I have to let go of my hair for a minute to pick him up. When I look up, the woman is staring at my face. I brace myself for what is coming, for the look I get when somebody has seen something they did not know they would get to see.

“Well,” she says, eyeing me and taking a step closer. She opens her mouth and shuts it. Peabody is still barking. I back toward the door.

“I was out looking for my missing chicken here when I saw you on the porch. I live at the farm down the road. I am Mrs. Theodore Marsh. I keep an eye on the place for the old gentleman who owns this house. He lives in Florida now in a rest home. This porch is not for just anybody who feels like coming up and sitting here.”

Peabody squirms and I squeeze him tighter. “I am waiting for my aunts,” I say finally, not sure how to describe Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Potter. I look behind me, wondering where they are.

“Well, you can just do your waiting someplace else.”

“I mean I am waiting for my aunts who live here.” I look back toward the house.

“Nonsense, nobody lives here. You have the wrong house.”

Peabody has gotten very quiet. He is watching the chicken to see what it will do next. I breathe out deeply, just like Pauline taught me for when things get troubled, then in again, then out. I am getting a little dizzy from all the breathing. I am also getting a little worried about the things the lady is saying.

A bee buzzes around the chicken and it clucks and
squawks and
brawk-acks
and the lady has to stop paying attention to me so she can get her chicken calmed down again.

Finally, she says, “I didn’t know any aunts had moved in and I didn’t know there was a child visiting, or a funny-looking dog.”

I want to cover Peabody’s ears so he won’t hear the awful things the lady is saying, but I am still holding my hair tight. She steps closer and I know she is trying to see the diamond on my cheek.

I want Pauline. I want her to come and look into my eyes and tell me I am beautiful and how I don’t need to pay any attention to a lady who is looking at me like I am the heel end of a loaf of bread.

“My aunts must be napping but I am sure they will be pleased to make your acquaintance when they are rested, ma’am.”

The chicken pokes its head up from under the lady’s arm. This is more than Peabody can stand. He wiggles out of my grasp and jumps onto the porch and rushes toward the hen. It squawks and gets a wing loose and in an instant is free and flutters to the ground. Peabody pounces on the chicken and the two of them roll around in the dirt, looking like a mess of fur and feathers. The woman screams and I fly down and pull Peabody off, but not before he gets a mouthful of white feathers.

“Brawk-ack!” the chicken squawks.

“Bad dog,” I roar, “bad, bad dog.”

“Oh, my Daphne, my Daphne,” whimpers the lady, scooping her chicken back into her arms and patting it all over to see if a wing is broken.

“I have never met a more disagreeable dog. Make sure it never comes near my chickens again.” Then she turns for the road. “And tell your aunts I will be back to meet them. And I will be writing a letter to the man who owns this property.”

Then she flips open the gate and hurries through. Peabody barks as she marches away.

“That woman sure puts a bee in my bonnet,” chuckles Mrs. Potter, who all of a sudden is standing by the swing, straightening her orange flappy hat.

“I could have used your help,” I say, looking out to where Mrs. Marsh is hurrying down the road.

But Mrs. Potter ignores me. “Come on, Beatrice. We need to go to the market. I understand you like cake.” Then she is limping past me and Peabody is right behind.