BLACKWATER:The Mysterious Saga of the Caskey Family (21 page)

Early Haskew had lived with his mother in a tiny town called Pine Cone, on the edge of the Alabama Wiregrass area. She had died recently, and Early had seen no necessity of returning to Pine Cone. He sold his mother's house, and wrote to James Caskey asking if the millowner would be so kind as to find him a place to live. Early hoped not only to provide the plans but to supervise the building of the levee— if the town council were pleased to judge him fit for the work—so he might be in town for as long as two years. And two years was enough time to justify the purchase of a house.

James Caskey mentioned this news at Mary-Love's one evening. James had thought it a piece of information of interest, but of not much importance, so he was startled by the vehemence with which Mary-Love Caskey seized upon it.

"Oh, James," she cried, "don't you let that man buy a house!"

"Why not?" said James mildly. "If he wants it, and he has the money?"

"Wasting his money!" said Mary-Love.

"Well, what do you want the man to do, Mama?" asked Sister, who was sitting sideways in her chair at the table and bouncing Miriam up and down on her knee while nine-year-old Grace, sitting beside her, held out a finger for the baby to hold for balance and security.

"I don't want him to waste his money," said Mary-Love. "I want him to come here and stay with us. We have that extra room that used to be Oscar's. It's got a private bathroom and a sitting room he can set up a drafting table in. I think I might go out and get one of those tables myself," she mused, or appeared to muse. "I have always wanted one."

"You have not," said Sister, contradicting her mother as she might have said, "Pass the peas, please."

"I have!"

"Mary-Love, why do you want Mr. Haskew staying here?" asked James.

"Because Sister and I are lonely, and Mr. Haskew needs a place to stay. He doesn't want to live all by himself. Who'd cook for him? Who'd wash his clothes? He's a nice man. We had him over to dinner one day when he was here before, remember? James, write to that man and tell him he can stay here in this nice big house with us."

"He ate his peas on a knife," added Sister. "Mama, you said you had never seen a decent man do that in public. You wondered what kind of home he came from. I was the only one in this house who was nice to him. One evening Mr. Haskew came by to speak to Oscar, and Elinor got right up out of the chair and walked away and wouldn't even let herself be introduced to him. Never saw anything so rude in my life."

"Why do you suppose she did that?" asked James, who now suddenly had an inkling what Mary-Love's energetic and unexpected proposal was all about.

"I don't know," said Mary-Love quickly. "What I do want to know is, are you gone write that letter, James, or am I?"

James shrugged, though he didn't know what was to come of it. "I'll write it tomorrow at the office—"

"Why not tonight?"

"Mary-Love, how do you know that that man's gone say yes? He may not want to live here."

"Why wouldn't he?" demanded Mary-Love.

"Well," said James after a moment, "maybe he wouldn't want to be in the house with a tiny baby, that cries."

"Miriam doesn't cry," said Sister indignantly.

"I know she doesn't," returned James, "but babies tend to, and you cain't expect Early Haskew to realize he's dealing with a special case here."

"Well, you tell him he is," said Mary-Love, and James agreed to write the letter that very night.

"And James," said Mary-Love in a whisper as she saw her brother-in-law out the door that evening, "one more thing. Not a word to Oscar about this and not a word to Elinor, either. I want it all set up before we say anything—I want it all to be such a surprise!"

CHAPTER 14
PLANS AND PREDICTIONS

Early Haskew received letters from both Mary-Love Caskey and her brother-in-law, James, offering the hospitality of Mary-Love's home and Mary-Love's table for the duration of the engineer's stay in Per-dido. Early wrote back a roughly worded but polite refusal, stating that he did not wish to take advantage of the town and the one family in particular that was to provide him lucrative employment for an extended period of time. Two more letters were fired off; James stating that Mary-Love's offer was made wholly without prejudice or prompting and that—since no house was available to purchase— it would be a solution that seemed best all around, and Mary-Love complaining that she had just purchased a drafting table and what on earth was she to do with that if Early Haskew took up residence in the Osceola Hotel. Weakened by this second volley, Early Haskew made a polite capitulation. The surrendered man, however, insisted upon paying ten dollars a week for his room and board.

The engineer came to Perdido in March 1922. Bray Sugarwhite fetched him in Mary-Love's automobile from the Atmore station, and he arrived at Mary-Love's house in time for dinner that Wednesday afternoon.

Sister was immediately shy about the man, who was large and handsome and unselfconscious in a way that was not at all characteristic of the male population of Perdido. Early Haskew was certainly different from Oscar, who was quiet and—in his way—subtle. And the man seemed nothing at all like James, whose quietness and greater subtlety were distinctly tinged by femininity. There was nothing quiet or subtle or feminine about Early Haskew. At dinner that night, his plate was several times nearly upset onto the tablecloth, he rattled his silverware, tea sloshed out of his glass, his napkin was in use constantly. Three times Ivey was called to replace his fork that had dropped, again, to the floor. When he mentioned, in the course of conversation, that his mother had been almost stone-deaf, his habit of speaking loudly and of overenunciating his words seemed satisfactorily accounted for. He also explained that he had come by his unusual Christian name from the fact that his mother had been born an Early, in Fairfax County, Virginia. With all his large gestures, and the little accidents that befell him at the table, he made the room seem a little small for comfort, as if the giant in a circus sideshow had been compelled to take up residence in the little people's caravan.

In Sister's memory, such a man had never before been found at Mary-Love's table. Mary-Love Caskey was genteel to the points of her teeth. Sister wondered at her mother's forbearance of Early's gau-cheries, and at Mary-Love's sincere hospitality toward the engineer. "I hope, Mr. Haskew," said Mary-Love with a smile that might have been described only as gleeful, "that you intend to save me and my family from the floodwaters,"

"I intend to do just that, Miz Caskey," replied Early Haskew in a voice that would have reached her had she been sitting at the table in Elinor's house. "That's why I'm here. And I sure do like my room upstairs. I just wish you hadn't gone to the expense of that drafting table!"

"If that drafting table can save us from another flood, it's gone be worth every penny I spent on it. Besides, I don't believe you would have come to live with us if I hadn't had that thing ready waiting."

After dinner, when James had returned to the mill and Mary-Love and Sister and Early were sitting on the porch with glasses of tea, they noticed Zaddie Sapp passing by, evidently off on some errand for Elinor. Quickly, and in a low voice, Mary-Love said, "Sister, tell Zaddie to come up on the porch for a minute."

Zaddie rather wondered at the summons, for she was Elinor's acknowledged creature and as such hardly welcome in Mary-Love's house—or even on that porch. Zaddie still raked Mary-Love's yard every morning, but Mary-Love could scarcely bring herself to nod a greeting to the twelve-year-old.

"Hey, Zaddie," said Mary-Love, "come on inside. There's somebody I want you to meet."

Zaddie came through the screen door and onto the side porch. She stared at Early Haskew, and he stared at her.

"Zaddie," said Mary-Love, "this is Early Haskew. This is the man who's gone save Perdido from the next flood."

"Ma'am?"

"Mr. Haskew is gone build a levee to save Per-dido!"

"Yes, ma'am," said Zaddie politely.

"How you do, Zaddie?" shouted Early Haskew, and Zaddie blinked at the force of his voice.

"I'm fine, Mr. Skew."

"Haskew, Zaddie," corrected Sister.

"I'm fine," repeated Zaddie.

"Thank Mr. Haskew, Zaddie, for saving you from the next flood," instructed Mary-Love.

"Thank you, sir," said Zaddie obediently.

"You're welcome, Zaddie."

Zaddie and Early Haskew looked at each other in some puzzlement, for neither had arty idea why this meeting should have been brought about. Zaddie wondered why she had been called over to be introduced to a white man when only that morning she had been shooed away when she tried to peek into Miriam's carriage. And Early wondered if it were Mary-Love's intention to introduce him to every man, woman, and child—white and colored and Indian—whose life and property would be protected by the levee he intended to build around the town.

Sister thought she had the answer. In the dissemination of information Zaddie was as efficient as a telegraph, and Elinor would learn of Early Haskew's presence in Mary-Love's house as surely as if a Western Union man came to the door and handed over the message in a yellow envelope.

Mary-Love said to Zaddie, "We have kept you, child. Weren't you on an errand for Elinor?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied Zaddie. "I got to go fetch some paraffin."

"Then go do it," said Mary-Love, and Zaddie ran away.

Mary-Love turned to Early and said, "Zaddie belongs to Elinor and Oscar. You've met my son."

"Yes, ma'am."

"But you haven't met his wife Elinor, my daughter-in-law?"

"No, ma'am."

"I suppose you will," said Mary-Love offhandedly. "I hope you have the chance, that is. They live next door in that big white house. I built that house for them as a wedding present."

"It's a fine house!"

"I know it. But you'll see, Mr. Haskew, when you've been here a little longer, that there's not much back-and-forthing between these two houses."

"No, ma'am," said Early Haskew politely, quite as if he understood all about it.

"Well..." said Mary-Love hesitantly, then abruptly concluded, "that's all."

The town council meeting that evening was attended not only by the directly elected members of the board—Oscar, Henry Turk, Dr. Leo Benquith, and three other men—but also by James Caskey and Tom DeBordenave as vitally interested parties and as millowners. Before these men Early Haskew presented a rough plan, timetable, and schedule of expenses for the construction of the levees.

The levee was to be in three parts. The largest and most substantial portion would be raised on either side of the Perdido below the junction. This would protect downtown and the area of mill workers' houses to the west of the river and Baptist Bottom to the east. The bridge over the Perdido just below the Osceola Hotel would be widened and raised to the height of the levee, and gentle approach ramps constructed. In large measure, this was a municipal levee, for it protected the greater part of residential and commercial Perdido. A second levee, half a mile long and connecting with the first, would be raised on the southern bank of the Blackwater River, which came from the northeast of town from its source in the cypress swamp. This levee would protect the three sawmills. The third portion of the levee was shortest of all; it would run along the southern bank of the Perdido above the junction, and would protect the five homes belonging to Henry Turk, Tom DeBordenave, James Caskey, Mary-Love Caskejvand Oscar Caskey. This levee would end a hundred yards or so beyond the town line. When the rivers rose again, as was bound to happen in the course of things, the levees would protect the town, and only the uninhabited lowlands directly south of Perdido, along the course of the river, would be flooded.

In four months, Early would have detailed plans. Construction of the levee could begin immediately thereafter. The work would take at least fifteen months for the double levee along the lower Perdido, and six months each for the secondary levees. The cost he estimated to be about one million one hundred thousand dollars, a sum which momentarily staggered the town council.

Early sat back for the remainder of the meeting while the leaders of Perdido thrashed out the question. In 1919 the town had lost considerably more than the projected cost of the levee. If the town grew and the mills cut down more trees and produced more lumber, Perdido stood to lose even more in a subsequent flood. Therefore, if the money could be in any way procured, the levee ought to be built. James and Oscar, agreeing by a simple nod between them, offered to pay Early's expenses while he made up detailed plans for the levee. This would be the Caskeys' contribution to the town that had fostered them. Thus authorized and encouraged to forge ahead, Early took his leave of the meeting.

After the engineer had left, and many had said how highly they thought of the man, the leading citizens examined Early's figures again and determined that the municipal levee would cost seven hundred thousand dollars, the levee along the Black-water would cost two hundred and fifty thousand, and the levee along the upper Perdido, behind the millowners' homes, would be one hundred and fifty thousand. The millowners, in separate conference, decided that they should bear the cost of the levee behind their own homes and that they should split with the town the cost of the levee that protected the mills. This lowered the town's burden to eight hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and that at least sounded a good deal better than one million one hundred thousand.

James agreed to drive to Bay Minette and call upon the Baldwin County legislator to see what could be done about a bond issue through the state government. Tom DeBordenave would talk to the banks in Mobile.

At all events, everyone felt better after the meeting. The flood of 1919 had been so disastrous, so unexpected, and the town had been so unprepared, even this first step toward protection seemed like a great deal to the town council. They imagined what it would be to have the levees in place. The waters of the Perdido and the Blackwater might rise high against Early Haskew's earthworks, but Perdido children, with sunny faces, would play at skip-rope and marbles on dry earth that was far below the level of the dark, swirling water lapping ominously on the other side.