Georgia Boy (3 page)

“I just can’t change over right here in the middle of things,” Pa told him. I’ll need practice, anyway. I’ll just have to keep on like I’m doing. Next time I’ll do it the other way for you.”

Preacher Hawshaw reached out to pull the rope himself, but just then Miss Susie Thing’s brother, Jule, rushed up to Hubert Willy and shoved him out through the side door into the cemetery, accusing Hubert of having something to do with the way the bell was ringing. Before anybody could get out there, Jule had begun fighting Hubert, and in another minute they were fist-fighting all over the graves and tombstones. Hubert’s nose began to bleed, and Jule tore a big hole in his pants when he stumbled over a wrought-iron marker on one of the graves that said, “Keep Off.”

My old man told me to keep on ringing the bell while he went outside to watch the fist-fight. Preacher Hawshaw went, too, like everybody else in the church. I kept on ringing the bell just as we had from the start, and by then I could tell that it did make a
ding-dong
sound exactly like old Uncle Jeff Davis Fletcher rang it for funerals. Both Jule and Hubert were pretty badly beaten up by that time, but nobody tried to stop them, because everyone figured that the best thing to do was to let them fight it out and stop of their own accord when they were too tired to keep it up any longer. I pulled on the rope just like my old man told me to do, wondering how the same bell could make a
ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling-ding
sound as well as the
ding-dong
one, and right then Preacher Hawshaw came running in and jerked the rope out of my hands. The bell-clapper struck a couple of more times and then stopped.

“That’s enough, William!” he said, grabbing me by the shirt and flinging me out of the vestibule and down the front steps.

Just then my old man came running around the corner of the church. He missed hearing the bell ring, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

“What did you quit for, son?” he asked me.

“Preacher Hawshaw told me to,” I said. “He pushed me outside.”

“He did!” my old man said, getting mad.

Preacher Hawshaw came out through the door and stopped on the top step. He looked all tired out.

“Now, look here, preacher!” Pa began. “When I agreed to ring the bell, I made up my mind to ring it or else to bust my buttons off in the effort. I’m going back inside there and finish the job like I promised to do. If you don’t like the way I ring it, that ain’t no fault of mine.”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Preacher Hawshaw said, blocking the door. “You’ve already broken up a wedding and caused a disgraceful fist-fight in the cemetery. The Things and the Willys have had their old sores opened up just because you tolled that bell. I don’t want you to ever touch that bell-rope again.”

“How in the world was I to know you wanted it rung
ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling-ding
instead of
ding-dong, ding-dong
?”

“Common sense ought to have told you that,” he said, shoving my old man away from the door. “Besides, a man who doesn’t know the difference between tolling a bell and trilling it hasn’t got any business touching a church bell.”

The people who had come to the church to see the wedding began talking about the way my old man had made the feud between the Things and the Willys come back. Miss Susie, who had been crying all that time in the choir loft, ran down the street toward her house still holding the big bouquet of flowers. I didn’t see Jule and Hubert again, but I supposed they had gone home to wash up.

“You mean you just naturally don’t like the way I rang the bell for you?” my old man asked Preacher Hawshaw.

“That’s exactly right, Mr. Stroup,” he said, giving Pa a big shove away from the door and making him hop down the steps in order to keep his footing.

“Then don’t never come to my house again begging me to come to church to hear you preach,” Pa said, turning and walking sidewise toward the street. “If you don’t like my bell-ringing, I sure wouldn’t take to your preaching.”

Preacher Hawshaw went inside the vestibule. He was almost out of sight when my old man called him.

“What am I going to do about getting recognized religion if I take a notion that I need it?” Pa asked him. “I might decide recognized religion’s something I ought to have, instead of my own private kind, and I don’t want to be left high and dry when everybody else’s being saved and sent to Heaven.”

Preacher Hawshaw stuck his head out the door.

“You’ll be better off among the Methodists or Baptists,” he said. “The Universalists can get along without you, Mr. Stroup.”

“I
F IT’S NOT ONE
thing your Pa’s done,” Ma said, looking all helpless and worn, “it’s something else. I declare, sometimes I think I’ll never have a minute’s peace as long as I live.”

She walked up and down in the backyard wringing her hands, trying to think of something to do.

The goats that Pa and Handsome Brown had brought home from our farm in the country were standing on top of the house chewing and looking down at us. The big billy goat had long white chin whiskers that made him look exactly like Mr. Carter who lived across the street.

“What in the world am I going to do?” Ma said, still walking up and down. “I’ve invited the Ladies’ Social Circle to meet here this afternoon, and if those goats are still up on top of the house when they get here, I’ll simply die of mortification.”

The two nanny goats were chewing, too, but their whiskers were not nearly as long as the big goat’s. In addition to the three grown goats up on the rooftop, there were two little kids up there. The kids were only two months old and they were only a quarter of the size of the billy, but all five of them up there together on top of the house looked like a lot of goats.

“William, tell Handsome to go downtown and find your Pa and tell him to come home and get those goats down right away,” she said to me.

Handsome was cleaning up in the kitchen, and all I had to do was go to the edge of the porch and call him. He came out and asked me what we wanted.

“The first thing I want you to do, Handsome Brown,” Ma said angrily, “is to tell me what on earth you meant by bringing those goats here.”

“I only done what Mr. Morris told me to do, like I always does when you or Mr. Morris tells me to do something, Mis’ Martha,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other. “Mr. Morris said he wanted them goats brung home and he told me to drive them, and I done just that. You oughtn’t blame me too much for what Mr. Morris told me to do, Mis’ Martha.”

“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Morris he ought to ask me first, then?” she said. “You thought of that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I thought of it, but when I got ready to mention it to Mr. Morris, Mr. Morris said, ‘The devil you say,’ just like that, and that’s why I ended up driving them here like I done.”

Ma got madder than ever. She picked up a piece of stove wood and slung it at the goats on top of the house, but the stick fell halfway short of reaching them. It slammed against the side of the house, making a big noise and leaving a mark on the weatherboarding.

“Go downtown this instant and find Mr. Morris,” she told Handsome, “and tell him I want to see him right away. Look in the barber shop and the hardware store and every place he loafs until you find him. And don’t you dare come back without him, Handsome Brown. I don’t want to hear any excuses from you this time.”

“Yes, ma’am, Mis’ Martha,” Handsome said trotting off to look for Pa.

The goats walked along the ridge plate on the roof, looking down into the backyard at Ma and me part of the time, and the rest of the time looking down the other side into the street. They had got up there by hopping from the woodpile to the woodshed, from there to the porch roof, then leaping up on top of the kitchen roof, and from there to the main part of the house. They were about two stories and a half high above us on the ground, and it was a funny sight to see the three large goats and the two little kids walking Indian file across the top of the roof.

The next time they stopped and looked down at us, the billy chewed some more, making his whiskers sway, and it looked exactly as though he were making faces at us.

Ma tried to find another stick of wood to throw at him, but she was too mad then to look for one. She shook her fist at all five of them and then went running into the house.

I sat down on the steps for a minute, but Ma came back and pulled me up by the arm.

“William, go out in the front and watch for your Pa,” she said, shoving me down the steps, “and the minute you see him coming up the street, you run and tell me. The women will be getting here any time now.”

I went around the corner of the house and stood by the front gate watching down the street. I did not have to wait long, because the first thing I knew I heard Pa and Handsome talking. They came walking fast.

“What’s the matter, son?” Pa asked, looking up at the five goats on the rooftop. “What’s gone wrong?”

“Ma says to get the goats down off the house before the women start coming to the meeting,” I told him.

“That’s easy enough,” he said, hurrying around the corner of the house to the backyard. “Come on, Handsome, and get a hustle on.”

“Me, Mr. Morris, you’re talking to?” Handsome said. Handsome could not walk fast. He always said his arches hurt him when he tried to walk fast. When he did have to hurry, he trotted.

“Hurry up, Handsome,” Pa told him. “Stop complaining.”

We got to the backyard and Pa studied the goats on the ridge plate for a while before saying anything. He liked the goats just about as much as I did, and that was why he wanted them in town where he could see them every day. When they stayed out in the country on the farm, we did not see them sometimes for as long as a week at a time, because we did not go out there every day.

The goats had stopped walking back and forth on the roof and were looking down at us to see what we were up to.

“Handsome,” Pa said, “go get the ladder and put it up against the porch roof.”

Handsome got the ladder and stood it up the way Pa told him to.

“Now, what to do, Mr. Morris?” Handsome asked.

“Go up there and chase them down,” Pa said.

Handsome looked up at the big billy goat. He backed away from the ladder.

“I’m a little scared to go up there where that big billy goat is, Mr. Morris,” he said. “He’s got the meanest-looking set of horns I ever looked at in all my life. If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Morris, I just don’t feel like going up there. My arches has been hurting all day. I don’t feel good at all.”

“Stop that talking back to me, Handsome,” Pa said, “and go on up there like I told you. There’s nothing wrong with your arches today, or any day.”

Just then Ma came out, pinning the white starched collar on her dress that she wore when she dressed up for company. She came as far as the steps and stood looking down at Pa and me.

“Now, Martha,” Pa said, talking fast, “don’t you worry yourself one bit. Handsome and me will have those goats down from there in a jiffy.”

“You’d better get them down from there in a jiffy,” Ma said. “I’ve never been so mortified in all my life. All these women will be coming here to the circle meeting any minute now. What will people say if they see a lot of goats walking around on the roof of my house?”

“Now, calm yourself, Martha,” Pa said. “Handsome is on his way up there now.”

Handsome was still backing away from the ladder. Pa walked over to where he was and gave him a shove.

“Hurry up and do like I told you,” Pa said, shoving him towards the ladder again.

Handsome fidgeted a lot, killing all the time he could by hitching up his pants and buttoning his shirt, but he finally made a start towards the ladder. He climbed to the top and stepped to the porch roof. Then he started backing down again.

“Handsome Brown,” Ma said, running out into the yard where we were, “if you come down that ladder before getting those goats off the roof, I’ll never give you another bite to eat as long as I live. You can just make up your mind to go off somewhere else and starve to death, if you don’t do what Mr. Morris told you.”

“But, Mis’ Martha, my arches has started paining me again something awful.”

“I’ve warned you, Handsome Brown,” Ma said, tapping her shoe on the ground, “and I mean exactly what I said.”

“But, Mis’ Martha, I—”

“I’ve warned you once and for all,” Ma said.

Handsome looked up at the goats, then down at Ma again, and after that he climbed up on top of the kitchen roof. When he had got that far, he cut his eyes down at us to see if we were watching him.

Just then Ma heard some of the women coming up the street. We could hear them talking almost a whole block away. Ma shook her finger at Handsome and ran inside to lock the front door so the women could not get into the house. She figured they would sit on the porch if she did that, because otherwise they might just walk on through the house and come out on the back porch and see what was going on.

Pa and me sat down on the woodpile and watched Handsome. Handsome had gone as far as the top of the kitchen roof, and he was sprawled on the ridge plate hugging the shingles. He looked awfully small up there.

“Don’t you dare let one of those goats get hurt, or fall off,” Pa shouted at him. “And take care that those little kids don’t get caught in a stampede and get shoved off to the ground. I’ll skin you alive if anything happens to those goats.”

“I hear every word you say, Mr. Morris,” Handsome shouted down. “I declare, I never saw such a slippery place before. But I’m doing the best I can. Every time I move I’m scared I’m about to fall off on that hard ground. I’m scared to breathe, Mr. Morris.”

He waited, killing time, to hear if Pa was going to say anything more. After a while, he found out that Pa was not going to answer him, and he inched himself along the ridge plate towards the main roof. When he got to the top of the pitch, he gave one more look down at the ground. He shut his eyes when he saw it and did not look down at us again.

“Take care those goats don’t get hurt,” Pa shouted.