Georgia Boy (7 page)

As soon as the sun came up, I got out of bed and went to the window. Handsome was still up at the top of the sycamore, but from the way he was hanging on, it looked as if he might slip and fall any minute. Just then I heard Pa get out of bed and start dressing. I put on my clothes as fast as I could and followed him to the backyard.

When we got there, we could see Handsome hugging the tree with both arms and both legs. He had the big toe of one foot in a woodpecker hole, and he was hanging on like a scarecrow.

The funny part of it was that there were woodpeckers all over him. Some of them were roosting on his head and shoulders, and a lot of them were hanging to his arms and legs. It looked as if there were twenty or thirty ’peckers on Handsome.

Just then one of the woodpeckers woke up and made a loud screech. The screech woke up all the other ’peckers, and they all started pecking on Handsome. It looked as if they had worn themselves out and had gone to sleep and had waked up and remembered that they had Handsome to peck on. Handsome woke up with a jump.

“Mr. Morris! Mr. Morris!” he yelled. “Where is you, Mr. Morris?” Pa and I walked around to the trunk of the sycamore and looked up at the top. The ’peckers would flutter around Handsome and find a better place on him to peck. He flung one arm around his head, trying to shoo them off. But as soon as they flew off for a minute, they came back again and started in just as hard as ever.

“Come on down to the ground, Handsome,” Pa said. “I’m up and awake now.”

We could see Handsome looking down at us on the ground. After that he flung an arm at the ’peckers and took his big toe out of the hole. He slid down slowly, trying to beat off the birds at the same time.

When his feet touched the ground, he crumpled up like a half-empty potato sack. Pa caught him and pulled him back to his feet.

“You look all tuckered out, Handsome,” Pa said.

Handsome looked at Pa and me for a minute, but he didn’t say anything. He looked too tired to talk.

Just then Ma came around the corner of the house. The woodpeckers were fluttering around over our heads, acting as if they were trying to get at Handsome some more. Suddenly one of the older woodpeckers, a big cock with a long white shirt-tail, got up enough nerve to come down where we were, and he lit on top of Handsome’s head. He started pecking on Handsome for all he was worth. Handsome yelled so hard people all over town must have heard him.

“My sakes alive!” Ma cried out. “Just look at poor Handsome’s head!”

We had been so busy watching him slide down the tree that we had paid no attention to the way he looked. His clothes were all pecked to pieces, and his overalls and jumper hung around him in rags. But his head looked the strangest of all.

There were four or five big round spots, like woodpeckers’ holes in the sycamore, where every bit of Handsome’s hair had been pecked away.

Pa walked around Handsome in a circle, looking at him all over. Then he went up and felt two or three of the bald spots on Handsome’s head.

“Why didn’t you stay awake and keep those ’peckers off you, Handsome?” Pa said. “It was your own fault for climbing up there and going to sleep like that. It wouldn’t have happened if you had attended to your business up the tree like I told you. I didn’t send you up there to go to sleep.”

“You didn’t mention to me that you wanted me to stay awake, too,” Handsome said, shaking his head. “All you said was to go up there and keep them peckerwoods from making noise, Mr. Morris.”

My old man turned around and looked at Ma. They didn’t say anything to each other, and in a little while she went around the corner of the house towards the kitchen. We followed, but Ma didn’t say anything. She just put our plates down in front of us and helped me to grits and sausage.

A
THUNDERSTORM THAT HAD
been threatening all morning came up while we were eating dinner, but it only sprinkled a little after all. As soon as the shower passed over, my old man got his hat and went down the street to the stores. The sun had come out now again, and in a little while it felt as if there had never been a drop of rain.

While I was sitting there waiting, I heard horses and wagons not far off. It sounded as if there were a lot of them, and the thud of their hooves and the creaking of harness leather came closer every minute. I got up and went out to the middle of the street where I could see better. About halfway to the next corner I saw my old man walking up the middle of the street, waving his arms almost every step, and right behind him were five or six two-horse teams pulling wagons with canvas-covered tops. My old man was waving his arms and trotting a little, and looking back over his shoulder every few steps.

When they got in front of our house, Pa stopped and waved his arms at the drivers, and they pulled the teams over to the side and hitched to the fence posts. During all the time they were tying up the horses, Pa was waving his arms and urging them to hurry. Then the drivers came running behind Pa while he led them around the corner of the house to the backyard. There were a lot of women and kids inside the covered wagons, and they began piling out, too. Soon it looked as if there were about twenty or thirty people coming towards the house. The women were dressed in long bright-colored skirts that touched the ground, and every one of them wore a red, or yellow, or bright green scarf over her head. The men were dressed like anybody else, except that they wore unbuttoned vests without coats. The kids didn’t have on much of anything at all. The grown people and the kids were as dark as Indians, and all of them had long black hair.

The men followed Pa around to the backyard, and the women scattered in all directions, some going up on the porch and some hurrying around to the backyard. All the kids, though, dived under the house right away. Our house, like everybody else’s in Sycamore, was built high off the ground so the air could circulate under the rooms and cool them off in hot weather.

Two of the women walked through the front door just as if they lived there. I stooped down and looked under the house to see what the kids were doing, and I saw three or four of them hopping around like rabbits on four feet. Just then the screen door on the front porch slammed shut, and I looked up and saw one of the women run down the steps with something tucked in her arms. She went straight to one of the wagons, put something inside, and ran back to the house again.

I ran around to the backyard right away. The men were looking in the woodshed, in the stable; and everywhere else they could. Some of them were turning over boards and sticks of wood as if they were looking for something. While I was watching them, Handsome came leaping out the kitchen door with one of the long-skirted women behind. He ran straight to the woodshed and got inside.

“Now, let’s just take it calm and easy,” Pa said to one of the men wearing a vest. “I want to make some swaps as much as anybody, but I can’t think what I’m doing if I’m rushed. Let’s just take it easy and talk things over.”

Nobody paid any attention to what my old man said, because everyone was busy looking at things and dashing about. One of the men went to the woodshed and stepped inside. Handsome came out as fast as he could.

Just then I heard Ma scream at the top of her voice inside the house. She had been taking a nap, and it sounded as if the women had waked her up out of her sleep and scared her. It wasn’t long until Ma came tearing out of the house.

“What’s going on, Morris?” Ma said. “Who are all these strange people, anyway? I was sound asleep when I woke up and saw two women I’d never laid eyes on before in all my life. They were taking the sheets off the bed!”

“Now, just be calm, Martha,” Pa said. “I’ll have things straightened out in no time. I’ll fix things right in a jiffy.”

“But who on earth are these strange people?” Ma said.

“They’re just some gypsies I met downtown who said they wanted to make some swaps with me. I invited them to come up where we could talk things over. There’s a lot of odds and ends about the place that have needed swapping for a long time. I’ll be glad to get them out of the way.”

Two of the women came out of the house and went up to Ma. Ma backed off, but they pinned her in a corner and started talking so fast nobody could understand what they were saying. One of them began to dance up and down and wave her arms. Then one of the men came to the porch and told Ma the women wanted to swap her for her dress. Ma told them she didn’t want to swap her dress, but the women didn’t pay her any heed at all.

The kids that had been crawling around under the house came out with my baseball bat and a fielder’s glove and raced around the corner of the porch toward the wagons. I started after them, but when I got to the corner, I decided I’d better not try to stop them just then. I called Handsome and told him what they had taken, but he said it would be better not to argue with them. Some of the kids were bigger than either of us, anyway.

“Now, wait a minute, folks,” Pa said, trying to grab the men by the back of their vests. Let’s quiet down and talk these swaps over. I want to know what I’m going to get for the things I trade you.”

“Morris!” Ma yelled. “Get these people away from here! Do you hear me, Morris!”

Pa was so busy trying to calm them down that he didn’t hear a word Ma said. He went to the woodshed and brought out an old ax with a broken handle. One of the men took the ax and looked it over carefully. Then he handed it to another man. The other man hurried out to the wagons with it.

“Now, hold on here!” Pa said. “This ain’t no way to swap. I don’t seem to be getting nothing at all for my end of the deal. That ain’t a fair way to swap. No, sir, it ain’t!”

Another gypsy picked up an old tin bucket with a hole in the bottom while Pa was talking, and he handed it to another gypsy who carried it out to the wagons. Pa grabbed one of the gypsies by the back of his vest and tried to argue about the ax and the bucket. While he was doing that, another one of them went into the woodshed and carried out our saw-horse. Pa saw our saw-horse going towards the wagons, but it was gone before he could grab it.

“A swap’s a swap,” my old man said, “but not when it’s as one-sided as this. You folks have been getting your share, but I ain’t got a single thing for mine.”

One of the gypsies came over and put his hand in his pocket and brought out a jack knife. Pa tried to open it to look at it, but both blades were broken off.

“Now, hold on,” Pa said. “I didn’t bargain for nothing like this.”

The men climbed up in the woodshed loft where Handsome slept at night, and Pa started up behind them, still trying to make them listen to him.

The gypsy women were plaguing Ma until she was almost out of her mind. They had gone inside and had brought out Ma’s sewing basket, a hairbrush, and the water pitcher from the washstand. Ma was trying to take the things away from the women, but they wouldn’t turn loose. One of the gypsies handed Ma a string of beads, and the others made off with the pitcher, the brush, and the sewing basket.

One of the men climbed down from the loft carrying Handsome’s banjo under his arm. Handsome let out a yell and grabbed the banjo before the gypsy could make off with it.

“Morris!” Ma yelled. “Get these people away from here! Do you hear me, Morris! They’re going to ransack the whole place!”

One of the gypsy women grabbed Ma’s hand and looked at the palm. She began telling Ma things about her future, and ma got so interested in what she was saying that she didn’t yell any more right away. While the woman was reading Ma’s palm, the others went inside the house.

Pa was so rattled by then that he didn’t see one of the men lead Ida out of the stable. The man had put a halter around Ida’s neck and she followed him just as though she didn’t know a thing was wrong.

“There goes Ida, Pa!” I yelled. “Pa, don’t swap off Ida!”

Ma heard me and she let out a yell.

“Morris Stroup!” she said. “Are you clear out of your head! Don’t you dare let that mule out of this yard!”

Pa turned around and saw Ida walking off, and he looked as if he was so distracted he didn’t know what to do. Handsome grabbed the halter line and pulled Ida away from the gypsy.

“No, sir!” Handsome said. “Ain’t nobody going to take this here mule!”

“Now, you folks just ain’t acting fair and square,” Pa said. “I’m in a good frame of mind to make trades, as long as it’s pure give-and-take, but I ain’t going to stand for such one-sided going on. I’m going to have my say-so about what’s traded for what.”

Handsome led Ida back to the stable and locked the door.

Some of the kids dashed out of the kitchen with biscuits and baked sweet potatoes that had been left over from dinner. Ma saw them, but she was so mad she couldn’t say a word. One of the gypsy women put the string of beads around Ma’s neck, and the others tried to take off her shoes. Ma kicked like a mule when they tried to make off with her shoes. Handsome yelled at me, and I turned around. The gypsy kids were crawling out from under the porch carrying the steamshovel we built railroads with under the house. But that wasn’t all. One of them had all the engines and cars. The first thing I knew Handsome had grabbed the kids and had taken the things away from them. He gave the kids a shove that sent them flying around the corner of the house.

“They sure got mixed up when they thought they could get away with these,” Handsome said hugging the steamshovel and train in his arms.

Just then another gypsy woman, one that we had never seen before, came walking into the yard. She looked like all the rest of them, except that she had on a long bright red dress and a lot of bracelets on her arms. The other gypsies all fell back when she walked up to Pa, and all the arguing stopped right away.

“Who’re you?” Pa asked, looking her up and down.

“I’m the Queen,” she said.

The Queen picked up Pa’s hand and looked at the palm. Pa backed up against the stable door while she ran her fingers over his hand as if she was trying to find out something.

“You have a good hand,” she said. “You have a strong life line. There is a good future ahead of you. You are a lucky man.”