On Agate Hill (8 page)

What is his name? I asked the day Aunt Cecelia finished him up and gave him to us.

Name? Aunt Cecelia looked at me. Why its just a doll Molly.

But he has to have a name, I said. Dolls are supposed to have names.

I know! Mary White cried out from the chair where she sat dressing Fleur.
What about Robert E. Lee?

Now girls, I hardly think this is appropriate. Aunt Cecelia bunched all the parts of her face together. Why the General was too fine a man for such silly games as you girls make up, you must put your minds to higher things.

But Mary White and I stared at each other in perfect accord.

Yes
, I said.

So he is still Robert E. Lee even though Aunt Cecelia made us put our dolls away that very minute and read the shorter catechism aloud followed by the Ten Commandments which we have to memorize now according to her.
Hell looms wide for such frivolous girls as yourselves,
she said, with spit bubbling up in the corners of her mouth, while Mary White rolled her eyes up in her head and I started coughing so as not to laugh. But just then a wagon drew up in the lane, and Aunt Cecelia went out to see who it was, so we escaped and ran out to the barn where we played for the rest of the morning.

It is easy to get away from Aunt Cecelia because she is so busy with Social Life. Other ladys are always coming to call now with their cartes de visite.

Who the hell are all these people? I’d like to know. Hell, I live here, says Uncle Junius who hates it.

But Aunt Cecelia does not care. She thinks she knows everything. I shall not let you fester away here as you have been doing Brother, she says. Nor must you lower your standards one iota. We shall make a new life in due course. Aunt Cecelia specializes in rising to the occasion and keeping up standards. This takes a lot of time so we are mostly free to do what we want if we will only stay out of her hair. This is easy. It is a big plantation, and we are all over it. No one ever knows where we are!

So Robert E. Lee has been married again and again, to Margaret and Fleur and the neighbor girls dolls when they come to visit with their mothers. He has even married Victoria and Blanches rag dolls, though they dont have fancy dresses. But Mary White insists that they should have weddings anyway, she makes up long love stories for them as well as for Margaret and Fleur. Mary White
adores
love stories.

She met him by the rushing stream where she was washing clothes, Mary White began one hot afternoon, walking Blanches sad little doll Sarah along the riverbank. It was so hot, and Sarah was so tired, but she was just a poor girl who had to work for her food. So Sarah was scrubbing and crying when here came a gentleman soldier, his jacket all covered with blood. He just
about scared her to death! Hello my pretty Miss, he said, could I trouble you to wash the blood from my jacket? For I have been in a fearsome battle where I killed a lot of men.

Why yes Sir, Sarah said, and she did, and she bandaged up his arm too and gave him some pound cake and boiled custard for supper which he liked a great deal.

Are you married? He asked her then, and she hid her face and said, No Sir. Why then I hope you will do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Robert E. Lee, he said, and Sarah said Why yes Sir, and the wedding plans began.

I laid Sarah and Robert E. Lee down on the mossy bank while we were building the wedding bower out of sticks but Mary White said, No they can not lie down, they are not married yet! So I sat them up while we finished it and decorated it with flowers from the woods and along the riverbank. It was the prettiest thing you can ever imagine. Poor Sarah had only her calico dress but we put some of the flowers in her hair. Then Mary White began the wedding.

Is all in readiness? Robert E. Lee asked in his big voice and Sarah said, Yes Sir.

Do you Robert E. Lee take this poor, poor girl to be your lawful wedded wife, to honor and cherish till death do you part? the minister asked.

I do, said Robert E. Lee.

Do you Sarah take Robert E. Lee to be your lawful wedded husband, to honor and cherish, to love and obey until death do you part?

I do, said Sarah.

You may kiss the bride, said the minister, and Mary White put their two faces together. Then for the wedding feast we all ate some scotchbreads that Victoria and Blanche had stole from the press. I used to hate Victoria but now I dont so much since Aunt Cecelia hates her even more. Aunt Cecelia tells us repeatedly not to play with
those rough girls
as she calls Victoria and Blanche.

•  •  •

On Sundays we have to keep the Sabbath holy and go to whatever nearby church is holding service, and afterward we can neither play nor work, it is terrible. No games or toys allowed, not even for little Junius. We all have to rest or read tales from Aunt Cecelias special Sunday school books, awful stories about children who go out in boats on Sundays and drown.

We will go to Hell if we play dolls, I whispered to Mary White who lay in bed last Sunday with her eyes closed.

I dont care. She giggled and got right up.

I dont care either, I said as we grabbed up the dolls and ran down the stairs and into the parlor, shutting the door behind us.

It was my turn to tell the love story.

Robert E. Lee went off to War leaving Margaret with a diamond ring and a kiss, but soon he was declared dead in a fearsome battle in Virginia. Then oh how Margaret wept and flung herself face down beating her fists on the floor, oh how she mourned him. Margaret mourned Robert E. Lee for two years and then finally agreed to marry her ugly old neighbor man Mister Snow who just would not leave her alone.

We dressed Margaret up in her white wedding dress and her veil to marry Mister Snow, we stuck little rosebuds on her head. Now all was in readiness and the wedding began. Fleur was Mister Snow.

Mister Snow do you take Mary Margaret Petree to be your lawful wedded wife? the minister asked.

I sure do! Mister Snow said in his big voice.

But just then came the sound of approaching hoofbeats, I said— Mary White made a clicking hoofbeat sound with her tongue— and sure enough, here came Robert E. Lee on his gray horse Traveler to save the day, kicking Mister Snow face down on the floor so he could marry Margaret himself. He was not dead after all!

Then they were happily married for ever and ever amen. Mary White finished the story.

But I got another idea. Now lets do it again and have her marry Mister
Snow but be so unhappy crying all day long at her tasks and then Robert E. Lee will come in the night as her demon lover.

For I do not want a husband myself nor a big clawfoot chest full of silver, I want a demon lover and so does Margaret, this is her secret desire.

Mary Whites big blue eyes got bigger. Well, Robert E. Lee cant do that, Molly, she said. Either he is Robert E. Lee or he is a demon lover, one or the other, he cant be both.

Why not? I asked.

Because he just cant. Mary White shook her head so her pigtails flew all around. Robert E. Lee is a gentleman. He is supposed to marry them.

I was getting mad at Mary White who had suddenly got this expression just like Aunt Cecelia on her face.

He doesnt have to, I said. He doesnt have to marry them.

He does so! So they can have babys.

Maybe he doesnt want any babys, I said. All babys do is cry and get sick and die. Maybe Robert E. Lee hates babys.

Oh!
Before I knew what was happening, Mary White jumped up and started kicking me hard in the side.

You quit that.
I grabbed her legs and pulled her down on the fleur-de-lee carpet. I am a lot bigger and stronger than Mary White but she fought me as hard as she could, all pink in the face now and blubbering. Finally I grabbed her wrists and just lay down on top of her. Will you stop now? I said.

She shook her head back and forth and tried to twist out from under me, but it was not hard to hold her for she is so weak.

Now? I said.

No. Her eyes looked all red and puffy. The blue veins throbbed in her head.

Girls? Girls? Aunt Cecelia was coming down the hall.

My mother did not want a baby. She had me in sin and then went off with a Yankee, Mary White said, and she has never been heard from since.

Never?

Never.
Now Mary White sounded like she couldnt breathe so I rolled off her. We lay side by side on our backs on the floor in that dim twilight which always fills the parlor.

Are you all right? I was worried that she might die. Then I would be a murderess.

But she said nothing.

Mary White? I said after a while.

I hate you, she said. Ignorant country girl.

I hate you too, I said.

Mary White lay silent, breathing.

Far away Aunt Cecelia was calling our names.

I’m sorry.
I gritted my teeth and said it.

Then, finally, she said, Molly?

Yes?

What is a demon lover?

I dont know, I had to say.

But Dear Diary we are going to find out.

Answer:
It is a lover who comes in the night to kiss you on the mouth! Mary White believes it may be an Assyrian.

July 27, 1872

Tiger Butter

We are always in trouble with Aunt Cecelia who makes us work to chasten our souls and improve our attitudes, but we dont care. We like it! Two of our jobs are claying the hearth and making lamplighters out of old letters, rolling the strips at the bottom together for a handle then curling the cut parts at the top with scissors.

We churn for Liddy out under the hackberry tree by the well, with a bunch of leaves tied to the dasher to keep off the flies, and sing at the top of our lungs:

Fee fi fo fum

I smell the blood of an Englishman

Be he alive or be he dead

I’ll grind his bones to make my bread

Fee fi fo fum

Come butter come

And also:

Tiger tiger burning bright

In the forests of the night

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Come butter come

Come butter come

This is a poem from Mary Whites big book. The first time we used it, we had a fight over whether to say symmetree, which Mary White wanted, or symmetry, as in try, which rhymes, which I wanted. Finally we made Washington pick and I won. Liddy and them all get tickled when we do this one. But even Liddy has said, That tiger butter sure is good, girls, and Aunt Cecelia eats so much it is gone right away every time. Mary White and I are the Champion Butter Makers in the county!

August 5, 1872

The Yankee Hand

Several times we have walked down the road and through the woods to Mister Gaithers big field to pick the berries that grow all along the stone fence rows. Liddy makes pies and preserves with these but they are best ate right off the bush in our opinion. Washington gets to go with us then, to shoo off stray dogs and carry the basket, though usually Aunt Cecelia will
not permit him to be in Mary Whites company saying, I dont care what you think Junius, he is a
servant boy.
This is just another example . . .

Yet when we came back from berry picking yesterday, even Aunt Cecelia said, Why upon my soul Mary White, I do believe you are better, this country air must agree with you. She pushed back Mary Whites sunbonnet and stared at her intently, stroking her face with a pudgy finger. Why look you have roses in your cheeks, she said in a different voice, then almost said something else, then turned away abruptly. Go on in the house now and clean yourselves up for supper, and you — to Washington— you run on now, theres a good boy.