The Lucky Stone (4 page)

“Me and Ovella was caught up too and laughin so. She took a penny out of her pocket and threw it to the ground where that dog was dancin, and I took two pennies and threw ’em both.

“The music was faster and faster and that dog was turnin and turnin. Ovella reached in her sack and threw out a little pin she had won from never being late at Sunday school. And me, laughin and all excited, reached in my bag and threw out my lucky stone!

“Well, I knew right off what I had done. Soon as it left my hand it seemed like I reached back out for it to take it back. But the stone was gone from my hand and Lord, it hit that dancin dog right on his nose!

“Well, he lit out after me, poor thing. He lit out after me and I flew! Round and round the Silas Greene we run, through every place me and Ovella had walked before, but now that dancin dog was a runnin dog and all the people was laughin at the new show, which was us!

“I felt myself slowin down after a while and I thought I would turn around a little bit to see how much gain that cute little dog was makin on me. When I did I got such a surprise! Right behind me was the dancin dog and right behind him was the finest fast runnin hero in the bottoms of Virginia.

“And that was Mr. Pickens when he was still a boy! He had a length of twine in his hand and he was twirlin it around in the air just like the cowboy at the Silas Greene and grinnin fit to bust.

“While I was watchin how the sun shined on him and made him look like an angel come to help a poor sinner girl, why, he twirled that twine one extra fancy twirl and looped it right around one hind leg of that dancin dog and brought him low.

“I stopped then and walked slow and shy to where he had picked up that poor dog to see if he was hurt, cradlin him and talkin to him soft and sweet. That showed me how kind and gentle he was, and when we walked back to the dancin dog’s place in the show he let the dog loose and helped me to find my stone. I told him how shiny black it was and how it had the letter
A
scratched on one side. We searched and searched and at last he spied it!

“Ovella and me lost heart for shows then and we walked on home. And a good little way, the one who was gonna be your Great-granddaddy was walkin on behind. Seein us safe. Us walkin kind of slow. Him seein us safe. Yes.” Mrs. Pickens’ voice trailed off softly and Tee noticed she had a little smile on her face.

“Grandmama, that stone almost got you bit by a dog that time. It wasn’t so lucky that time, was it?”

Tee’s Great-grandmother shook her head and laughed out loud.

“That was the luckiest time of all, Tee Baby. It got me acquainted with Mr. Amos Pickens, and if that ain’t luck, what could it be! Yes, it was luckier for me than for anybody, I think. Least mostly I think it.”

Tee laughed with her Great-grandmother though she didn’t exactly know why.

“I hope I have that kind of good stone luck one day,” she said.

“Maybe you will someday,” her Great-grandmother said.

And they rocked a little longer and smiled together.

I have my Great-grandmother Mrs. Elzie F. Pickens’ lucky stone now, but she never handed it to me.

And here is the story of that.

Up until the time I was fourteen years old I hadn’t ever got one valentine in the mail. And I was really worried about having a boyfriend and all. I used to talk to my Great-grandmother about it.

“Don’t you worry Sweet Tee.” She would smile and pat my plaits. “They’ll come round buzzin like bees to the cone, bees to the cone.”

The year that I was going to be fourteen was the year that she was almost eighty years old and caught pneumonia. Oh, that scared us. She was such an old woman. Real little and thin, but not weak-looking, just a small old lady. She would lay in her bed watching the sun out the window and breathing so loud seemed like her breathing rustled the curtains.

After a few days Mama and Daddy wanted to take her to the hospital, but she didn’t want to go.

“I’ll let the sun heal me,” she’d fuss. “Give the sun just one more good day.”

“Grandmother, you need the doctor,” Mama would almost cry.

“The sun be my doctor if it’s all right with you,” my Great-grandmother would say.

But finally Mama and Daddy took her to the hospital. And every day without missing I would walk to the hospital with dogwood or candy and every day the nurse wouldn’t let me see my Great-grandmother.

“No visitors.” That’s all she would say. No reason or nothing. No visitors.

Well, this one day I went over to the hospital and the nurse’s place was empty. I didn’t even think about it; soon as I saw nobody was there I went looking for my Great-grandmother. Found her too. She was in the fourth room I tried, a little tiny old lady in a big old bed. Not enough sun or nothing. I was in the room before she saw me.

“Ohhh, it’s my Baby, my Sweet Tee Baby.” She laughed. She was so glad to see me.

And I ran to the bed and hugged her hard because I was so glad to see her too. And I started to cry.

“Why what is the matter, Tee?”

“Oh, Grandma.” I was talkin and cryin at the same time. “Grandmama, I ain’t never gonna have no boyfriend and nobody will ever love me but you, and I couldn’t even get in here to see you and I ain’t gonna never have nobody.”