Way Down Deep (14 page)

 

Later on that evening, at the Roost, Mrs. Thornton Elkins entered the kitchen, where Miss Arbutus was stirring something on the stove. She was running late in preparing supper.

“How much longer do you think it will be?” Mrs. Thornton Elkins asked her.

A less gracious person might have taken offense at being rushed by a charity tenant, but Miss Arbutus, being like she was, apologized.

“I'm sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I know you are all hungry. It won't be much longer.”

Mrs. Thornton Elkins studied Miss Arbutus's face and thought she detected sorrow there. She could not remember a single time this good lady had been late in preparing a meal. Then an idea popped into her head.

“Could you use some help?” she asked, surprising Miss Arbutus so profoundly that she dropped her stirring spoon on the floor.

Without a word, Mrs. Thornton Elkins bent over for the utensil, wiped up the splatters it had made on the floor, and fetched a clean spoon for Miss Arbutus.

“Perhaps I can do the chores that Ruby June used to do,” Mrs. Thornton Elkins said, further surprising Miss Arbutus so that she could not answer.

Being used to Miss Arbutus's silence, Mrs. Thornton Elkins did not realize that the proprietor of The Roost was too taken aback to respond.

“I know Ruby June poured the tea and lemonade,”
Mrs. Thornton Elkins went on, as she timidly opened the refrigerator.

Miss Arbutus finally found her voice. “Ruby Jo,” she said.

“Beg your pardon?” said Mrs. Thornton Elkins. Carefully she began to fill glasses with ice.

“She wrote to me that she wants to be called Ruby Jo now.”

“Oh, I see. Ruby Jo. That's good. It's nice for her to know who she is at last.”

“You can get the salad out of the refrigerator,” Miss Arbutus said to her. “And the butter and deviled eggs.”

There was silence for a few moments as the two women worked together.

“Thank you, Mrs. Thornton Elkins,” Miss Arbutus finally said, almost in a whisper.

“Call me Lucy,” Mrs. Thornton Elkins said.

“Beg your pardon?”

“My given name is Lucy.”

Miss Arbutus smiled. “Thank you, Lucy.”

As Lucy placed napkins on the table, she said softly, “Yes, it's nice to know who you are.”

S
OMETIMES
R
UBY WENT TO PICK WILDFLOWERS FOR THE
kitchen table, just to escape the house. How good it was to be out and away from the demands and insults of her grandma!

Now, toward the end of July, the blackberries were hanging plump and dark on their bushes. So Ruby took a pail to a spot on the mountain that had few trees and lots of sunshine. Here her thoughts were her own without interruption. She looked around at the beauty and loneliness of this place and imagined her mother picking blackberries at this same spot.

Within the past few weeks, she had told her grandma about the Mullins family and their snack bar in a boxcar. She had also talked about the Morgans and their drugstore and old Mrs. Rife, who liked to throw rocks when she was mad. Grandma had liked that story very much.

She had talked about Mr. Farmer, who was so traumatized by the war that he drank liquor to forget; the rhyming Reeders, whom Grandma knew only slightly; the
Fuller triplets and their street preaching; Granny Butler, the albino; Mrs. Bevins and her outlandish outfits; and more.

But she had saved The Roost residents for last.

“I just hope I can hang on here long enough to tell her about them,” Ruby said to herself as she placed a handful of berries in the pail.

She looked at her hands, which were stained purple. Miss Arbutus would tell her to wash them with Lava soap, but she had none here. Her fingernails were a disgrace. But Goldie Combs had made fun when Ruby asked her about a nail file.

“Mountain women don't have time to waste on fingernails!” her grandma had snorted. “Just bite 'em off when they get in your way!”

Ruby sighed and figured if she was going to be here much longer, she would have to ask Miss Arbutus to send her manicuring supplies on top of everything else she had asked for—hair bows and bobby pins, a comb, more underwear, more stationery and a fountain pen, a clock, a calendar, a new toothbrush, and she couldn't remember what all else.

 

After supper Ruby served her grandma a small dish of blackberries with brown sugar and milk.

“They're bitter,” Grandma complained.

“I'll fetch you some more sugar.”

“No! We all must have our share of bitter berries, Jolene. Don't you know that?”

“I beg . . . uh, what do you mean?”

The old woman gave her a hard look. “I mean what I said. You, my girl, have lived a pampered life and have not tasted your share of bitter berries, but you will. You will.”

Ruby hated the mean expression on Grandma's face, so she changed the subject.

“Do you want to hear about Mrs. Thornton Elkins tonight? She was raised to be a lady, but now she has no money.”

Her grandma said nothing. She would never admit that she enjoyed Ruby's stories.

Ruby spent the next forty minutes talking about Mrs. Thornton Elkins. Then she went to her room and read from her mother's notes before going to bed.

Dear Daddy, A man came to school and taught us acrobatics. He says I am double-jointed. He played French harp. Love, Jo

 

Dear Daddy, I have a boyfriend. He is fifteen like me. His name is Clay, and you would like him. He is going to help me with algebra. Love, Jo

 

Dear Daddy, The loneliest sound in the world is the train whistle in the valley at night. Why does Mama hate me? Love, Jo

This last message was in Ruby's head when she woke up in the dead of night to the sound of that train whistle. It was very faint and faraway, and it put an ache in her heart. She wondered if it was the same train that came screaming into Way Down at dawn.

What had her mother thought about when she woke up in this very bed and heard that sad echo in the hills?

Poor Jo as a child had had no choice but to put up with this cranky woman. She had never known Miss Arbutus and Way Down. This forlorn mountain home had been her whole life!

So it was that Ruby grieved at last for her parents. She turned her face into the pillow and cried for the girl who had tried to bring some joy into her lonely existence by hanging wallpaper samples in her room and writing notes on them to her dead father. And she cried for the boy who had grown up without a family, and then had died before he could enjoy a life with his wife and child.

 

The next evening, Cedar walked into the common room of The Roost to find Miss Arbutus and Lucy Elkins sitting together on a sofa, with Rita between them. They were looking through an album of photos, mostly of Ruby.

“Oh, hello, Cedar!” Lucy Elkins said to him. “I guess you have come to take Rita home?”

He simply nodded and held out a hand for his sister.

This time the little girl was dressed in a canary yellow sundress with daisies on the pockets and around the neckline. It was another of Ruby's hand-me-downs. Rita had dribbled soup beans down the front while eating dinner with Miss Arbutus and her guests.

She offered her cheek to Miss Arbutus and Lucy Elkins for a goodbye kiss. While they were making over her, the door opened again, and three identical girls entered. They were all dressed in white, with blue ribbons in their hair, which this night fell in blond curls around their shoulders.

At the sight of them, Cedar's mouth fell open, and he forgot where he was or who he was.

“Good evening,” Lucy Elkins said cheerfully to the girls. Then, to Cedar and Rita, “These are the Fuller triplets. They are . . .”

“I'm Connie Lynn.”

“I'm Sunny Gaye.”

“And I'm Bonnie Clare.”

“Y'all look like a picture,” Lucy complimented them. “Don't they, Miss Arbutus?”

Miss Arbutus smiled and nodded.

The girls all spoke at the same time.

“We come to tell you about the prayer meeting.”

“It's to be at seven p.m. tomorrow night.”

“Across the road at the football field.”

And in unison, “We'll be prayin' for Ruby June.”

“Thank you,” Miss Arbutus said.

Cedar continued staring at the girls, obviously mesmerized.

“So we'll be seeing you there.”

“Don't forget.”

“Bring somebody.”

“I'll be there,” said Lucy Elkins.

“Me too!” Cedar blurted out. “I love prayin' better'n anything.”

The girls turned to him.

“We've heard about your bad mouth.”

“Come with a civil tongue in your head.”

“Don't dishonor God with your cussin'.”

Cedar turned beet red.

“I-I—” he stuttered. “I—” and could not say more.

“Just don't cuss!” Lucy Elkins relieved him of further effort. “That's all they're asking.”

Cedar grabbed Rita's hand and stumbled out the door. All the way home, he was silently cussing himself out. They found Robber Bob sitting alone in the rocker on the front porch.

“Peter's got comic books in his bedroom,” Robber Bob said. “He got 'em free from Mr. Rife at the five-and-dime store.”

Rita hurried inside to join her brothers, but Cedar perched on a stool beside his father. They sat in silence for a time.

“Something on your mind, son?” Robber Bob said to Cedar after a while.

Cedar changed positions on his stool and hooked his feet on the rungs, but didn't say anything.

“It's a nice night,” Robber Bob said softly. “I always think of your mama on nights like this.”

The lightning bugs were beginning to come out. The evening was still, and they could hear strains of music coming from somebody's radio down the street.

Cedar pulled something white from his pocket and buried his face in it. Robber Bob recognized the item as a lace handkerchief, which he had given to his wife on her birthday.

“It still holds her special smell, don't it?” he said to his son, almost in a whisper.

“Yeah. It smells like vanilla flavoring.”

Robber Bob chuckled. “She baked so much for you young'uns, she always smelled like something good to eat.”

“Daddy, sometimes I miss her so much I feel like something's bustin' loose in my chest.”

“That's your heart breaking, son,” his daddy empathized. “I know the feeling.”

“Why did she have to die?”

“I don't have the answer to that.”

“Sometimes I'm so mad . . . so mad . . .” Cedar could not go on.

“I know, son.”

“Tell me about our last Thanksgiving together, Daddy. Remember it for me.”

“Well, it was cold,” Robber Bob began softly. “I remember she sat there at the hearth with the firelight dancing in her eyes.”

Cedar interrupted, “And she was wearing a blue kinda gown thing, and she said she would be on her way by Christmas, didn't she?”

“That's right,” Robber Bob said. “She knew she was dying.”

“And she told us not to cry. Didn't she, Daddy? Did she really say that, or did I make it up?”

“Yeah, she said it, but she meant not to cry
forever
, Cedar. It's okay to grieve. She would tell you that.”

“And she told us that only her body would be dead, that her soul would go on living.”

“That's right, Cedar.”

“Then where is she?”

“I don't know.”

“She said her soul would come back in another body.”

“That's what she believed, my boy.”

“Do you believe it?”

“I just don't know.”

The tears had begun to fall from Cedar's eyes, and he did not try to stop them. “I don't mean to cuss so bad, Daddy. I know it shames you, but sometimes I . . .”

Robber Bob reached out and placed a hand on Cedar's shoulder. “I know, Cedar. You're a good boy at heart. Your mama always did say so.”

“But now she would be so ashamed of me!” Cedar sobbed out loud.

Robber Bob took the trembling boy into his arms then, and allowed him to cry against his shoulder.

The very next morning Cedar walked straight into the doctor's office and settled into a chair without ceremony.

“Mr. Doctor, I done it.”

“Done what?” Mr. Doctor replied absentmindedly. He was reading a medical journal. He looked up. “Oh, hello, Cedar. What did you do, my boy?”

“You know, I talked to my daddy, and I . . . I bawled like a little bitty baby.”

“That's very good,” Mr. Doctor said, and smiled. “How do you feel?”

“Lighter.”

“It's a beginning.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean bad habits don't go away overnight. We have to work on them.”

“You told me there were four steps to take.”

“That's right.”

“Well, I've took the first three, now what's the fourth one?”

“You have to go to Mrs. Bevins and tell her how sorry you are that you made fun of her.”

“Oh.”

“Are you willing to do that?”

“I reckon so, but you'll have to admit, Mr. Doctor, she really did look like a bumblebee.”

“Mrs. Bevins grew up very poor, Cedar. She loved pretty clothes, but she had to wear feed-sack dresses and
hand-me-downs from her sisters. It was painful to her, and she promised herself that when she grew up, she would have nice things and always try to look attractive.

“When she married Mr. Bevins, who is a generous man, he indulged her little vanities. And they have a very happy marriage because of it.”

“I still say she looked like a bumblebee,” Cedar mumbled stubbornly.

“That may be, but your opinion doesn't count, nor does mine. Mrs. Bevins believes her taste in clothes is impeccable, and in the long run, it's only what one thinks of oneself that matters.”