Part 30 (1/2)
She leaned closer and whispered a short rhyme to me. ”Can you remember that?”
”I don't know.”
”Oh, sure you can. Whisper it back to me.”
I said it for her.
”Good! Now, tonight after you say it, I want you to walk through the church with your papa's hat, and everybody will put in money. That will be for poor people. Then you come back to me, and I'll get some of the little presents off the tree and pin them on you. Then you'll walk up and down the aisle so that folks can take off their gifts. What do you think of that? Can you do it?”
”Oh, yes Ma'am! I can do it!”
On our way home I thought I'd absolutely pop wide open with excitement. But I never did. At supper I gulped down a whole big gla.s.s of b.u.t.termilk with corn bread crumbled in it, and not a drop leaked out of me! Even after we got our stockings hung up and our Sunday clothes on, I was still in good shape.
I kept whispering my Aunt Vic piece over and over to myself.
But as we were going back toward the church, Mierd and Wiley talked so long about how many nuts and apples and oranges we might get in our stockings that I forgot every word Aunt Vic wanted me to recite!
”Don't cry, for goodness sakes!” Mama told me. ”Aunt Vic will tell you again what to say.”
It was dusk before we got within sight of the grist mill and cotton gin. Mierd and Wiley were quiet. Mama wasn't saying much either.
When we were about halfway between the gin and Papa's new store, three men on horseback streaked past our wagon, their horses running neck and neck!
”I wonder,” Mama said, ”who's in such an all-fired hurry to get to the Christmas entertainment.”
”That's just them Bailey boys,” Wiley said.
”How do you know it's them dumb clucks?” Mierd asked.
”I'd know their bays day or night. They're the prettiest horses in Drake Eye Springs, and them boys are the meanest.”
”Y'all mustn't talk so about them wild, mischievous Bailey boys. 'Course it's true they sorta took after their ma's folks, and to my knowledge none of Lida Belle's kin-or Wes's-ever killed many snakes. But at the same time, I figure Addie Mae and the three boys do the best they can.”
”But, Mama, they-”
”Anyhow, Wiley, I thought you told us the other night that the schoolteacher goes over to the Bailey place on Sat.u.r.days to hunt squirrels with the boys and learn them how to read.”
”He does. But, Mama, they're still the worst boys in the whole school. Don't n.o.body like 'em.”
As we rode by the store, we saw Papa standing at the back door. Mama pulled up on the reins to make Belle and Puddin' Foot slow down and called to Papa, ”You coming on now?”
”Yeah! I'll be up there in a few minutes! Soon's I can blow out the lights and lock up.”
It took Papa more than a few minutes to get to the church.
When the house was getting filled up with folks and the tree was sagging with presents and I was already in my Christmas tree costume and it was almost time for the Christmas Eve program to begin, he still hadn't come. I was afraid he wouldn't get to see me being a tree or hear me say my Aunt Vic piece.
”When's Papa gonna get here, Mama?”
”Pretty soon. He'll be in before we start singing. Let's me and you sit on the front bench. That way, you can see good.”
The mourners' bench?”