Oral History (9781101565612) by Lee Smith Page B

thing! The eldest Davenport sat on the porch and commenced whittling while the other ones fed the stock. Across the long valley, over Black Rock Mountain, the sun rode low in the sky and when the Hibbitts girls had stopped crying, they remarked on how good the view was from up here, how pretty the sunset looked. The Hibbitts girls had mousy-pale hair and pock-marks all over their faces. Rhoda set them to peeling sweet potatoes; she had a lot of folks to feed, and a long hard evening ahead.
    â€œCool up here,” the eldest Davenport said, whittling.
    â€œWouldn’t never know twas dog days,” the youngest one said, and they looked at each other then, thinking the same thing, how blood won’t clot in dog days, or a sore heal up, or a bone mend.
    â€œRock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide my soul in thee,” Rhoda sang at the door, to nobody in particular, and then she said, “You-unses come eat.” Rhoda was a big woman, running to fat but sturdy, a bosom like a shelf beneath her face. Nobody messed with Rhoda. The Davenports all stood up, and she fed them—sweet potatoes and sallet and sidemeat—and she tried to feed Almarine too who wouldn’t eat or leave the bedside of Pricey Jane. Louella and Rose stared down hard at Almarine there by Pricey Jane’s bed-tick as they came past, but he never raised his head or looked their way. Louella and Rose stared as hard as they could at his fair hair spread on the bed-tick, at the heave of his shoulders, as if they knew somehow already that this was as close to passion as they would ever come; their pale eyes watered as they stared. When the men had finished eating, Rhoda and the girls ate.
    Almarine wouldn’t touch a bite.
    Neither would Granny Younger, out in the lean-to laying out Eli. Sometimes the rest of them heard her murmuring voice out there, and looked quickly away from each other’s faces. Who knew what Granny was saying, or worse yet, what-all she did?
    Nobody went to sleep.
    Finally Granny came around from the lean-to like a little old bent-up straw doll in the night. They could barely see her.
    â€œDavenports!” she cried, and the Davenports got up off the porch and went with her and then in a while they brought Eli back around, laid out on his own little bed-tick, hands crossed over his sunken chest. The Davenports carried him to the front porch and put him down.
    â€œDon’t he look pretty,” Louella said, but Rose started crying.
    â€œI need me some silver money, Almarine,” Granny called, hobbling after, and Almarine got up from his wife’s bed and came to the cabin door and stood there, looking out. The Hibbitts girls and Rhoda sat on the porch rustling their skirts and bending back and forth in the darkness like big dark flowers. They wanted to see it all. Then the Davenports went and stood in the yard, all three, and Granny Younger stood by Eli, laid out on his little bed-tick on the porch.
    â€œAir you got any silver money?” Granny said.
    Almarine stood in the door.
    â€œYessum,” he said, and he reached into his pocket and held out his hand to her, and she put a dime on each of Eli’s closed eyes. Eli looked like a big doll laid out on the porch.
    Almarine stood in the door thinking about how he had been playing poker at Joe Johnson’s store, that was why he had the money and more money besides, how this might not have happened if he had come straight home. He was sure it would not have happened if he’d come on home. He said it to Granny Younger, who snorted.
    â€œHit ain’t got nothing to do with yer poker,” she said. “Hit all has to do with the cow.”
    â€œThat cow has eat in the holler before,” Almarine said. “Hit ain’t never took sick.”
    The yellow light from the fire came out through the open door to light the porch, and Eli’s body, and Granny Younger’s face.
    â€œNow that’s a pure fact.”