The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty Page B

said, "every one of 'em. She wasn't any bigger than a minute—and pretty as a doll. And a natural-born barber. I'll never find another one like her." But for a second his poor eye wandered.
    "And did your wife Bonnie Dee return your love?" asks Gladney.
    "Well now, that depended, sir," says poor Uncle Daniel, with the best will in the world. "Edna Earle could have told you all about that. She kept tabs on it." The whole thing might have come out then and there, the whole financial story of the Ponder family. Of course everybody in the room was familiar with it, but nobody wanted to
hear
it.
    "On Monday, the sixteenth of June, Mr. Ponder, would you say she loved you?" says old Gladney. "Or loved you not?" He laughed.
    They had to recall to Uncle Daniel the day that was—he's the worst person in town on dates and figures—but he said, "Oh, yes indeed, sir. She loved me then."
    "Well, Mr. Ponder! If you loved your wife as you declare, and thought there was nobody like her, and your wife—as it depended or not—loved you, and on June the sixteenth she showed she did love you by sending you three proved invitations to return to her side—what did you want to go out there and kill her for?"
    Old Gladney shot his old bony finger right in Uncle Daniel's face, surprising him to death. I don't reckon he'd ever really taken it in what the charge was.
    Nothing happened in the courtroom except some babies cried.
    "Was it because you told her you would? ... Tell us about it," says old Gladney, real smiley.
    They ought never to have let Uncle Daniel up there if they didn't want to hear the story. He smiled back. I tried to hold him with my eye, but it didn't work—not with him up on a stage.
    He says, "Do you know, all in all, I've seen mighty little of that girl? First she came, then she went. Then she came, then she run me off. Edna Earle knows, she keeps tabs. Then three kind friends brought word in one day I was welcome. It already looked dark and commenced rumbling towards the west, and we lit out there lickety-split. Now when we got there, I went to hug my wife and kiss her, it had been such a time, Mr. Gladney; but you might hug your wife too hard. Did you ever do that?" asks Uncle Daniel.
    Old Gladney says, "No-o-o." People started to laugh at him, then changed their minds and didn't.
    "It's a way too easy to do," says Uncle Daniel.
    "Sure enough?" says old Gladney, and steps close. "Show me."
    Uncle Daniel stood there and hung his head, ashamed of that old fool.
    "I'm impervious, I guarantee you," says that old lawyer. "Go ahead, show me what a hug too hard is."
    "But that time I didn't," Uncle Daniel tells him. "I went to hug her, but I didn't get to."
    "Is that so? How come you didn't get to?" says old Gladney, still close.
    That little frown, that I just can't stand to see, came in Uncle Daniel's forehead, and everybody caught their breath but me. I was on my feet.
    "Never mind, Uncle Daniel," I calls up. "I've told that."
    Judge Waite and old man Gladney and DeYancey Clanahan all three poked their fingers at me, but didn't really notice what I said; nobody noticed. Even Uncle Daniel.
    Old Gladney keeps right on. "Listen close to my next question, Mr. Ponder. I know you can answer it—it ain't hard. When you ran into the parlor to hug her—only you didn't get to—did Bonnie Dee speak to you?"
    DeYancey was leaping up and snapping his fingers, objecting his heart out, but what good does objecting to Uncle Daniel do? You just get fired. Uncle Daniel would have fired the angel Gabriel, right that minute, for the same thing. You never could stop Uncle Daniel from going on, once you let him know he had your ears. And now everybody was galvanized.
    "Hollered! She hollered at me. 'I don't appreciate lightning and thunder a bit!'" said Uncle Daniel—proudly. And in her voice. He did have it down to a T, like he could always do bird calls. He looked over our heads for Narciss, and smiled at