All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred fifty-five)

 

 

 

 

 

All Bedlam Courses Past

 

Chapter Six

Short Days

(part one hundred fifty-five)

 

 

 

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iii.

Kinder in person

 

 

Pearletta was at his back remarking how everything heading east gets more expensive, or they say, her Papa said so, being she hardly hadn’t been anyplace herself…

“Pearletta, get ahold of Gippy. Don’t let him come running after the wagon.”

The consequence was delayed, then explosive.

“Samuel! Quiet yourself down! Your Daddy needs to get turned off right towards the road. Alls he’s saying’s not let that dog go nipping Eddie’s legs while he works past the ditch. Nobody’d never stop you having Gippy to hug onto after your Mama died like that, and your poor sister died like that, and you been crying every day like that. Mr. Everard’s a good man.”

Oh ho.

He watched the young couple wave him from his own door. Let Onella be the villain if she hated dogs. Things of Mary’s she would want for a legacy were packed in the chest. The black shawl and the pink…

Some ordeal in this. “Do you think I’d be wearing pink with my red hair? Since you’re giving the quilt to Pearletta, you can give her that, too.”

Faint, in Mrs. Clark’s rebuke, sat the impression she had wanted the quilt.

“Oh, no, Mr. Everard, that’s Sammy’s for one day when he gets a little sweetheart. That was my poor Mama’s, who died, that’s what he’ll tell her, and she’ll cry! I do like that pink, though.”

But you won’t take it. Mysteries.

Some chains and bracelets, found when Pearletta and Junior had picked up the mattress to air outdoors. A few china plates, gilded an inch round the edge, in a pillowcase hammock slung from the bed-slats. A crystal glass serving tray on the floor. Two tiny handled cups, gilt all over, on the tray. He had slept above these treasures unknowing.

Aside from future wooing stock, were things made clear by the state of Samuel’s corner, he had no sense to pack for himself. His Sunday jacket. Richard’s boots, needing back on his feet. The cap he’d be putting on his head when they got to decent company.

Lawrence and Samuel would braid husks while they camped…Indian corn come in fine this year. People liked Indian corn. Gourds a waste planting. Deer running thin in the woods. He had from Sanderson six pairs of fancy gloves, a trade they practiced between them, Lawrence’s skins and Sanderson’s tanning. Sanderson’s delicate stitchery.

There was a restaurant trade for venison. Lawrence wasn’t sure how farmers kept them penned…

They passed Cookesvillians walking, riding, and Lawrence repeated the story never to come out sounding natural. Relatives in Ohio, good to be away from the sickness, kinder speaking than writing.

He wanted not to be blessed or wished well. Or wished luck, and meant well.

“Daddy, where does a buzzard make a nest?”

“Can’t you sit still?”

But a gulp from Samuel wrenched him. The heaviness needed lightening, not adding to. “Where you think a buzzard makes his nest?”

“Doesn’t a lady buzzard?”

Lady buzzard, probably what Onella would turn out.

 

 

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Bedlam

All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred fifty-six)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2024, Stephanie Foster)