A Thousand Never Evers Read Free Page B

hobbling toward me. First thing I notice: his prickly white beard runs over his dimpled cheeks. Second thing: he was picked before he was ripe. He’s no taller than me.
    “This the Pickett home?” he asks when he gets close.
    Here I am, my sopping school dress in my hands. “Yes, sir,” I tell him. “I’m Addie Ann Pickett.”
    I can’t imagine what this little man wants. I notice he’s got a paper in his hands, and his hands, they’re shaking. Well, maybe it’s the heat. Or maybe it’s the shacks we live in. Sure he probably heard the Negroes are dirt-dog-poor—maybe he even drove past our houses—but I reckon seeing close-up that a whole family lives in a home the size of his garden shed can be a bit of a surprise.
    “Lawyer for Mr. Adams,” he says.
    A lawyer? I’m not sure exactly what that is, but I know it’s got something to do with the law, and from everything I’ve heard, that’s not good.
    While the lawyer looks at his paper, I squeeze my wet dress in my fists, afraid there might be trouble. But then the most amazing thing happens! The little lawyer looks at me and says, “Addie Ann Pickett, you and your uncle, Charles ‘Bump’ Dawson, are requested at the estate at four p.m. for the reading of the will. Mr. Adams left you each a gift.”
    And wouldn’t you know it, my heart flies up and clogs my throat. There’s no way for words to get out. Never in ten billion years did I think Old Man Adams would go and leave presents for Uncle Bump and me!
    The lawyer makes me promise to tell my uncle the news right away. Then he asks, “Now where would I find the cook, Mrs. Grady?”
    It’s the best I can do to point round the bend. Even if I could speak right now, I wouldn’t tell him Elmira hates when folks call her Mrs. Grady, because it makes her feel old as the stars.
    As soon as the little man struts away, I drop my school dress on the edge of the basin and run round back, where Mama’s pinning clothes on the line. I tell her what the lawyer man said.
    “Don’t that take the whole biscuit!” Mama says, and grins. Together, the two of us dash across the yard to bang on the door of Uncle Bump’s shed.
    As soon as he opens it, I tell him, “Old Man Adams left us presents!”
    Then Mama explains about the will.
    “My, oh my!” Uncle Bump grins.
    “Now then, I’ve gotta get this girl ready,” Mama says to Uncle Bump. “You gonna tidy up too?” she asks, and rubs her chin.
    “Oh, sure,” Uncle Bump says. He touches his beard. “Sure.”
    Mama and me shuffle back across the yard and into our kitchen. Mama sits on a chair and I plop down on the floorboards between her legs. Well, all I can say is Mama’s fingers work real good under pressure. Lickety-split, she braids up my hair in a hundred little rows. Then I slip into the white dress I usually save for church.
    An hour later, I’m standing in the yard between our house and Uncle Bump’s shed, wondering whether Old Man Adams left me all the chocolate he hid under the fruit in the refrigerator. “Come on,” I call through the window of Uncle Bump’s shed. “We can’t be late for
this
!”
    Uncle Bump steps out the door. He’s trimmed his beard real short and nice. Together, we take it down the lane. While we walk, the keys to Old Man Adams’s place jangle from his belt loop. But those keys have been hanging there so many years that now the sound of them seems no louder than the sound of his breathing.
    After we turn the bend, we stop to get Elmira, who’s equally round on her bosom and bottom, which is lucky for her, because it keeps her upright while she waddles back and forth across town.
    The three of us set off down the lane and across the railroad tracks, to Magnolia Row, which runs alongside Old Man Adams’s field at the edge of town. Today white magnolia petals litter the path. Springtime fills up my lungs. I see one blossom still on the branch. Through that flower, Old Man Adams sends me a message: life keeps