The Ordways Read Free Page B

worked out to mean equally cool to all. Quite possibly—for he was like that—he was particularly on guard against being driven by his wife to favor those whom she favored least—which would include my father, and therefore me. But being affectionate by nature, he was able to sustain this pose only through the first two or three arrivals, unbending all the while, until finally he dropped it altogether. As I came first, I felt the full brunt of his fairness; those of my cousins who came later not only got their proper share of his affection, they got my share as well. My grandmother, on the other hand, knowing how he disapproved of her favoritism, was always resolved for once to show none, with the result that she effused most over those for whom she cared the least. My grandmother had her fixed and permanent favorite (my Uncle Ewen, her first-born son); after him she valued her children in proportion to the distance by which they were separated from her and the worry they caused her. We lived closest by of all, and so, not having far to come, we gave her no particular concern, and were therefore less precious to her. The kiss I got from her, so unlike that unrequited one of mine on my grandfather’s cheek, had more light than warmth in it; those she bestowed on my cousins who had had to travel farther to get theirs were too heartfelt for outward show.
    On graveyard working day, as at any family gathering, as one by one her children came home, my grandmother grew more and more fretful over those still missing. As the number narrowed, instead of taking comfort she merely transferred the anxiety released by the arrival of the latest one onto those still to be accounted for. Other families were already assembled and at work. Scythes hissed in the dry grass, the rhythmical chopping of hoes was heard on all sides and the scratching of rakes among the papery leaves. Already brush fires had begun to crackle and the air to thicken fragrantly with smoke.
    While waiting for the rest to arrive, my grandfather would bring those of his children who lived outside the range of ripples from Mabry up to date on the chronicle of deaths since last graveyard working day. Fetching a sigh, he might declare, “What us folks hereabouts will do for fish now, I don’t know. We buried poor old Dora Exom in July.”
    â€œHow’s that? Is Aunt Dora Exom dead?”
    â€œDead and yonder in her grave. Yes, Dora is wetting her line now where the big ones bite every day.”
    â€œI reckon you mean to say she’s in heaven. I don’t gainsay it. But I expect Aunt Dora wouldn’t have any trouble filling her stringer down in the other place.”
    â€œI never seen anything like it,” my grandfather said. “Many a summer afternoon I’ve set on the creek bank alongside of that old woman, used the same bait, same size hook, set my bobber to the same depth as she set hers, and she would be hauling in fish like that boy yo-yoing there, and I would never get a nibble. Why, in clear water—now you all may not believe this, but in clear water I have seen fish steal her bait and sneak off to eat it, then just give up and turn around and come back and swallow the bare hook!”
    â€œWonder did she hand on her secret to anybody before she passed away?”
    â€œIf you ask me I don’t believe it was a thing she could have handed on to anybody else if she’d wanted to. She let on to have some secret formula, but I never believed it. I once heard her say that her mamma honed after fried fish all the while she was carrying her. Don’t you expect that might’ve had something to do with it?”
    â€œThem Exoms sure et the fish! Pile of old fishbones out back of their house big as a haystack.”
    â€œWellsir,” said my grandfather, “she give away just as many as she fed her own family. You would hear a racket ’long about sundown and look out the window: there’d