The Ponder Heart Read Free Page B

the dollars out when the plate came by him, and sent me a frown, but he didn't catch on. Uncle Daniel sat there with his mouth in an O clear through the rest of the solo. It seems to me it was "Work, for the Night Is Coming." But I was saying to myself, Well, Edna Earle, she's a Sistrunk. And a widow well taken care of. And she makes and sells those gorgeous cakes that melt in your mouth—she's an artist. Forget about her singing. So going out of church, I says, "Eureka, Grandpa. I've found her." And whispers in his ear.
    "Go ahead, then, girl," says he.
    If you'd ever known Grandpa, you'd have been as surprised as I was when Grandpa didn't object right away, and conclude we'd better find somebody smarter than that or drop the whole idea. Grandpa would be a lot more willing to stalk up on a wedding and stop it, than to encourage one to go on. Anybody's—yours, mine, or the Queen of Sheba's. He regarded getting married as a show of weakness of character in nearly every case but his own, because he was smart enough to pick a wife very nearly as smart as he was. But he was ready to try anything once for Uncle Daniel, and Miss Teacake got by simply because Grandpa knew who she was—and a little bit because of her hair as black as tar—something she gets from Silver City and puts on herself in front of the mirror.
    Poor Grandpa! Suppose I'd even
attempted,
over the years, to step off—I dread to think of the lengths Grandpa would have gone to to stop it. Of course, I'm intended to look after Uncle Daniel and everybody knows it, but in plenty of marriages there's three—three all your life. Because nearly everybody's got somebody. I used to think if I ever did step off with, say, Mr. Springer, Uncle Daniel wouldn't mind; he always could make Mr. Springer laugh. And I could name the oldest child after Grandpa and win him over quick before he knew it. Grandpa adored compliments, though he tried to hide it. Ponder Springer—that sounds perfectly plausible to me, or did at one time.
    At any rate, Uncle Daniel and Miss Teacake got married. I just asked her for recipes enough times, and told her the real secret of cheese straws—beat it three hundred strokes—and took back a few unimportant things I've said about the Baptists. The wedding was at the Sistrunks', in the music room, and Miss Teacake insisted on singing at her own wedding—sang "The Sweetest Story Ever Told."
    It was bad luck. The marriage didn't hold out. We were awfully disappointed in Miss Teacake, but glad to have Uncle Daniel back. What Uncle Daniel told me he didn't take to—I asked him because I was curious—was hearing spool-heels coming and going on Professor Magee's floor. But he never had a word to say against Miss Teacake: I think he liked her. Uncle Daniel has a remarkable affection for everybody and everything in creation. I asked him one question about her and got this hotel. Miss Teacake's settled down again now, and don't seem to be considering catching anybody else in particular. Still singing.
    So Grandpa carried Uncle Daniel to the asylum, and before too long, Uncle Daniel turned the tables on Grandpa, and never had to go back
there.

Meantime! Here traipsed into town a little thing from away off down in the country. Near Polk: you wouldn't have ever heard of Polk—I hadn't. Bonnie Dee Peacock. A little thing with yellow, fluffy hair.
    The Peacocks are the kind of people keep the mirror outside on the front porch, and go out and pick railroad lilies to bring inside the house, and wave at trains till the day they die. The most they probably hoped for was that somebody'd come find oil in the front yard and fly in the house and tell them about it. Bonnie Dee was one of nine or ten, and no bigger than a minute. A good gust of wind might have carried her off any day.
    She traipsed into Clay all by herself and lived and boarded with some Bodkins on Depot Street. And went to work in the ten cent store: all she