The Land(62)

“Yes, sir, he did,” answered the same young lady. “He over at Mister Crane Cooper’s place.”

“Tendin’ to that ole mule of his, I reckon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Um. Cooper oughtta just shoot that mule and be done with it. But long’s your daddy can keep fixing him up, I s’pose he won’t.”

The sisters laughed. “S’pose not,” said the one.

“Well, y’all come on in when you ready,” said Luke Sawyer, and went back into his store.

The young woman then turned to the crying boy. “Now, hush up, Henry!” she ordered. “Don’t you be cryin’ ’bout them ignorant boys. Don’t you know their words can’t hurt you none, ’less you let them! They tryin’ to make you feel little, but they can’t make you feel little if you feel big inside. No matter what they do, they can’t do that. You hush up that cryin’ and go on home to folks who care ’bout you, and don’t you be hangin’ round this here store where these ignorant boys can make fun of you. You hear me?”

The boy nodded and wiped at his eyes with his arm. He turned slightly, but his arm hid his face. He started down the road.

“Wait up just a minute there, Henry!” the young woman called, stopping him. She dug into her basket and pulled out a good-size cookie. “This here’s for you, Henry, and can you carry yo’self a pie without droppin’ it?”

The boy spoke for the first time. “Pie?”

“That’s right. A pie.”

The other young woman now spoke up. “Caroline, you can’t go givin’ this boy one of these here pies!”

“Hush up, Callie!” snapped Caroline. Then in a softened voice she said to the boy, “Now, you take this here sweet-potato pie to yo’ mama and tell her that’s yo’ pie. But you be sure and share this pie with yo’ mama and yo’ sisters, ya hear me?”

“I hear,” said the boy, Henry, and turned full toward me. Now I could see his face clear. He had a bad cleft lip, which no doubt had been the object of the boys’ taunts. But that didn’t seem to matter to him at the moment, as his lips curled into a wide grin. “Thank ya.”

“Well, you sure ’nough welcome,” said Caroline. “But you better make sure that pie get all the way home! Yo’ mama can bring me back that tin come church time Sunday.”

“Yes’m, I make sho’.” The boy headed down the road, and the two girls picked up their baskets and started for the store entrance.

“Owww, girl,” said the one called Callie, “Mama’s gonna whip the livin’ daylights outa you ’bout givin’ ’way that pie! You know we s’pose t’ be sellin’ these here pies!”

“Well, you know what, Callie?” said Caroline. “I don’t care! That boy needed somethin t’ make him feel good ’bout himself, and if a little ole sweet-potato pie can do that, then that’s what I give him. Mama can jus’ whip me if she wanna!”

“Well, she’ll wanna, all right!”

Caroline shrugged off her words. “Ya know what, Cal? I’ve gotten my share of whippin’s before. ’Spect I can take another one.” With those words she entered the store, and her sister followed. I headed back to the shed with a smile on my face.





I went back to my work. I labored steadily on the night table the rest of that afternoon and several days after that, sanding it, making the edges rounded and smooth, making it perfect. When I finished, I was satisfied. I got some shellac from Luke Sawyer’s store and he looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “You done already?”

“Soon as it’s stained,” I said, and returned to the shed. I brushed on the first coat of shellac, then settled back waiting for it to dry before coating the table with another. While I was waiting, Luke Sawyer came out to the shed. “It’s not dry yet,” I said.

Luke Sawyer nodded and walked around the night table without touching it. He studied the drawers sitting separately on a shelf, and I could see admiration in his eyes. “If these drawers fit in that table as good as they look, Paul Logan, then I don’t figure you to be chopping wood.”

“They’ll fit,” I assured him.

Two days later, with an additional coat of shellac dry on the night table and the drawers smoothly slid inside, Luke Sawyer had me bring the night table into the store. Soon after, he sent a boy over to the house of a Miz B. R. Tillman, wife of one of the bankers in town, with the message that a night table like the one she’d admired in the catalog was available if she’d like to take a look. Miz B. R. Tillman came late in the day, just before closing, with her husband, Mister B. R. Tillman. Luke Sawyer called me from the shed, and I stood aside as the Tillmans looked over my work.