The Ponder Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

elbow on it in a kind of grand way. They smelled awful smoke—he had one of Grandpa's cigars lighted. Narciss was singing hallelujah somewhere off.
    I said, "But DeYancey, you're leaving out what I want to hear—the words. What did Grandpa say?"
    DeYancey said Grandpa
whispered.
    "I don't believe you."
    DeYancey said, "It's all true. He whispered, and said 'They're right.'"
    "Who?" I said.
    "Well, the Clanahans," said DeYancey. "He whispered—" and DeYancey whispered, all hollow and full of birdsinging over the wires, with Lord knows who not with us—"'When the brains were being handed around, my son Daniel was standing behind the door.'"
    "Help," I said. "And did Uncle Daniel hear it? Let me go, DeYancey, I haven't got time for conversation. I've got to get out there and stand up for both of them."
    "Don't you want to hear the surprise?" he says.
    Well, he
did
have a surprise; he just had to get to it. Do you know it turned out that she'd just married Uncle Daniel
on trial?
Miss Bonnie Dee Peacock of Polk took a red nasturtium out of her mouth to say that was the best she could do.
    After that, Grandpa just pounded with his stick and sent DeYancey out of his sight, with a message he would speak to me in the morning. And when he was getting his car out of the yard, DeYancey said, Narciss had the fattest chicken of all down on the block, and hollered at him, "We's goin' to keep her!" and brought her ax down whack.
    "Just hang up and go home and take a bath, DeYancey," I says. "I've heard all I'm going to. I'm going to put on my hat."
    Well, it's our hearts. We run to sudden ends, all we Ponders. I say it's our hearts, though Dr. Ewbanks declares Grandpa just popped a blood vessel.
    Grandpa, Uncle Daniel, and Bonnie Dee still in pink were all about to sit down. I was just walking in the door—smelled chicken. Uncle Daniel says to me, "Just in time, Edna Earle. Poor Papa! You know, Edna Earle, he's hard to please."
    And lo and behold.
    Â 
    We had the funeral in the Presbyterian Church, of course, and it was packed. I haven't been able to think of anybody that didn't come. It
had
mortified the Sistrunks that following behind one of them so close would come a Peacock; but with Grandpa going the sudden way he did, they rallied, and turned up in their best, and Miss Teacake asked to be allowed to sing. "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere" was her choice.
    Uncle Daniel held every eye at the services. That was the best thing in the world for Uncle Daniel, because it distracted him from what was going on. Oh, he hates sickness and death, will hardly come in the room with it! He can't abide funerals. The reason every eye was on him was not just because he was rich as Croesus now, but he looked different. Bonnie Dee had started in on him and cut his hair.
    Now I'll tell you about Bonnie Dee. Bonnie Dee could make change, and Bonnie Dee could cut hair. If you ask me can I do either, the answer is no. Bonnie Dee may have been tongue-tied in public and hardly able to stand in high heels, till she learned how, but she could cut your hair to a fare-ye-well, to within a good inch of your life, if you put a pair of scissors in her hand. Uncle Daniel used to look like a senator. But that day his hair wasn't much longer than the fuzz of a peach. Uncle Daniel still keeps it like that—he loves himself that way.
    Oh, but he was proud of her. "She's a natural-born barber," he said, "and pretty as a doll. What would I do without her?" He had the hardware salesman bring her a whole line of scissors and sharp blades. I was afraid she'd fringe everything in the house.
    Well! Ignorance is bliss.
    Except Bonnie Dee, poor little old thing, didn't know how to smile.
Yawned,
all the time, like cats do. So delicate and dainty she didn't even have any heels to speak of—she didn't stick out anywhere, and I don't know why you couldn't see through her. Seventeen years old and seemed like she just stayed seventeen.
    They had that grand