The Ponder Heart Read Online Free PDF

Narciss—had her and never appreciated her. It didn't seem to me they ate out there near enough to keep her happy. It had turned out Narciss could sit at a wheel and drive, of course —her and Grandpa's Studebaker both getting older by the minute, but she could still reach the pedals and they'd still catch, a little. Where they headed for, of course, was right here—a good safe place to end up, with the hitching post there to catch them at the foot of the walk. They sashayed in at the front—Narciss sashayed in at the back—and all ate with me.
    That's how everybody—me and whoever was in here at the time, drummers, boarders, lawyers, and strangers—had to listen to Uncle Darnel mirate and gyrate over Bonnie Dee. With her right there at the table. We had to take on over her too, every last one of lis, and tell him how pretty and smart we thought she was. It didn't bother her one whit. I don't think she was listening to amount to a row of pins. You couldn't tell. She just sat and picked at the Beulah food like a canary bird, and by the time Uncle Daniel was through eating and talking and pulled her up, it would be too late for the show for everybody. So he'd holler Narciss out of the back and they'd all three hop back in the car and go chugging home.
    Now the only bad thing about the Ponder place is where it is. Poor Grandpa had picked him a good high spot to build the house on, where he could see all around him and if anybody was coming. And that turned out to be miles from anywhere. He filled up the house with rooms, rooms, rooms, and the rooms with furniture, furniture, furniture, all before he let Grandma in it. And then of course she brought her own perfectly good rosewood in right on top of it. And he'd trimmed the house inside and outside, topside and bottom, with every trimming he could get his hands on or money could buy. And painted the whole thing bright as a railroad station. Anything to outdo the Beulah Hotel.
    And I think maybe he did outdo it. For one thing he sprinkled that roof with lightning rods the way Grandma would sprinkle coconut on a cake, and was just as pleased with himself as she was with herself. Remarkable. I don't think it ever occurred to either one of
them
that they lived far out: they were so evenly matched. It took Grandpa years to catch on it was lonesome. They considered
town
was far.
    I've sometimes thought of turning that place
into
something, if and when it ever comes down to me and I can get the grass out of it. Nobody lives in the house now. The Pepper family we've got on the place don't do a thing but run it. A chinchilla farm may be the answer. But that's the future. Don't think about it, Edna Earle, I say. So I just cut out a little ad about a booklet that you can send off for, and put it away in a drawer—I forget where.

So the marriage trial—only it had completely left our minds it was one—went on for five years and six months, and Bonnie Dee, if you please, decided No.
    Not that she said as much to a soul: she was tongue-tied when it came to words. She left a note written in a pencil tablet on the kitchen table, and when Narciss went out to cut up the chicken, she found it. She carried it to Uncle Daniel in the barn, and Uncle Daniel read it to her out loud. Then they both sat down on the floor and cried. It said, "Have left out. Good-by and good luck, your friend, Mrs. Bonnie Dee Peacock Ponder." We don't even know which one of them it was
to.
    Then she just traipsed out to the crossroads and flagged down the north-bound bus with her little handkerchief—oh, she was seen. A dozen people must have been in the bushes and seen her, or known somebody that did, and they all came and told me about it. Though nobody at all appeared to tell me where she got off.
    It's not beyond me. You see, poor, trusting Uncle Daniel carried that child out there and set her down in a big house with a lot of rooms and corners, with Negroes to wait on her,