The Ponder Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

and she wasn't used to a bit of it. She wasn't used to keeping house at all except by fits and starts, much less telling Negroes what to do. And she didn't know what to do with herself all day. But how would she tell him a thing like that? He was older than she was, and he was good as gold, and he was prominent. And he wasn't even there all the time—
Uncle Daniel
couldn't stay home. He wanted her there, all right, waiting when he got back, but he made Narciss bring him in town first, every night, so he could have a little better audience. He wanted to tell about how happy he was.
    The way I look back at Bonnie Dee, her story was this. She'd come up from the country—and before she knew it, she was right back in the country. Married or no. She was away out yonder on Ponder Hill and nothing to do and nothing to play with in sight but the Negroes' dogs and the Peppers' cats and one little frizzly hen. From the kind of long pink fingernails she kept in the ten cent store, that hadn't been her idea at all. Not her dream.
    I think they behaved. I don't think they fought all over the place, like the Clanahan girls and the Sistrunk boys when they marry. They wouldn't know how. Uncle Daniel never heard a cross word in his life. Even if Bonnie Dee, with her origins, could turn and spit like a cat, I hardly think she would around Uncle Daniel. That wouldn't be called for.
    I don't blame Bonnie Dee, don't blame her for a minute. I could just beat her on the head, that's all.
    And I did think one thing was the funniest joke on her in the world: Uncle Daniel didn't give her any money. Not a cent. I discovered that one day. I don't think it ever occurred to him, to give anything to Bonnie Dee. Because he
had
her. (When she said "trial," that didn't mean anything to Uncle Daniel that would alarm him. The only kind of trials he knew about were the ones across the street from the Beulah, in the Courthouse—he was fond of those.)
    I passed her some money myself now and then—or I bought her something ladylike to put on her back. I couldn't just leave her the way she was! She never said more than "Thank you."
    Of course, Uncle Daniel wasn't used to money, himself. With Grandpa in his grave, it was Mr. Sistrunk at the bank that gave him his allowance, three dollars a month, and he spent that mostly the first day, on children—they were the ones came out and asked him for things. Uncle Daniel was used to purely being rich, not having money. The riches were all off in the clouds somewhere—like true love is, I guess, like a castle in the sky, where he could just sit and dream about it being up there for him. But money wouldn't be safe with him a minute—it would be like giving matches to a child.
    Well! How the whole town did feel it when Bonnie Dee lit out!
    When we sat in here night after night and saw that pearly gray Stetson coming in view, and moving up the walk, all we could do was hope and pray Uncle Daniel was here to tell us she was back. But she wasn't. He'd peep in both windows from the porch, then go around by the back and come in through the kitchen so he could speak to Ada. He'd point out what he'd have on his plate—usually ham and steak and chicken and cornbread and sweet potatoes and fried okra and tomatoes and onion-and-egg—plus banana pie—and take his seat in the dining room and when it came go "Ughmmmmmm!" One big groan.
    And I'd call everybody to supper.
    Uncle Daniel would greet us at the table. "Have you seen her, son? Has a soul here seen my wife? Man alive! My wife's done left me out there by myself in the empty house! Oh, you'd know her if you came across her—she's tiny as a fairy and pretty as a doll. And smart beyond compare, boys." (That's what she told him.) "And now she's gone, clean as a whistle." There'd be a little crowd sitting close on both sides before he knew it. And he'd go into his tale.
    It would be like drawing his eye-teeth not to let him go on and tell it,