A Death in the Family - James Agee [91]
“Well, Lord God, ” the old woman said. “Well, file on out.”
“How’s Granmaw?” his father asked, in a low voice, without moving yet to get out.
“Good as we got any right to expect, ” she said, “but don’t feel put out if she don’t know none-a-yews. She mought and she mought not. Half the time she don’t even know me. ”
Ralph shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Pore old soul, ” he said, looking at the ground. His father let out a slow breath, puffing his cheeks.
“So if I was you-all I’d come up on her kind of easy, ” the old woman said. “Bin a coon’s age since she seen so many folks at onct. Me either. Mought skeer her if ye all come a whoopin up at her in a flock.”
“Sure, ” his father said.
“Ayy,” his mother whispered.
His father turned and looked back. “Whyn’t you go see her the first, Paw?” he said very low. “Yore the eldest. ”
“Tain’t me she wants to see, ” Grandfather Follet said. “Hit’s the younguns ud tickle her most. ”
“Reckon that’s the truth, if she can take notice,” the old woman said. “She shore like to cracked her heels when she heared yore boy was born, ”she said to Jay, “Mary or no Mary. Proud as Lucifer. Cause that was the first, ” she told Mary.
“Yes, I know, ” Mary said. “Fifth generation, that made.”
“Did you get her postcard, Jay?”
“What postcard?”
“Why no, ” Mary said.
“She tole me what to write on one a them postcards and put hit in the mail to both a yews so I done it. Didn’t ye never get it?”
Jay shook his head. “First I ever heard tell of it, ” he said.
“Well I shore done give hit to the mail. Ought to remember. Cause I went all the way into Polly to buy it and all the way in again to put it in the mail. ”
“We never did get it, ”Jay said.
“What street did you send it, Aunt Sadie?” Mary asked. “Because we moved not long be ...”
“Never sent it to no street, ” the old woman said. “Never knowed I needed to, Jay working for the post office. ”
“Why, I quit working for the post office a long time back, Aunt Sadie. Even before that. ”
“Well I reckon that’s how come then. Cause I just sent hit to ‘Post Office, Cristobal, Canal Zone, Panama,’ and I spelt hit right, too. C-r-i...”
“Oh, ” Mary said.
“Aw,” Jay said. “Why, Aunt Sadie, I thought you’d a known. We been living in Knoxvul since pert near two years before Rufus was born.”
She looked at him keenly and angrily, raising her hands slowly from the edge of the auto, and brought them down so hard that Rufus jumped. Then she nodded, several times, and still she did not say anything. At last she spoke, coldly, “Well, they might as well just put me out to grass, ” she said. “Lay me down and give me both barls threw the head. ”
“Why, Aunt Sadie,” Mary said gently, but nobody paid any attention.
After a moment the old woman went on solemnly, staring hard into Jay’s eyes: “I knowed that like I know my own name and it plumb slipped my mind.”
“Oh what a shame, ” Mary said sympathetically.
“Hit ain’t shame I feel,” the old woman said, “hit’s sick in the stummick. ”
“Oh I didn’t m ...”
“Right hyer!” and she slapped her hand hard against her stomach and laid her hand back on the edge of the auto. “If I git like that too, ” she said to Jay, “then who’s agonna look out fer her?”
“Aw, tain’t so bad, Aunt Sadie, ” Jay said. “Everybody slips up nown then. Do it myself an I ain’t half yer age. And you just ought see Mary.”
“Gracious, yes, ” Mary said. “I’m just a perfect scatterbrain.”
The old woman looked briefly at Mary and then looked back at Jay. “Hit ain’t the only time, ” she said, “not by a long chalk. Twarn’t three days ago I...” she stopped. “Takin on about yer troubles ain’t never holp nobody, ” she said. “You just set hyer a minute. ”
She turned and walked over to the older woman and leaned deep over against her ear and said quite loudly, but not quite shouting, “Granmaw, ye got company.” And they watched the old woman’s pale eyes, which had been on them all this time in