Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [44]
Stargazing
THE FRIDAY AFTER Betty Raye left, Bobby’s Cub Scout troop was supposed to have gone on a field trip to the Indian mounds outside of town to look for arrowheads. The trip was canceled because of rain. But Bobby did not mind. He loved to go sit on the porch on warm rainy days and listen to the sounds of the cars swishing up and down the wet streets. Everything was green and lush and wet. He daydreamed all afternoon until about four o’clock, when the sun came back out as bright as ever. But the rain had left the air fresh and cleared away some of the mugginess of August. This was Monroe’s turn to spend the night with him, and after dinner, as usual, they all started to wander out onto the porch. Mother Smith walked over to the edge and looked up at the sky and announced, “I’m going out and look at the stars. Anybody want to come with me?” Bobby and Monroe said they would go and all three headed out to the backyard. Mother Smith sat in a wooden chair and Bobby and Monroe lay on the lawn beside her to enjoy the show. “It’s so clear tonight,” Mother Smith said. “Have you ever seen so many pretty stars? Look, there’s the Big Dipper and Venus. I’ll bet we see a shooting star before the night’s over.”
Bobby loved to be with Mother Smith like this, watching for shooting stars and asking her questions.
“Grandma, what was the world like when you were little? Was everything real different?”
“Well, it was a different time.”
“Did people look different than we do?”
“No, people looked pretty much the same but we didn’t have a lot of things you do today. Don’t forget, that was way back in the eighteen hundreds.”
“During the Civil War?” asked Monroe, wide-eyed.
“Not that far back. But I can remember my father talking about it and when I was little we had this sword hung over the mantelpiece.”
“A sword?” said Bobby. “A real one?”
“Oh yes. He was a Confederate soldier during the war.”
“Did he kill people with it?”
“Oh, I doubt it. I think it was mostly for show.”
“Do you still have it?”
“No, that was years ago. I think my brother took it or maybe it got lost.”
Bobby said, “But he was a real soldier though, wasn’t he?”
“Absolutely, and so was your Great-grandfather Smith on your daddy’s daddy’s side, but he fought for the Union. Both from the same town. But that’s how it was back then.”
Bobby was amazed. He could not imagine that his grandmother had been alive so long ago. “Were there stars back then?”
She laughed. “Yes, honey, when I was your age I saw the same stars and moon that are up there now. Nature doesn’t change, just people. New ones are born every year but the stars and the moon stay the same. We just didn’t have cars or movies or radios or electricity yet.”
“What was that like?”
“Very quiet.”
Monroe made a face. “That must have been terrible.”
“Yeah,” Bobby agreed. “You must have been bored.”
“Not really. We had other things. We had books and we played games and sang and went to parties. You know, you don’t miss what you don’t know.”
“What did you want to be when you grew up, Grandma?”
Mother Smith smiled. “Believe it or not, at one time I thought I’d like to be a famous scientist like Madame Curie, maybe find a cure for some terrible disease.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“My father could only afford to send one child to college, so Brother was the one to go and there went my dreams of being the next Madame Curie.”
Bobby said, “Tell us about where you went on your honeymoon and that hotel.”
“Bobby, you’ve heard that story a hundred times.”
“I don’t care, Monroe hasn’t heard it. Tell it again.”
“I haven’t heard it,” said Monroe.
“Well . . . after your grandfather and I were married we got on the train and rode it all the way to North Carolina for our honeymoon. He wouldn’t tell me where we were going. He wanted it to be a surprise and all he would tell me was that it was a famous hotel overlooking the most beautiful lake in the world. I’ll never forget that first night we were there. After dinner we walked out on this wide veranda overlooking