The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty - Eudora Welty [324]
"I first told him he had taken me by surprise, and then thanked him for the compliment, and then said, after persuasion like that, he could use the parlor, providing he would make it quiet, because my cousin here wasn't up to himself. And he assured me it was the quietest profession on earth. That he had chosen it because it was such quiet, refined work, and also so he could see the world and so many members of the human race. I said I was a philosopher too, only I thought the sooner the better, and we made it today. And he borrowed a bucket of water and poured it steaming down the radiator, and returned the bucket, and was gone. I almost couldn't believe he'd been here.
"Then here today, right after dinner, in they start pouring. There's more people living in and around Mingo community than you can shake a stick at, more than you would ever dream. Here they come, out of every little high road and by road and cover and dell, four and five and six at the time—draw up or hitch up down at the foot of the hill and come up and shake hands like Sunday visitors. Everybody that can walk, and two that can't. I've got one preacher out there brought by a delegation. Oh, it's like Saturday and Sunday put together. The rounds the fella must have made! It's not as quiet as all he said, either. There's those mean little children, he never said a word about them, the spook.
"So I said all right, mister, I'm ready for you. I'll show them where they can sit and where they can wait, and I'll call them. I says to them, 'When it's not your turn, please don't get up. If you want anything, ask me.' And I told them that any that had to, could smoke, but I wasn't ready to have a fire today, so mind out.
"And he took the parlor right over and unpacked his suitcase, and put up his lights, and unfolded a camp stool, until he saw the organ bench with the fringe around it. And shook out a big piece of scenery like I'd shake out a bedspread and hooked it to the wall, and commenced pouring that little powder along something like a music stand. "First!" he says, and commenced calling them in. I took over that. He and I go by his book and take them in order one at a time, all fair, honest, and above-board."
"And so what about Uncle Felix!" cried Kate, as if now she had her.
"The niggers helped, to get him back there, but it was mostly my fat little self," said Sister Anne. "Oh, you mean how come he consented? I expect I told him a story." She led us back to the hall, where a banjo hung like a stopped clock, and some small, white-haired children were marching to meet each other, singing "Here Comes the Duke A-Riding, Riding," in flat, lost voices. I too used to think that breezeway was as long as a tunnel through some mountain.
"Get!" said Sister Anne, and clapped her hands at them. They flung to the back, off the back porch into the sun, and scattered toward the barn. With reluctance I observed that Sister Anne's fingers were bleeding from the roses. Off in the distance, a herd of black cows moved in a light of green, the feathery April pastures deep with the first juicy weeds of summer.
There was a small ell tacked onto the back of the house, down a turn of the back porch, leading, as I knew, to the bathroom and the other little room behind that. A young woman and little boy were coming out of the bathroom.
"Look at that," shuddered Sister Anne. "Didn't take them long to find out what we've got."
I never used to think that back room was to be taken seriously