As Joe took
the family to the Wabash Drive-In near Attica to see Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, he slowed down and ran the
right-hand wheels of the Chevrolet onto the berm when he passed Russell
Mitchell’s farm. Joe’s eyes roamed across the Holsteins in the pasture. He
worried that Russell’s sons might have a heifer so promising that she could
challenge Buttercup for the championship at the county fair.
After
eating his popcorn, Robert fell asleep for most of the movie. Ida considered
waking him, but she found the motion picture so preposterously long that she
thought a sound sleep might outweigh the historical value. To her, the
extravagant scenes felt pompous and out of place with the mood of the country
that the television was establishing. About a year earlier, the family had
attended The Music Man at the Mars
Theater in Lafayette, and Robert had eagerly watched every moment of that
rousing musical. Now Ida glanced into the back seat to see Robert peacefully
dreaming. She began to wonder if she would miss anything if she, too, were to
take a nap during Cleopatra. The
squawking speaker hanging on the edge of Joe’s window kept droning on and on.
The weekend
arrived when Uncle Harold’s car crunched the pebbles of the half-circle
driveway in front of the house.
“They’re
here!” Robert called from his perch at the front window, where he had been
vigilantly watching.
It was
early Sunday morning, and everyone was dressed for church. The summer day had
turned off blessedly cooler after a hot week—almost like the springtime!
Dapper
Uncle Harold wore a neatly trimmed mustache and was one of the few mustachioed
men in Robert’s experience. Uncle Harold escorted daughters Sally and Becky and
Aunt Della through the front gate. Robert loved hearing Uncle Harold’s Georgia
accent!
Wearing her
new dress, which had just arrived from the mail-order house, Ida greeted her
sister, who took Ida’s hand and held it closely in her own. Robert looked back
and forth from his mother to his aunt and noted the resemblance.
“You look
so pretty, Ida,” Della said.
“The dress
is new,” Ida beamed. “Look how much your daughters have grown!” Ida turned to
Sally and Becky. “You’re young ladies now,” she said.
Robert
considered his cousins more beautiful than the girls in The Music Man.
Charles
said, “After church, we can ride bikes!”
Sally
laughed. “Charles,” she said “I wonder what I would look like wearing this
dress and trying to pedal a boy’s bike?”
Joe said,
“You know how much you enjoyed steering the tractor the last time you visited.
I can put a blanket on the seat and we can go for a ride on the
Minneapolis–Moline Z, if you want to later on.”
Ida said,
“I think the girls may want to walk with Della and me around the garden and see
the flowers this time.”
Meanwhile,
Uncle Harold handed Ida a box full of oranges.
“You didn’t
grow these in Georgia!” Ida exclaimed.
Harold
smiled. “No, these are from Florida.”
“Well, they
look wonderful,” Ida said, as she turned to carry the box into the kitchen.
“We’ll be having a big dinner after church,” she called back over her shoulder.
“Maybe we can add some oranges to the fruit cups.”
Harold and
Joe drove their families to the Methodist Church, where Grandpa and Grandma
Morris were waiting on the steps.
“It is so
good to see you,” Grandpa Morris said, shaking hands with Harold while Fern
quickly hugged Della.
“Aren’t
your girls dressed so nice!” Grandma Morris said.
“They’re
young ladies,” Grandpa Morris observed.
“That’s
exactly what I said,” Ida commented.
In the car,
Ida had put on her new white gloves and had adjusted her blue hat, which she
had simplified to match the new styles. As Ida and Della walked down the aisle,
Robert thought his mother and his aunt looked radiant and charming. He felt
proud that his aunt was so becoming in her dove-gray dress and matching hat of
the latest fashion.
Pastor
David Richards invited the congregation to sing the first hymn. Although he
felt that he did not sing well, Robert could easily read the music. He enjoyed
listening to his mother’s clear soprano voice and his father’s resonant
baritone voice. As a young man, his father had performed with a quartet, and
his experience showed in his confident singing.
The
sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows cast pastel patterns on
the pews. While the Rev. Richards gave the sermon, Robert watched the pink,
gold, and turquoise lights play across his mother’s gloved hands, which she
held clasped together until it was time to lift the hymnal again from the
varnished rack attached to the back of the pew in front. The spring-like
weather made the day seem like Easter in the middle of summer.
Ida and
Della had much to talk about over the lavish dinner that Ida had prepared.
Sally, Becky, Charles, and Robert sat at a folding table beside the main table.
(Joe had removed the davenport to make room in the crowded kitchen.) Grandpa
and Grandma Morris, Harold, Della, Joe, and Ida sat around the big table, which
had been greatly expanded with extra leaves. Both tables were covered with
antique linen tablecloths that Ida had ironed until there were no traces of
wrinkles to be seen.
After the
meal, everyone sauntered into the yard.
Charles
glanced longingly at the red bike lying on its side near the well, but he
realized that Sally and Becky’s dresses prohibited riding. Ida’s summer flowers
were in full bloom. Becky clapped her hands when she saw a hybrid tea rose
covered with big yellow blossoms.
“I love
this,” she said, gesturing toward a rectangular flower garden running almost
all the way across the yard from the house on the west to the garage on the
east. In the center was an arched trellis with a climbing rose that was
enjoying a second blush of red blooms.
“I was
standing by that trellis,” Ida said, “on the morning when Robert was born. I
can hardly believe he’ll turn nine in a few days.”
“He’s
already steering the tractor when I haul cornstalks to the cows,” Joe said,
with a smile toward Sally.
“I’ll steer
for you the next time we visit,” Sally said, smiling back. “Aunt Ida, what is
this called?” Sally asked, pointing toward a large, tangled bush.
“Do you
mean the Japonica?” Ida returned. “It blooms in the spring.”
“I think what
I’m seeing is blooming now,” Sally said.
“Show me,”
Ida suggested.
Sally found
a way into the flower bed without stepping on a plant, and she pointed directly
at what looked like a miniature ear of green Indian corn on a stem.
“Oh, those
are the seeds of Jack-in-the-pulpit!” Ida exclaimed. “They turn red in the
fall.”
“Has it
already bloomed then?” Sally asked.
“Yes, it
bloomed in the spring. The pulpit looks like the old-fashioned ones that had an
ornate canopy overhead. Under the canopy is this same stem, only much smaller
when the plant is blooming. His name is Jack.”
“Can you
eat the seeds?” Sally wondered.
“No,” Ida
said. “The plant is poisonous, but the Indians had a way of preparing it as
medicine.”
“It’s beautiful!”
Sally exclaimed.
“It’s so
peaceful here,” Della said, peering intently at her sister. “Everything else
seems to be in such turmoil these days.”
Ida nodded,
not able to put her thoughts into words but fearing that the world that Sally,
Becky, Charles, and Robert would one day inhabit as adults might not be so
peaceful.
The time
had passed too quickly. Uncle Harold, Aunt Della, Sally, and Becky had to
leave. They were going to stay overnight in West Point before returning to
Georgia the next day. Aunt Della hugged Ida. The sisters’ eyes glistened.
Uncle
Harold waved from the driver’s window as he made a U-turn and headed east on
State Route 26. Charles and Robert waved back. Robert felt sad to see them go,
but he knew they would come again before long.
In the mean
time, Joe changed into his work clothes and went to the barn to start the
evening chores. He looked carefully at Buttercup strolling with the other
Holsteins along the path in the meadow. She glowed in the honey and amber light
of late afternoon. Had she grown into the young lady that would take the
championship ribbon at the fair? Joe would soon find out.
