Tammy out of Time Read online

  “Oh, dear me, Tammy, please be quiet.”

  “I’ll be quiet, but I’ll tell you and——”

  Mrs. Brent cried, “Oh, Mr. Bissle, here you are! Do come have a second breakfast with us.” Then Barbara came out, and Pete came down the stairs.

  Mr. Bissle beamed on everyone. “Good morning, good morning!” He shook one finger at Mrs. Brent, saying, “Not another thing, thanks. Have to look out for the liver, you know.” He turned to Barbara. “How’s my little cousin this morning? Stunning as always.” He planted a kiss on her cheek. “Don’t tell me we aren’t kissing cousins, because I know better.”

  Barbara laughed. “How about a stroll in the garden, Cousin Al, before I have coffee? I want to see that new car of yours.”

  “Sure thing. I want you to see that little job. Lovely day, isn’t it,” he added as they went down the steps. “Fine old ante-bellum place—the real thing.”

  Pete looked after them rather darkly in spite of the glance Barbara flung him over her shoulder as she went. Then he kissed the top of his mother’s hair, nodded to Tammy and said, “Sunday morning and Osia’s battercakes—that’s worth getting up for. And we’ve got a fine day, Tammy.” His eyes sought the far field where it was a fine day for growing things, too.

  Tammy nodded and filled up with happiness. He hadn’t forgotten.

  After a little Barbara came back. “It’s a swell car.” She took the chair Pete placed for her. “Cousin Al’s polishing off the rear end that wouldn’t go in—it’s so long. It’s even got a vase for flowers. It’s big enough to hang pictures in. Wouldn’t I love a car like that!”

  Miss Renie said, “I have a small canvas he might like. It’s the one of Rosa Bonheurs six kittens and the garden toad.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Bissle’s taste doesn’t run to kittens, Aunt Renie.” Pete smiled.

  “Or toads,” Professor Brent said. “Not unless he’s promoting frogs’ legs, in which case he would prefer a bathing beauty poised for a dive into the frog pond, saying to the old bullfrog on the bank, ‘I just adore frogs’ legs.’”

  “And he’d reply, ‘It’s mutual, sister.’” Pete laughed. “We ought to go into advertising, Dad. Between us we’d amount to something special.”

  Mrs. Brent said, “Don’t joke about serious things, Peter. I wonder if we had better have hot rolls or spoon bread for dinner. Of course there will be dumplings with the chickens.”

  Miss Renie turned on her quickly. “Are you planning to have chicken for dinner?”

  “Certainly. I thought you heard me last night when I invited Mr. Bissle.”

  Miss Renie rose hastily, setting Picasso on her shoulder. “You didn’t give me much time to prepare them, Ena.” She called kitchenward, “Osia, send Roots along with the bucket of scraps for the chickens.”

  Tammy said, “Miss Renie, I could clean the chickens for you.”

  “Heavens,” Miss Renie turned on the steps, “you don’t think I’m going to clean chickens, do you?”

  “But you said, prepare them. Don’t you take their innards out before you cook them?”

  “I’m not thinking of their innards,” Miss Renie snapped, sweeping on down the steps. “I go to prepare their immortal souls.”

  “Goshamighty!” Tammy breathed.

  “Well said, Tammy,” Professor Brent said.

  Miss Renie stopped on the walk. “I have to have a little fun.” She went a few steps more and turned again. “You don’t want me to be a frustrated old maid like some of these you read about that drown themselves in the rain barrel, do you?”

  “No, indeed, Aunt Renie. Have fun,” Pete called, and Professor Brent said at the same time, “I should say not—it would contaminate the drinking water.”

  Miss Renie gave a snort and went on. Tammy looked from one to the other. “What was she talking about?”

  Professor Brent explained. “Aunt Renie, Tammy, believes in the transmigration of souls. She goes now to tell the chickens that two chicken souls, or three, perhaps, will shortly ascend to some higher form of life—such as the pig or the goat. Though if their conduct in the poultry world has not been of noble sort, it is possible that they descend to earthworm or roach.”

  Tammy listened, openmouthed. “That would sure make a sight of souls. Would every crawling thing have a soul—like a red bug or a louse?”

  Barbara laughed and turned to talk to Pete, on the other side of her.

  “Oh, dear, Joel,” Mrs. Brent sighed. “Must we go into all this?

  I am trying to plan dinner and——”

  “Just a word more, Ena. This is really an interesting idea and one cherished by many people of great intelligence. Part of Tammy’s education. Yes, Tammy, even bacteria and the yeasts may have souls. And if so, why should the vegetable world go soulless?” He looked over the garden and beyond the fence to where onions and lettuce made green rows against the earth. “There would be a progression there, too, perhaps, from turnip to more spiritual parsley. Who knows?”

  Barbara was talking to Pete in a low tone, but Pete was not really listening, Tammy thought. She could tell by the laughter in his eyes as he looked from his father to her and back again. Tammy said, “But on judgment day there’d be an awful mix-up, with such a power of bodies for one soul.”

  “That is a contingency for which I am personally unprepared.” Professor Brent said.

  Pete laughed aloud and Barbara looked annoyed. “Excuse me,

  Barbara, I——” Pete began.

  Tammy leaned forward, hooking her bare feet around the legs of her chair. “Would they work up to humans, maybe?”

  “Human beings are generally considered a higher form, though there are times when I have my doubts.”

  “And what would humans go on to?”

  “There we enter the speculative realm, if we have ever been out of it. The evolution of man——”

  “Please, Joel.” Mrs. Brent passed one hand across her brow. “I can’t think when you are talking.”

  Tammy leaned back in her chair and put a final question. “Is it thinking about their souls that makes Miss Renie so fond of cats?”

  Professor Brent looked at her over his glasses. “She expects to become a cat in her next incarnation.”

  Barbara turned to Mrs. Brent. “I know you are going to have a wonderful dinner, Mrs. Brent, but I’ve just been trying to tell Pete that Cousin A wants to take him and me to Jackson to that new eating place with the French name. It would give them a good chance to get acquainted, I thought.”

  Mrs. Brent brightened. “Now that’s an idea.”

  Pete said, “1 am going to take Tammy to see her Grandpa today. You come with us, Barbara. Another day Mr. Bissle can——”

  “There won’t be another day, Pete. You know I’m taking afternoons off these next two weeks so as to come help receive the pilgrims. I won’t have any time. But say, why can’t we go by and drop Tammy at the jail and pick her up on the way home? Here comes Cousin Al. I’ll tell him.”

  Pete shook his head. “It’s too far and besides...well, that isn’t the way I planned it.”

  “Too far, nonsense! In a car like that? We can go around through Long haven—with New York plates—that’ll be swell. Everybody will open their eyes.”

  Mrs. Brent nodded her approval. “Of course you’ll go.” Then she called to Mr. Bissle, “Come right in and join us. We linger at table Sunday mornings.”

  “But I——” Pete began.

  “Oh, Pete, don’t be stuffy. Cousin Al wants to show us a good time—and does he know how!” She smiled around at Mr. Bissle as he came to stand behind her chair, one hand on her shoulder.

  “Peter, please,” Mrs. Brent said in a hasty aside. “I don’t know what’s come over you. You never used to be so——”

  Tammy saw the tense set look come into Pete’s face and she turned away, her head bowed. He wanted to go with Barbara. She could not keep him back from what he wanted to do. “I could give you back your promise, Pete,” she
said in a small voice.

  “That settles it.” Barbara leaned back, smiling, triumphant.

  Tammy flung around. She stiffened. “But I ain’t agoing to.”

  “Why, Tammy—” Mrs. Brent began.

  Pete ignored them both. “Thanks for the invitation, Mr. Bissle, but I have already promised to take Tammy to see her grandfather today.”

  Barbara shrugged and Mr. Bissle nodded. “That’s okay by me.” He gave Pete a shrewd look. “Like to see a man stick by his guns. Barbara’ll show me the country, and I’ll show her how it feels to ride in a real car for a change.”

  15.

  PETE’S car was not like Mr. Bissle’s, nor yet like Ernie’s either. It was a jolty car without a top and it rattled and bumped along the road. It had no music. But Tammy thought that a fair enough arrangement, for with Pete there was no need of vases full of flowers, nor music. To be near him was a song singing, though now the song ran in a minor key, subdued, because Pete had a silent spell on him. Glancing at him now and then, she could almost see into his thinking, feel his sharp disappointment. Well, she sighed, watching the fields and green woods go by, this ought to show her. What was the use having him away with her, all to herself, if his mind and heart stayed behind?

  She kept her silence, hoping the distance would thin out his thoughts of Barbara who liked better to go off with New York plates and white-rimmed wheels than to ride with him. Barbara had made up to him at the last, coming out to the car, laying her lovely white arm along its window, talking and laughing while Tammy ran to the kitchen to get the lunch Osia had packed in a shoe box. She waved good-by and said, “See you tomorrow,” as they left, but she had put a pucker in Pete’s mind like a green persimmon in the mouth. Maybe after a while it would get washed out.

  The road was not the same road Ernie had taken. It held the morning sun behind them and it went with many turnings where it was going. There was no dust on the trees that bordered it, for the traffic was light. The new green leaves shone like water where the sun fell, and the oak tassels were gold. They passed a hollow where bush honeysuckle bloomed on either bank. It was delicate and rosy, like a sunrise cloud strayed off from the sky, to hide itself and lie low till tomorrow’s dawn. Tammy looked to one side and the other, and was glad Pete was not taking her to towns.

  He followed her glance now, seeing what she saw—cattle grazing on a grassy slope. “I always like to see cows on a hill like that.”

  “Reckon you’d like to have cattle on a thousand hills, wouldn’t you, Pete?”

  “A fat chance I’ve got of having any, except Aunt Renie’s moth eaten old Jersey.”

  “But Pete——” She shook her head. “I can’t understand it, your talking so poor and down, when you’ve got so much. Even a car.”

  “Such as it is.” He laughed.

  “Runs, don’t it? And Brenton Hall—it’s an elegant place.”

  “I’ll tell you how it is, Tammy.” It seemed to ease him to be saying it out. “It’s not just that the place is shabby and needs repairs, it’s the actual lack of cash. It’s the way you have to have money to get it back into running condition. Aunt Renie has been selling off the timber all these years to pay taxes, to keep herself from starving. Oh, I could get a job in town. I could probably get a good job with Mr. Bissle. I’m not so dumb that I don’t see that’s what my mother and Barbara are wangling for. Maybe I’m just a fool, but—” he turned the car aside to miss a hard-shell turtle crossing the road—“let’s skip it, shall we? Maybe I’ll clean up on tomatoes. And anyway I’d like to have one day off, free from thinking about anything but just what’s here and now.”

  “That’s what I been wanting you to do, Pete.”

  He leaned back in his seat and let his hands lie loose on the wheel. They rode in silence, but now it was different. A kind of peace had come over him and the silence was sweet. After a while he slowed the car. “Know where you are, Tammy?” He stopped on the side of the road in the shade of a magnolia tree.

  Tammy, looking ahead, saw a bridge. “The bayou bridge,” she whispered. At the side of the road was a path leading back past the magnolia, dipping down into the cool shade of the swamp. Tammy could see no more because a mist came into her eyes. “Pete——” Her voice broke.

  “We’ll take our lunch and picnic on the Ellen B.,” Pete said. “That’s what I was planning all along. You can leave your shoes in the car.”

  Tammy led the way along the path, skipping, running, whirling to be sure Pete was behind her still. The full foliage spread a canopy against the sky, the air was cool and damp. The spring water, when they stopped to sample it, was pure and cold as ever.

  “It’s a wonder,” Tammy said, “how it all goes on just the same, how you can go away and come back and find it all here.”

  They crossed the log over the bayou’s still black water, mounted the long slope and came out at last on the top of the bluff. The river danced and sparkled under the noon sun. The Ellen B. was snuggled safe among the green willows, below the bluff. Tammy ran helter-skelter down the bank and a hen flew up cackling madly, scattering chicks to right and left. “It’s the old Dominicker,” Tammy cried, stopping, panting. “Stole a nest and got her a brood. She’s a smart one, she is.”

  Pete pulled on the hawser and drew in the Ellen B. and Tammy leaped across, not waiting for the gangplank. She danced the round of the deck and came back as Pete stepped aboard. “I’m fair wild,” she said. “I could kiss the deck and hug the stovepipe. I could lie down and die of pure pleasure.”

  “You’re right,” Pete said. “It’s good to get back. I’m going to sit down and just look at the river. But I ought to have told you we were coming here, so you could have brought your key.”

  “I’ve got it, Pete, pinned in the front of my dress with the money Grandpa gave me. I keep it on all the time.”

  Pete sat with his back against the shanty wall, his eyes on the water, and Tammy unlocked the door and went in. It was musty smelling and dark inside, strange and familiar both. Tammy walked slowly around the kitchen, touching table, stove and each small thing, letting her fingers know that she was home. There was nothing missing but Grandpa, and she was going to see him soon. She caught up the water bucket and went out to Pete. He had such a look of content on his face that she told him to sit and rest while she went back to the spring for cool water. Gosha mighty, but it was good to be with her own again!

  Back from the spring, she found that Pete had brought out Grandma’s chair to the deck and was studying it. “I would like to make some chairs like this. If I’d thought to bring a tape measure, I could get the size.”

  “Why don’t we take it back with us, Pete? It’d sure make me feel at home, having Grandma’s chair to sit in when I get a lonesome feeling.”

  “Good idea. It’ll go in the back of the car.”

  They picnicked on deck, under the shade of the little tin roof that made a porch, not talking much, not needing to talk. When Pete said it was time to go, Tammy said they must go by to see Grandma’s grave before they left.

  It was quiet in the little graveyard atop the bluff, no breath of air stirring the moss, no tremble in the cedar’s branches save when a thrush whirred out, startled by their coming. The grass was green and tall on Grandma’s grave, and Tammy thought that if she could look out of Heaven and see Pete sitting down in her rocking chair, she would be pleased to have him here. Tammy sat on the ground at his feet, her hands clasped around her knees and looked out over the wide bright water and the low-lying far Louisiana shore. “Peaceful, ain’t it?” she said.

  He was silent a long time, then he said, “Why can’t I feel like this all the time? Is it the river—or is it you?” He looked down at her, smiling a little.

  Tammy hid her face against her knees. After a while she said, “I know how it is with you, Pete. You feel for people—that’s why they can pull you this way and that. And when you love them—and you can’t go their way—it hurts you. See yonder driftwood out i
n the river?”

  “I see it.”

  “You’re kind of like that, Pete, with the current pulling one way and the eddy going another. You’re caught in the ways of the water.”

  “Am I driftwood?”

  “Till you come out of puzzling and take up your life, I reckon that’s what you are, Pete.” She turned, trying to read his face to see if he was mad with her for speaking it out.

  But he couldn’t be, for after a moment he said, “You see, Tammy, I’ve been feeling I ought to find something special, something...big. Because this is three times now that my life has been saved, when others weren’t. It makes me stop and think. That’s what I’ve been doing—just thinking. Twice in the war, and once here, it’s happened.”

  “Seems like the Lord has a reason—is that what you mean?”

  “That’s one way of putting it, yes.”

  “Seems like you ought to do something important?”

  Pete nodded.

  Tammy chewed on a grass stem. “Out in the world there is a lot of people, and just a few of them do really big things. I reckon, if they’re good things, the Lord told them what to do.”

  “Nobody’s told me anything to do.” Pete smiled down at her ruefully.

  Then maybe, Pete, maybe——”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe what you do isn’t so important as how you do it. That depends on how you are, inside yourself. That’s how you can be big as the biggest. It’s how you come out even with them.”

  Pete leaned down and tweaked her hair. “You’re a funny one Tammy—so wise and yet——”

  Tammy rose, turning her head away to hide the sudden trembling of her lips. When Pete spoke that way——Oh, that wasn’t the way she wanted him to feel about her! “I’m not so funny as you think,” she said in a choked, small voice. And then, to cover it, she added quickly, “I’ve got a longing for the sight of Grandpa. It’s seeing the river and all, I reckon. And it might be far to where he is.”

  “Of course, Tammy.” He got up quickly. “I’ve just been thinking about myself. I think about myself entirely too much.” He took one arm of the chair and Tammy the other, and so they went slowly down the glen and across the bayou and back to the road and the car.