Tammy out of Time Read online

  “It’s a wonder all right.” Ernie sat down suddenly as if his legs had given out under him. “But I don’t believe I mean what you mean, or do you really mean it?”

  Tammy had no time to puzzle out his talk. She could not wait any longer to get started cooking on such a fine stove. She ran to the sink table and caught up the bucket. “Where do you go for water?”

  “You don’t go, sugar. It arrives! See?” He came over to the sink table and took hold of a handle. He pumped it up and down and after a moment water gushed forth. “There. Man over Nature and all that.”

  Tammy put out her hand and let the clear cool water run through her fingers, then she set the bucket to catch it. “However does it get here when there’s no river to pump it from?”

  “Cistern under the floor. Rain water runs off the roof into it. Some system of gutters, I suppose. A great luxury when installed some eighty-odd years ago. Very odd years, if you ask me.”

  “And I have to walk half a mile for water like this,” Tammy marveled. “Stop—it’s wasting. Now where’s the food to cook?”

  “Right here, sister.” Ernie kept his eyes on her as he crossed the room to the tall white box. “I wouldn’t miss this for a pretty,” he said and flung open the door with a flourish.

  Tammy gave a little gasp. “Just like the picture in the magazine Cap’n Joe brought me!” She stood there, barely breathing, feeling the cool air pour forth, hearing the low buzz, admiring the racks and shelves. “It’s a dream come true,” she whispered. “Oh, I had no notion Pete lived in such...such elegance!”

  “Don’t be taken in by the glamorous past, honey child. The place is really on the rocks. If it wasn’t for the Pilgrimage money, Lord knows how they’d get the taxes paid.”

  Tammy turned from the refrigerator to see if he was joking, but he had no laughter in his blue eyes now. “How could a pilgrimage make money?”

  “Admission fees, my child, like to the zoo, the circus and the county fair. It’s big business for Natchez and all the country parts around, such as this. People come in droves from every state in the union to see these old places and go to the Rebel Ball and such.”

  “What is that?”

  “Old-time dances—like we were practicing on last night.”

  Tammy’s eyes went back to the refrigerator. “This must have cost a pile of money.”

  Ernie rested one arm on the top of the refrigerator door and regarded her with bright laughing eyes. “Miss Renie’s responsible for this little job. Sacrificed the crown jewels to get it, and did Mrs. B. raise a stink!”

  “You mean she didn’t like it?”

  “Exactly, little one. Though I believe the place belongs to Miss Renie—this little jewel of a house, this ante-bellum plantation home, reeking with history and glamour, as they say in the Pilgrimage pamphlets. The Brents just visit now and then. Mrs. B. just lives for the Pilgrimage.” He put on an air and made his voice high-toned, “Yes, the ancestral home, five generations under this roof. Note the fan over the door.” He dropped his voice. “But don’t note how the door is warped, and pray don’t observe how the roof leaks.”

  “Does the roof leak?”

  “Like a sieve, sister.”

  It troubled her, that the roof leaked. The Ellen B. had no leak. “Why doesn’t Pete mend it?”

  “Pete mend a roof? Child, he works with his brain, that lad. Except when he’s carving out things that satisfy his artistic cravings—like the bed in your room.”

  “Oh! Pete carved that?” It filled her with pleasure that she had slept on a bed that Pete had made.

  “But meanwhile, honey child, I starve, and the cold escapes. That’s bacon in the paper at the left and behold the eggs in a blue bowl.”

  Tammy took them out, turning from the refrigerator with reluctance. “I just love it,” she said.

  Ernie got out the milk and butter and leaned against the door to close it. The handle clicked shut without his even touching it. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing would give me more pure delight than to show you the Seven Wonders of the World. Only at the moment, I slowly starve. If you could just convert these to eatable shape——”

  “It would pleasure me,” Tammy cried gaily and set to work. “It’ll sure pleasure me to watch you do it.” Ernie grinned and sat down by the window.

  Tammy was proud that she knew how to cook the eggs and bacon and make fresh coffee and toast from the boughten bread that was all sliced and ready. When the two plates were served and she was sitting down at the table with Ernie, she said, “I haven’t had a meal since I left the Ellen B. I’m about stove in.” Then Ernie wanted to know about the Ellen B. and about everything else she had seen or done in all her born days. She told him between quick bites. “Listen,” he said at last, pushing his plate aside and leaning across the table toward her. “I’ve got to go now, but don’t forget me. We’ve got a date. I’m going to show you the world—not to mention the flesh and the devil.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m going to take you to see things—like the refrigerator, only better. In short, to town, to the shops and shows and hot spots and everything. How about it?”

  “Oh, Ernie, I’ve always wanted to see things.”

  “I’m your man. I will take you up into a high place and show you all the world.”

  Tammy shook her head, sobering. “Not that. That’s what the devil did.”

  Ernie leaned back straightening his tie. “And the devil’s what I am among the ladies, little one.”

  Tammy laughed. “You are the beatingest!”

  “We’re going to have fun, more fun than a barrel of monkeys. But right now it’s back to the salt mines for me.” He stood, looking down at her, smiling.

  “You work in a salt mine?”

  Ernie grinned. “Yes, only they call it a real-estate office. And just you wait till you see that house I’m about to pick up on a little deal I’ve got on. Latest gadgets, everything. Even Barb will open her eyes at that.”

  “You have a house?”

  “Not yet but soon—and so farewell.”

  “You have to go?”

  “That’s the general idea. Got to make a living. But I’ll give you a ring. So long for now.”

  “So long,” Tammy repeated. “It will seem...so long...till I see you again.”

  Ernie wheeled in the doorway. He came back quickly and put his hands on her shoulders. “Get me straight, sugar. I’m just out for a good time, that’s all. I saw enough of the sober side of life in the war. All I want is to make money and have fun. See? Nix on the serious.”

  “You don’t have to be serious, Ernie. I like you funny.”

  “My Lord!” Ernie gave her a little shake. “I really don’t want to seduce you.”

  “It would be an accident if you did, I’m sure,” Tammy said with earnestness.

  Ernie stepped back and looked at her, his head cocked to one side. “I was never so baffled by woman before.” Then he was gone.

  Tammy sat smiling to herself. Woman—he had called her a woman. She wished Pete could see she was a woman growed.

  9

  TAMMY was still in the kitchen when she heard steps on the ell porch. She went to the door and saw Pete’s father sitting there at the table close by the rail. His book was open before him, his head bent over it, showing how his hair was thin on top. Tammy did not know whether to say good morning, or what to do.

  After a minute he seemed to feel that someone was near. “Breakfast, please, Osia,” he said without looking up.

  Tammy started to speak, then she thought she would just fix his plate for him and see what happened. When she set it before him, he turned his head slowly. He lifted his brows, letting his glasses slip down on his nose so he could look over them. “Oh—I thought you were Osia. Tammy, isn’t it?” He untwined his long legs and stood, holding out his hand. “How do you do?”

  “I do very well, thank you. Osia didn’t c
ome and so I fixed breakfast.”

  “I see. Well now, that’s nice of you, going to all that trouble. You are certainly an early riser.” His voice was deep and his words came one at a time with slowness and importance.

  “I’ve been up for hours, and it’s no trouble cooking in such a wonderful kitchen with the bacon all sliced and the bread ready-made and the refrigerator cooling everything.”

  “I see,” he said again, but he didn’t look as if he saw very much. “I was...er...sorry to hear about your...er...grandfather.”

  “Yes,” Tammy said with a sigh, “I sure miss him. I thought about him when I woke and wished he could be waking amongst flowers and angels. But that’s not likely.”

  “You...don’t think he’s...among angels?”

  “Not where he’s gone. But you’d better eat whilst it’s hot. I’ll fetch your coffee.” She got some for herself while she was about it and brought both cups out to the porch table, thinking what a luxury it was, having a room to cook in and all this long gallery for an eating place. There was no river to look at, but there were flowers blooming in the garden, and beyond the far fence she could make out the young peas and cabbages and maybe turnip greens growing. She was just about to sit down when Professor Brent came to the back of her chair and took hold of it. “That...that there’s your place——” she began.

  “No, no. Just you sit.”

  Turning an uneasy eye on him, Tammy sat, and felt the chair slide in under her as she went down. Did he think she was too weakly to hitch it in for herself? Or was it just a kind of manners new to her? “I’m much obliged,” she said. “It was real mannerly of you.”

  “What’s that?” He went back to his own place and sat down.

  “I say I’m much obliged for your helping me sit on the chair.”

  “Oh. Yes—that is, you’re welcome. May I take this opportunity of saying how grateful we are for all you and your grandfather did for Pete?”

  Tammy nodded. “You may take it.”

  “Er...take what?”

  “The opportunity. It pleasured us, having Pete,” she added with a smile.

  Professor Brent took a few bites, keeping his eyes on her. “Aren’t you having anything but coffee?”

  “I ate with Ernie. It’s too bad he had to go to the mines. He—he’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys.”

  “Indeed?” Professor Brent looked at her around the corner of his glasses, his brows drawn.

  “Though, come to think of it, the monkeys might be rather uncomfortable, packed into a barrel.” She held up her hand and studied it. “This is the ring finger, isn’t it?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Ernie said he would give me a ring.”

  Professor Brent cleared his throat with a sound like a bark. “It is highly possible that the...the type of fun provided by Ernie may not...be altogether desirable in its...er...ultimate consequences. If you will pardon my saying so.”

  “I will pardon you.” Between his manners and his words, Tammy thought, he had a hard time saying anything, and she was not quite sure what he was saying now. “You mean you think the fun might be of a carnal nature?”

  Professor Brent laid down his knife and fork, then he took them up again. “Well, to be frank...er...yes.”

  “No, he just wants to show me things—he said he wanted to show me the world, the flesh and the devil. But that was just a manner of speaking. He said he didn’t want to seduce me.”

  “Oh.” Professor Brent waited a few minutes, then he finished what was on his plate, studying Tammy all the while. “You don’t go to the movies?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t read the current magazines?”

  “No.”

  “You have not been associated with young people here and there?”

  “No.”

  “And yet you are infected with the frankness of speech rampant among the realists, current among all the younger generation. A curious phenomenon...as if there were something...in the air, the time, causing it. I wonder...my colleagues in the psychology department...it might be an interesting study....”

  Tammy waited for him to continue, hoping something understandable would come out of it. When he said nothing more, she ventured hesitantly, “Professor Brent?”

  “Er...yes?”

  “I was thinking that if you would just speak it out when you think learned things, I might maybe get a start on learning by just listening. If you were simple and not too mannered.”

  “You would like some learning?”

  “I sure would. Only I don’t know just where to begin.”

  “H’m, that is a question. I should inquire of the professor of education, perhaps. Personally I should begin with mathematics and perhaps some of the simpler phases of physical phenomena.” He was silent.

  “What special things do you teach?” Tammy asked after a bit.

  “Physics.”

  She considered the word, seeking something familiar in the sound of it. “External or internal?”

  “External—if one must call it one or the other.”

  “Like liniment? Or...or a poultice?”

  Professor Brent blinked, and spelled it out for her. “Not to be mistaken for physic, meaning medicine, though the sound is similar.”

  “Oh, I mistook it. Then what is it?”

  “To put it simply...as you...er...very sensibly suggest...it is the science of matter, the study of material objects.”

  “Science. Grandpa is always talking about science.”

  “Indeed? There are many fields of science, of course.”

  “Who puts them all together and makes sense of them? I mean who finds out what they mean?”

  “The philosophers try to do that. Though even there, or perhaps I should say most of all there, you would encounter a considerable measure of confusion. Of course some of us go into the implications of higher mathematics, of theoretic physics, but even there——” He shook his head doubtfully.

  “Is no one unconfused? Is no one sure?”

  “No one to my knowledge,” Professor Brent said after some consideration. “Perhaps there is some surety in the past, in what has happened. But the past is too often mere hearsay, myth or fable. Actually nothing is sure, speaking absolutely. A straight line is no longer the shortest distance. Two and two do not necessarily make four. Perhaps from time to time there is an illusion of surety—in experimentally verified mathematical physics, say. And yet as long as there are increases in empirical knowledge, will there not be continual changes in man’s conception of the theoretic component?”

  Tammy seized on the two words that had meaning for her. “Continual changes,” she repeated. “Then there doesn’t seem to be much solid ground to stand on.” She leaned back in her chair considering the complex and uncertain nature of scientific things. Yet surely there was the sun shining on the great oak beyond the side drive, there was the plowed field yonder, stretching to the horizon and the blue sky bending down to meet it. There were people everywhere who had a living and a dying coming to them, who suffered and loved and hated and rejoiced. Those were sure things. And Grandpa was sure about a great many things. “Grandpa says there is a scientific explanation for everything.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes. Take Methuselah, for instance. Grandpa says his living nine hundred sixty-nine years was account of something in his food, and if the doctors keep on figgering, they will find it’s some new kind of stuff they just haven’t noticed yet.”

  “Ahum-mm. An interesting theory.”

  Tammy drew a long breath and filled up with pride that Grandpa had said something a learned man would think well of. “He says that ever since Adam ate of the tree of knowledge, humans have had to reason out every little thing. They ain’t been satisfied by faith any more since then. They’re just bound to figger it all out for themselves. Maybe that’s how-come they’re mixed up. Oh, I could preach a fair sermon myself on that.” Tammy smiled.

  “But in
finding out these things man has increased his convenience and his physical comfort...yet mentally, spiritually——”

  “There’s more confusion out in the world than I thought for,” Tammy said.

  “Yes.” Professor Brent drew the word out on a long sigh. Then he went away into his own mind and was silent.

  Tammy considered his mind. It was likely overgrown with words so he might have a hard time making his way about in it, just as he had a hard time getting anywhere, on account of his manners bogging him down. After a little she slipped out to the kitchen with his dishes. She was washing them when she heard a high-toned quick voice from the gallery. Mrs. Brent had decided to get up.

  “Just a cup of coffee and some toast, Osia,” she called.

  Professor Brent said, “Osia isn’t here. That’s Tammy.”

  “Tammy? In the kitchen? Well, that’s one worry off my mind.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure. This is a most unusual case.”

  Tammy went to the door and wished Mrs. Brent good morning. “I’ll bring your toast and coffee.”

  Mrs. Brent smiled briefly, showing her false even teeth. They clicked a little as she spoke, as if reminding her in the midst of her ordering that she could not order everything. “Dry toast, please. You really are making yourself useful, aren’t you?”

  “Grandpa told me to,” Tammy said and waited to see Professor Brent push in Mrs. Brent’s chair. He got it in all right, so she hurried back to the stove. With her mind on making the toast dry, she heard only snatches of the talk on the gallery, gathering the fact that Mrs. Brent was not pleased with Ernie and thought something a shocking situation. She was likely a woman easily shocked, Tammy thought. Then there was the sound of heels clicking loudly down the length of the porch, and a woman’s voice, deep and dramatic-sounding, saying, “Where is the little girl? Is she up yet?” Mrs. Brent said, “She’s in the kitchen. But please, Aunt Renie——”