Mary at the Old Railroad Trestle

Chapters 34-36

Chapter 34

         Musing on the back stoop, I probably lost track of time. Nonetheless, Mamma had not called out to me, so I was perfectly safe for the time being. If and when she did, I would quickly fetch my drying shawl from the line, run it upstairs to my room, and then go back into the pantry/sewing room to model Aunt Grace’s remodeling.  The bees hummed and crows flitted to and fro throughout the corn fields. The morning just seemed to laze on. At one point I thought I heard a rowboat or a canoe way out on the river, passing by, and that brought to me the unfortunate remembrance of Miz Pladgett, the spinster schoolteacher of Canton one-room schoolhouse and choirmaster at Cameron City’s Old First Baptist. Luckily for me, this time the memory was not accompanied by the vision of Miz Pladgett as she looked in death, nor did her “fiancé,” Mister Married Henry Weakes, appear at all.

         That canoe or rowboat creaked again, like the stalks in a field of cane on a windy night, and I wondered if Jeth might be out there once again fishing for catfish for his supper, his and his daddy’s and uncle’s. Then I drifted off into a daze a little farther, and thought no more about it until I was startled into wakefulness by the sound of the corn stalks shivering.  That thought made me startle a little myself, till I realized that I might have heard Mamma’s voice calling me and mistook it for sounds out in the corn. “Mamma?” I queried, but received no response, so I stood up to fetch in my shawl. First I peeked into the back door but Mamma was not in the hall, and then I heard her mumbling to herself in the pantry. Since I did not hear the names, “Mary,” “Mary Grace,” or “Miss Mary,” I guessed I must have been mistaken in thinking she had called for me, so I went on down the steps to the back yard and out to the clothesline, which hung about twenty feet from the edge of the corn field. I had just pulled down my shawl and re-hung the wooden clothespins when I heard that rustling in the corn again, this time from behind me. I spun around, my first crazy thought being a Grizzly, and saw myself face to face with a gentleman in cream shirt with the sleeves rolled up and white cotton trews, emerging from the corn rows while mopping his face with a white wide-brimmed hat. (Oh, dear!)

         I recognized this one right away, for I had seen him often enough over the fourteen years of my life. I just did not expect to see him right now! And certainly not right here in my yard! For this man I had seen in the company of Miz Priscilla Jane Hargrove herself, and lawdy, did I surely hope Miz Priscilla Jane did not decide to invite herself to this party! She was nary a purty picture when she appeared, rivaling Miz Pladgett and her married Mister Henry Weakes, who had drowned in the flood caused by the Dam collapse of ’08. Might be Miz Priscilla Jane was worcet, though, seein’ as how she always appeared to me as she must have been right after the fire in her tower that took her life in ’76, right after they all thought her gone and moved back to her people up in Chancellorsville.
         Well, they all thought the white overseer, “Captain Jack” O’Rourke had been gone, too, moved back to Western Massachusetts, but as I could clearly testify, he had never left the vicinity of Cameron’s Crossing, for I had Seen him all my natural life and here he stood right before me yet again. How blessed I was not to have this vision, not with that strange individual masquerading as my Mamma a-waitin’ on me to stand in as model for Aunt Grace’s dress when my real Mamma would have knowd better than to ever ask a girl skinny and five foot and a half to fit into a dress made for a woman about five foot and two and weighing a couple of hundred sloppy pounds. Well, here he stood anyway, or quite possibly floated, Mister Capn’ Jack O’Rourke, formerly white overseer attached to Mister Junior Dee Hargrove’s plantation at Twenty-Three Oaks, and more recently (that is, following Mister Junior Dee’s going off to fight the Just Cause and subsequently giving his health and life for it in pursuit of pneumonia, smallpox, and death, if not Justice) being the in-house love and companion of Miz Priscilla Jane herself, that lovely and beloved young bride for whom Mister Junior Dee had constructed the tremendous plantation house of Twenty-Three Oaks-and named it-and furnished it with all sorts of highfalutin’ furnishings, some from England, some from Charleston, and some even from New York!

Chapter 35

“Cap’n Jack” took up his hat and looked firm at me, and I just knew he was fixin’ to address me. Luckily (!) just at that moment Mamma’s voice pealed out from the back hall. Only, again it was not Mamma.

         ”Mary Grace! I need you to come on in here now and quit dawdling!” Her voice kept getting closer and before I could take a step, she was in the back doorway, looking straight at the figure of Captain Jack O’Rourke where he paused about four feet from me, close to the edge of the corn field. Now I know that nobody but me Sees, but I swear now before I die that Mamma-that creature passing to be Mamma-looked right at him, almost as if in acknowledgement, before casting that evil gaze back at me.

         ”Come along in here, now, Miss Mary! I need you to be modelin’ this! Not much time before we have to leave for Miz Haskell’s.”

          I do not believe as how I had ever heard my real Mamma call Aunt Grace “Miz Haskell” ever once in my entire life, but nothing about this fake Mamma surprised me any more. I looked down as if I was bein’ polite and respectful and mutely followed her in to the house, running upstairs to drop off my shawl and then returning to the sewing room-pantry.
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         The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully, and Mamma even allowed me to retreat to my room in the late afternoon for a nap. As she ordered me, “We don’t want you fallin’ asleep in front of Aunt Grace.” I wasn’t able to fall asleep, although I did manage to rest with my boots off and my usually achin’ feet more comfortable for a change. I was up and dressin’ before I heard Mamma call me, so I was right and ready in the hall when the wagon driven by Mister Minister Termather pulled into the driveway. I escorted Mamma out myself before he could climb down, and then let him reach her up into the seat while I went myself around to the back and clambered in. I decided for a change to face backwards and look at where I had been, for isn’t that what I had been doin’ all my life with my Seein’? Lookin’ backwards, as Mr. Bellamy wrote in that book that I heard Miz Pladgett tellin’ about one Sunday following church service at the Old Baptist Church.

Chapter 36

         Unfortunately we once again arrived at Aunt Grace’s intact. No unexpected freak accidents had befallen to save me from another session of Mister Minister contacting the Departed. When Lucie let us in, Mamma sent me this time to the library, as she accompanied Mister Termather to the back parlour, where, I am sure, Aunt Grace lay in wait like a fat frog on a sunny lily pad expecting a sudden onset of tasty flies over for dinner.

         I headed on the library, the big room at the opposite corner of the house, with its two sets of French doors opening out to both the front and side verandahs, and shelves floor to ceiling filled with books which Lucie had to dust once a week. Uncle Colonel Custis Haskell had been a well-read gentleman, and his library was filled with classics of literature and with histories of the War of Northern Aggression. I was not allowed in here very often, but had been on a few occasions, and I thought I remembered a shelf of journals and family memoirs on the wall nearest to the hall door. Sure enough, there was the collection, just above the floor, packed cheek to jowl with handwritten journals, account ledgers, and a few printed memoirs mixed in between. I sat down on the floor cross-legged and reached out to the shelf, my fingers skittering and dancing along the spines and the twine bindings, looking for I was not certain what.          Eventually I stooped on a twine-bound tome and pulled it out. I did not know what it was, but the tingling in my fingers spilling up my arms and the skittering chill down my spine informed me that this was the volume I had been sent here to read tonight. Who was I to demur?

          Settling against the wall of books, I untied the twine and opened the set of pages. The top page was blank, as was the second and third, but on the fourth was the legend

My Journal

and below that the handwritten signature of one Mamie Margaret Jenks. Well, this was a name I had not heard. I wondered if perhaps it was one of Uncle Colonel Custis’ far-flung kin, or perhaps just a book he had purchased in his travels about the State of Alabama and beyond. No way to know at this point. I turned another page and read:

”An account of what I See.”

         (Oh, dear.) The “S” in See was capitalized just as I see it when I think of my talent and what I do; and I had truly been guided to select out this volume. I knew that. A deep sigh erupted from my chest and I turned yet another page. Apparently Miss Mamie Margaret fancied herself quite a writer, as her Spencerian copperplate spilled across what looked to be one hundred twenty or so pages, loosely bound into the book.