Chinaberry

Chapter Four | Discovering Chinaberry

C H A P T E R four we were to only have that one day in the cotton fields. Anson hadn’t needed us in the first place. On our second day at Chinaberry, he had other jobs for us. Having already apprized Ernest’s experience in the livery trade, he proposed that Ernest work with the horses at the ranch, in part to spell himself. That way, at least until fall roundup, he’d have more time at home. Cadillac and Rance were hired to deliver ice in drays to houses in a town some dozen miles away, starting from an ice plant the Winters family owned. All leapt at the chance of doing otherwise than they were now doing. Particularly Ernest, who saw a chance for higher-class employment. “Now you Knuckleheads won’t have to pop another sweat,” Ernest said to Cadillac and Rance. “And you can eat all the ice you want.” In hindsight, I believe that when he first laid eyes on the four of us, the wheels were already turning in Anson’s head. In things that mattered to him, he was fast on the draw. The second morning of our stay, I woke up and found that Ernest was already off to the ranch and the Knuckleheads were gone to the ice plant. Anson had preceded Ernest in a truck, Ernest following. Blunt had taken the boys in the pickup truck. Ernest had apparently abandoned his mandate, aware that I was in more caring hands Discovering Chinaberry 29 CH IN ABE R R Y than his own. And he had been told about Blunt and his longtime career as guardian of Anson and Jack in childhood, so he figured Blunt would become my shadow as well. I waked in that far room at Chinaberry, alone. The house had blinds rather than shades, and they were half-open, the sun already high outside. I heard doves calling. And I had hardly cracked my eyes before Lurie was standing in the door with a pan of water, a washrag floating in it, and in her other hand a goblet of water with a floating lump of ice. Even with my taste buds dulled by the ice, the water was just barely drinkable. Lurie set the pan down on a bureau, looked into the chamber pot by the bed, and finding it empty, pointed to it and withdrew. I jumped out of bed, used the pot, and pushing it under the boards, climbed back in. I was sleeping in the single nightshirt I had with me. Lurie returned, pulled back the sheet, and set about washing my face and neck, not neglecting my ears. She examined my feet ruefully. I had washed the surface dirt from them the night before, and Ernest had torn a strip from a clean handkerchief and anchored the unshed toenail anew. My rusty heels and ankles shamed me. “We’ll do something about that toe tonight,” she said, more to herself than to me, and finishing the task, she pressed my head against her breast and sighed. “Put your clothes on and come to breakfast.” She sashayed out of the room, leaving her scent behind her. She smelled of violets. How often had I gone with my sisters to pick violets in our pasture along Hootlacka Creek. The source of this fragrance, which pervaded her presence, was a bottle of perfume, Violet Spring, on her dressing table. And the smell that clung to Anson was from a beaker of Lilac Vegetal aftershave lotion on the shelf where his shaving mug and long razor were kept. 30 J AM E S STILL Then I saw on a chair at the foot of the bed my bib overalls and shirt, freshly laundered and ironed. I wore no underclothes, a lack soon remedied. And there was a pair of moccasins for me, a perfect fit, made overnight by Blunt from a single piece of leather, not single-tack-driven but bound together by thongs. At the table I discovered cornflakes. A bowl of them sat on my plate, floating in milk and sweetened. My first taste. I added three more spoons of sugar. I ate a second bowl of cereal when it was offered and would have downed a third had I not been ashamed. The scrambled eggs and bacon I hardly nibbled. I did eat a biscuit in sampling the...