Had I a Hundred Mouths Page 11

  When she went back to her church they would not have her in the Sunday School and so she cried and said she knew it was because she was too fat, the minister couldn’t do much with her, she went into a red rage with the woman in the Sunday School, and this is when she asked to have her church Letter out. She got it, read it carefully to see that there were no mistakes in it: “This is to certify that Lucille Marie Purdy is a member of the Lord’s Household in good standing and full fellowship and to recommend her as a faithful servant to all those present. …” She put it in her cedarchest.

  It was then that Lucille decided to take on boarders. She furnished two bedrooms when she found out three young men from the Normal would rent the rooms. The three young men moved in, two in the big room—these were the gentle one and the outspoken one—where Mr. Purdy had gone off to sleep and live when Lucille had got so stout, and one in the corner bedroom next to Lucille’s—this one was the young wild one who had worked his way to Spain on a freighter and had gone crazy over bullfights, bringing back from Spain a long black whip which he practiced cracking, even late at night you could hear the stinging hot crackling of it in his room. Lucille’s room continued to be the master bedroom, just furnished with a pallet and a cedarchest.

  These three young men are a story in themselves, and it is peculiar how life arranged to bring them into Lucille’s house, and at such a time in Lucille’s life. Often Lucille said, “I know the Lord sent you all here; it is His Divine Hand; there is more love in this household than in any church, I am glad I have moved my Letter into this house.” But anyway, these three young men were a nice thing for Lucille to have in her house and Lucille became very nice with them in her house. They wondered about the state of the house, why it was not furnished, and so on, but they did not ask questions. Mostly they were at the Normal all day, and at nights they studied in their rooms or met in one another’s room to have their talk and laughter, which Lucille would overhear if she stood against the wall and listened; until one night Lucille knocked on their door at late night and said, “Listen here, since you are still up and talking would you like to move your conversation on down to the kitchen and have you some hot cocoa with it?” and in a little while they had formed the pleasant habit of meeting in the kitchen for hot cocoa every night about eleven. Naturally some talk ensued. The young men told of their work at the Normal and told of their lives and interests, the gentle one told how he wanted to be a poet (Lucille said she often wrote poems and would show him hers); the outspoken one disagreed with most of Lucille’s philosophy about life, but in a friendly way that made Lucille feel intellectually stimulated; and the wild one said he only wanted to wander and to travel, free on the road. Lucille responded that her father himself had been a sea captain and roamed and that that was why she was part gypsy, her two cousins raised her but never understood her, she had always had a gypsy heart. Then Lucille had something in common with each of the roomers, she declared; and it wasn’t long before Lucille had told the roomers all about her husband leaving her, explaining that he had taken the furniture; and as she told her story she broke out crying. The roomers were very sympathetic and tried to comfort Lucille.

  After awhile you had this nice household of Lucille and the three comforting young men. They began to wait on her hand and foot, and Lucille wore fresh dresses and kept the house clean. They refused to allow her to sleep on a pallet and all bought her a daybed. They went through the winter this way. When it snowed so heavily that one time, some of the neighbors were surprised to hear Lucille’s voice squealing outdoors and looked out to see her shooting down the slope of her snow-covered lawn on a sled pushed by the three roomers. Life had changed for Lucille, she had a regular household, the roomers had built furniture of tables and bookcases and things and they had chipped in and helped buy other things to make the big living room nice, there was fire in the fireplace, often singing (the wild roomer played a guitar), and Lucille fixed supper every night for the household; they were all around the table like a family.

  When spring came, the young wild roomer quit the Normal, he was too restless; and Lucille let him stay on free of charge until he could determine what to do, whether to get a job and study castanets, or what; and they all worked together in the yard and planted flowers in the beds. This is where Little Pigeon comes in.

  Being for the most of the time alone over in her house across Lucille’s back yard, she lots of the time just stood at her window and watched across to see the life and lights of Lucille’s big changed house; all the shades were raised, now. She heard singing and she heard laughing and she saw figures busy in the lighted rooms of the house that had been dark so long. She heard guitars and she heard castanets and she heard the snapping of the bullwhip. Finally, one time when she could not find her purse and had called long distance to Rodunda to ask her widow sister Sammye where she had hidden it but Sister Sammye had just hung up in her face, Little Pigeon thought of the bright and living house of Lucille’s across the yard. She decided to knock on the door of this house. She did, and when Lucille came to the door, Little Pigeon said, “Mrs. Woman (for she did not know her name), I have lost my purse.”

  Now Lucille had had a few experiences with Little Pigeon before, and with Little Pigeon’s sister Sammye, too; and she knew about the trouble and disorder of that household over across the yard and wanted nothing to do with it. Earlier, and just after Mr. Purdy had left Lucille, Sammye had come over and asked her please to keep an eye out after Little Pigeon while she was away, and Lucille had tried but it didn’t work out—mainly because of Sammye. Lucille wanted nothing to do with the two sisters, and she very quickly said to Little Pigeon, “You better go on back home and look for your purse again, or call your sister Sammye, because I am sure it is not here,” and was going to close the door, when one of the roomers, the gentle one, came up and began to make friends with Little Pigeon. He had seen her at her window and he had heard Lucille speak of the crazy woman next door. He invited Little Pigeon in before the fire. Little Pigeon came in timidly, looked all around, and said, “You all have a nice household here. Is it a party?” And they all said no and to sit down. They gave her some cocoa, Little Pigeon told a story about a place she and Selmus, her husband, had gone to when they used to travel around; and then the gentle roomer saw her home (having to stay in Little Pigeon’s house for her to show him all her things and tell him the story of them). Little Pigeon kept her new discovery of the party across the yard a secret from her sister Sammye, among other secrets she kept.

  This started all the trouble. Constantly Little Pigeon’s voice at her back door would call out, “Mrs. Woman! Mrs. Woman!” And when Lucille would answer at her back door, Little Pigeon would have nothing to say but “Can you come over?” quietly. Lucille would give some excuse and not go; but finally she weakened and went over. Usually it was for nothing and Little Pigeon would have nothing to say, except to show her things and ask about the party in Lucille’s house. When Lucille would turn around and leave, Little Pigeon would weep very quietly and this would hurt Lucille, for she knew enough about tears. Finally, Lucille found herself over at Little Pigeon’s most every day, at one time or another, looking at Little Pigeon’s things, which Little Pigeon would count and tell about. Lucille would complain that she had her work to do in her house, to look after her roomers, they were such a handful, and Little Pigeon then began to appear every night at Lucille’s house, her face would be at the window or her knock on the door, and they would have to let her in to join them.

  When Little Pigeon’s sister Sammye would come in from the next town of Rodunda and find that Little Pigeon had been neighborly with Lucille and over visiting in her house, she would be angry and order Little Pigeon to stop ever calling Lucille again. For Sammye had heard the stories in the neighborhood about Lucille; she, in fact, knew the whole story, and would have nothing to do with her. In turn, the neighbors would have nothing to do with Little Pigeon or Sammye because of Little Pigeon’s antics in the neigh
borhood, her wandering about and her calling the fire department and the police for the slightest thing, and then just to talk with them. Some of the neighbors tried to get Little Pigeon ordered to a Home, but Sammye stopped that and told them to mind their own business; and fell out with the neighbors.

  So you had this complicated neighborhood, all enemies to Lucille and to Little Pigeon, having nothing whatsoever to do with either of them; and Lucille and Little Pigeon divided against each other by Sammye, but coming together when she was away.

  Then things began to wear in Lucille’s household. Lucille began to pick on and pester the roomers, or humor and coddle them, much in the same way as she had treated the Sunday School children. She would fuss at them when they wouldn’t eat, she would order them around, she would criticize their habits, she would have spells of temper or poutishness; and sometimes she would suddenly change into such wildness, like doing a gypsy dance—even as fat as she still was (she seemed to have forgotten that)—while the wild roomer played his guitar or cracked his long black bullwhip. The outspoken roomer did not like what he saw, and the gentle roomer suffered most of all, for he had to return the clothes of Mr. Purdy which Mr. Purdy had left behind and which Lucille had given to him, and they fit perfectly, when she suddenly asked for them back. The roomers were more and more unsettled in Lucille’s house. They could not predict what she would break out and do, without any warning. The household was like a troubled mind, with tormenting ideas, desires and suspicions. The outspoken roomer got fed up with Lucille’s talk and tantrums and just stayed out of her way. The gentle one tried to reason with her but he could get no farther with her than the minister had been able to. So he withdrew. The young wild roomer tried to make light of her misery, to liven her up, of course, by cracking his whip suddenly behind her; but this only made Lucille scream into hysterics. Even Little Pigeon deviled Lucille by playing a kind of hide-and-seek with her: face at the window, voice at the back door, vanishing and appearing.

  The first thing to go was the hot cocoa at night; no one would come down—just to go through all Lucille’s story and spells again. The next was supper; the roomers wouldn’t come down to that, either. So Lucille stopped cooking. Her bad crying spells started again.

  Well, this situation grew and grew, the roomers were all in their rooms with doors shut; Lucille was shut out and left alone again. Lucille took it out on Little Pigeon and was mean to her, abusing her and teasing her and confusing her. Little Pigeon could not understand and did not know what to do, but she fought back gamely and seemed to have a good time doing it. Finally, when the roomers notified Lucille that they were leaving, Little Pigeon invited them to move over into her house, where the party, as she called it, could go on; but the roomers packed up and left, taking their furniture with them. Lucille remembered the revolver Mr. Purdy had given her, and his words with it, except that now it seemed to her that the roomers had left the revolver, and in the same way. She was on the point of using it upon herself. Why did everything spoil in her household? It was because she was so fat. She would stand for minutes before the mirror and look at herself, turning round and round. She would do this nude, too; and beat herself in the fattest places, she hated them so. She ran up and down the stairs nude, either to reduce herself or because she was going crazy, who knows. It was this way, running naked up and down the stairs in her empty house, that Little Pigeon found her once, and laughed until she cried. Whereupon Lucille covered herself and began to cry with Little Pigeon, there on the stairs. There was this sympathy between the two poor women. Then is when they became very close; and then is when Sammye enters the picture.

  When Sammye came in from Rodunda and found Little Pigeon turned over in the hedge like a toy bird with its spindly legs kicking as if they were unwinding, she picked Little Pigeon out and what do you think Little Pigeon did for thanks? Sassed Sammye and said she’d pushed her in the hedge, all to run and get her purse. But Sammye didn’t care, she didn’t get mad or anything, she just picked Little Pigeon out and took her in the house and washed her off. And said, “You are my sweet sister that I love and adore.”

  Then Little Pigeon said, “I can’t figure it all out. Old Mrs. Woman pushed me in the bush and went back to her house across the yard and the ghost of Sister Sammye come and pulled me out.”

  Sammye said, “Forget the ghost of Sister Sammye and leave Old Mrs. Woman to her own house. It is all over, your playparty, and I am back here to look after you and to tend to you and I am no ghost either, I am your fleshandblood Sister Sammye. Sweet Little Pigeon.” And everything seemed all right.

  Now that Little Pigeon and Sammye were old, both their husbands dead, Sammye came up from Rodunda as often as she could to stay with her as long as she could suffer it. Because Little Pigeon was no longer accountable to herself; and, besides, she had to have someone to give her her insulin every morning, no practical nurse would do it, no practical nurse would stay in the same house with Little Pigeon, Sammye had tried it, don’t worry, because Little Pigeon thought a nurse was trying to take her money, which was in a bank, and safe there, but that didn’t make no difference to Little Pigeon; she worried about it anyway. “Besides, Little Pigeon loves me and I love and adore her,” Sammye would say. “She is my sweet sister that I love and adore. She fights me a lot (I don’t want her Irish linens and her bone china), but that’s all right, that don’t make me no difference. She’s my sweet sister that I love and adore, truly do.”

  Once Sammye missed her and called through all the house, through all the yard, went up and down the sidewalk calling through the neighborhood, but no Little Pigeon. Then she came back in the house and wondered whether to call the police again. Then Sammye heard a ruckus upstairs. Up she went and there was the kicking legs of Little Pigeon with the rest of her under the bed. Sammye said, “What on earth are you doing under there, Little Pigeon? Come out”; and Little Pigeon said, “Hush up, I’m looking for my lost black purse.”

  “Oh have you lost that again?” Sammye said.

  And Little Pigeon said, “You hush it because you have stolen it anyway”; and out she came fast as lightning. They had it all to go over again, the black purse. They spent half the day looking for it, and of course they found it, Little Pigeon had thrown it in the trashcan. Then said Sammye had done it. And was as mad as all outdoors.

  Little Pigeon’s life was never hard, she was spoilt from the beginning. She was very beautiful, you could still tell it if you looked at her complexion; she still was, hair real fine and naturally curly, a set of flashing lashy eyes like Miss Maybelline, and a little sweetheart mouth. She was always prettier than Sammye, she was the flighty one, cute as a thimble, had all the boy friends, Sunday beau, Candy beau, every one; Sammye was the practical one, and had nothing. “And what does it matter if she was ugly to me then?” Sammye would declare. “I am sweet to her now and I will be till she dies, I don’t care if they say it’s for her money, that is a Satanish lie, I am here to look after her when I can be, for she is my sweet sister that I love and adore.”

  Little Pigeon’s husband wedded her when he was twenty and she was eighteen, and they had lots of trips all their life, to Cuba and every place. He knew a lot about horses, bred his own, and Little Pigeon swore he brought his finest horse in the kitchen one morning to have breakfast with them. “But don’t pay any ’tention to her when she says that, it’s the effect of the insulin,” Sammye would say. “Makes her tell the wildest tales. But oh she is so sweet, that sweet sister.”

  They never had chick nor child, Little Pigeon and her husband Selmus, just all they wanted, big cars and chinaware, Persian rugs and fine furniture. Sammye said she remembers coming to visit them when they were flourishing, and wanting to touch the pretty things, but Little Pigeon would say, “Take your hands off my crystal candy jar,” or, “Don’t smut up my Dresden compote made of Dresden.” Selmus would be down in the basement listening to the radio. He died there, of a sudden, in the basement listening to the horse races. But L
ittle Pigeon was already weakening by then, in her notions of things. She needed insulin then but they didn’t know it. She was a sweet thing and cried at Selmus’s funeral. When Sammye and Little Pigeon came home from the funeral, Little Pigeon counted her silver that Selmus had given to her, and cried again; but not a tear fell on the silver to smutten it up, you understand; she was careful of that. “Oh now she’s sweet and I love and adore her, but I know her bad points, and I know her good points, too, of which they are bountiful,” Sammye would say.

  “Pity Little Pigeon,” Sammye would say. “She’s got nothing in this wide world but me and a house full of fine things. (I don’t want any of them.) Her days run away in a dream. She dusts her porcelain, cleans her pretty Persian rugs, counts her linens and counts her silver. If an ant had crawled over one little spoon of that sterling in the night, Little Pigeon would know it the next morning. Yet she can’t see to find her purse.”

  Well, Sammye stayed as long as she could with Little Pigeon, until she had to go back up to Rodunda to see after her own house. “After all,” she said, “I have my own house. Pigeon thinks I can just close that house up and run to her whenever she needs me, but she don’t reckon that I have a house, too, with my life in it and all my things, not so fine as hers, but my house; and all my responsibilities.” Once when Sammye had to leave Little Pigeon, she asked that old Mrs. Whatchamacallit next door please to look after Little Pigeon and not let her catch the house afire or leave the garage lights burning all night and then wake up and call the fire department because she thinks the garage is burning down and it the middle of the night. Now Old Mrs. Whatsername was in a bad fix, too; but she agreed to watch out after Little Pigeon after hemming and hawing that she had her hands full already. “How come?” Sammye said. “She has nothing to do—her husband’s just left her and she’s all alone in a big two-storied house in which she cries all day and half the night, I’ve seen her. Once I said, ’What’s the trouble, Mrs.—Thing?’ And she said, ’Because I’m the fattest woman in church.’ Then said she had taken her Letter out because the church showed favoritism. Said she had her Letter in her cedarchest and was going to keep it there, said that even that cedarchest was a better church than most; and cried and cried. I didn’t know what to say to humor her, but I finally said, Well I’m sure there are fatter women than you in church,’ but guess this was the wrong thing to say.” Anyway, she sure was the wrong thing for Little Pigeon, the same devilment in both of them and they fought like dog and cat when they came upon each other outdoors. Sammye said she knew for a fact that Old Mrs. Woman hit Little Pigeon because Little Pigeon showed her where and showed her the blue place it left. Oh well, they was a-pulling stunts right and left, they spit and they spat, and then Sammye had two of them on her hands. Then Old Mrs. Woman and Sammye had it good and proper, and Old Mrs. Woman ended up by saying, “Mrs. Johnson, your sister ought to be in an institution.” And Sammye said, “This strikes me as real funny, why don’t you let it strike you thataway. If anybody’s going to be sent to an institution it ought to be you.’“ For a long time after, Old Mrs. Woman did not speak to Sammye and Little Pigeon once, kept all her shades pulled down on the side of the house facing Little Pigeon’s, what she did in that big house no one knew, but it was guessed she went on crying and crying. Sammye told Little Pigeon time and time again not to call her anymore, but when Sammye was not watching, Little Pigeon would go to the back steps and call out before Sammye could catch her, “Mrs. Woman! Mrs. Woman!”—until Sammye would go out and shut her up and bring her in. There was this devilish attraction between Little Pigeon and Old Mrs. Woman.