The Tin Can Tree

5

'Now, I can have my ideas,' said Missouri, 'and you can have yours. Mind what you're doing there, Miss Joan. First off, I don't believe in sitting. I have never believed in sitting. Minute a person sits his mind gives way. Will you watch what you're doing?'

Joan sighed and handed her the next bunch of tobacco leaves. It was Monday afternoon, late in the day but hot, and even here under the shade of the pecan trees she could feel the sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades. Beside her stood three other women – two handing to Mrs Hall, who was the fastest tobacco-tier in the county, and the other helping Joan do the handing to Missouri. Missouri was huge and black, and every move she made was a wide slow arc, but she could tie nearly as fast as Mrs Hall. She stood at the end of her rod with her broad bare feet spraddle-toed in the dust, and first she yanked a handful of leaves from her daughter Lily and then from Joan, wrapping each handful to the rod with one sure circling of the twine so that the leaves hung points-down and swinging. If Joan or Lily was too slow with the next hanging she would click her tongue and stand there disgusted, holding the twine taut in her fingers, and when the leaves were ready she would take them with an extra hard yank and bind them so hard that the twine cut into the stems. Now it was Joan who was slow (they were down to the last of this tableload, and she was having trouble finding a full handing of leaves) and Missouri made her clicking sound and shifted her weight to the other foot.

'What it is,' she called down the table to Mrs Hall, 'I bind across the stick. You bind on the same side, and I declare I don't see how. With Miss Joan on the left, I take her leaves and bind them on the right, and backwards from that with Lily. You follow my meaning?'

'Yes, and I think it's just as inefficient,' Mrs Hall said. She stopped her tying to brush a piece of wispy blonde hair off her face. 'That's three inches wasted motion every bunch you tied Missouri.'

'Ha. Fast as I move, who cares about three inches.'

'It adds up. You see if it don't.’

'Ha.'

She yanked Joan's bunch from her and lashed it to the rod. That finished up the stick; it looked now like one long chain of hanging green leaves, with the rod itself hidden from sight by the thick stems that stuck up on either side. 'You!' she said without looking, and Jimmy Terry raised himself from the side of the barn and set down his Coke bottle. By the time he had ambled over to Missouri she had lifted the stick from its notched stand and stood making faces because of the weight of it, holding it very carefully so as not to crush the leaves. 'Watch it, now,' she said, and thrust it at him, and he started back to the drying-bam while she bent to take another rod and lay it in the notches. 'I was saying something,' she said. She tied the white twine around the end farthest from her and then snapped it off at a length of five feet or so, while Mrs Hall stopped tying to watch her. (Mrs Hall spent every day of every tobacco season trying to figure out how Missouri snapped off her twine ahead of time without measuring it.) 'I was talking about sitting,' Missouri said, grandly ignoring Mrs Hall. 'This table is bare, Lord; when they going to bring us more? Now, when you sit, your blood sort of sits along with you. It don't go rushing around your brain no more. Consequently, it takes that much more time to get rid of some sad idea in your mind. The process is slowed considerable. Whereas if you hurry your blood up some… There is a sizable amount of people could benefit from what I know. I could just go and on about it. But do you get what I mean up to now?'

'Well, so far, 'Joan said.

'Good. Now, what started me on that – well, I do say. Took you long enough.'

She was looking off toward the dirt driveway, where the men were just coming with the mule. 'Behind the mule was a huge wooden sled piled high with tobacco leaves, and it must have been heavy because the mule was objecting. He had stopped trying and began to amuse himself by blowing through his nose at the flies circling his head, and when Mr Terry slapped his back he only switched his tail and gave an extra hard wheeze through his nose. Mr Terry pulled out a bandanna and wiped his face.

'You stop that and bring him here,' Missouri commanded. 'We're out of leaves and getting paid for standing here with our arms folded.'

'Well, I wouldn't want that,' Mr Terry said, but he went on wiping his face with his back to the mule. He was an easygoing man; it was a wonder to the whole countryside how he ever got his tobacco in. Behind the sled was James Green, filling in for the day because Mr Pike was at home with his wife, and he wasn't doing anything about the mule either. His face was dark from the sun and glistening, and his hair hung in a wet mop over his forehead. When he saw Joan he grinned and waved, but he didn't look as if he gave a hang whether that mule ever moved, so Missouri heaved a huge sigh and laid down her twine.

'I never,' she said, and circled the long picnic table where the women were standing and headed for the mule. 'Jefferson, you no-good, you,' she told the mule, 'you going to keep us waiting all day?'

'That's not Jefferson,' Mr Terry said. That's my brother Kerr's mule, Man O'War. He's only a distant cousin to Jefferson.'

'I don't care who he is.' She reached up and grabbed the mule by one long ear, as if he were a little boy, and pulled in the direction of the table. The mule followed, sighing sadly. 'In the end, it's the women that work,' Missouri told him. 'Stand still now, you hear?'

'I wish it was Jefferson,' said Mr Terry. 'He was some good mule, old Jefferson.'

'He sick?' Missouri asked.

'Nah. Dead.'

'That's why this one is doddering around so, then. They know, them mules.'

'Mr Graves shot him down,' Mr Terry said. He and James were both at work now, lifting armloads of leaves from the sled and carrying them over to the table. 'He says he has the right, because Jefferson kicked his boy.'

'Nah, that ain't so. Only if Jefferson killed the boy, outright. Takes more than that to kill Sonny Graves. Sonny ain't dead, is he?'

'Oh, no.'

'Well, you go on and sue then. Go on and do it.'

'Well,' Mr Terry said. He took the mule and turned him around, and when he slapped him this time the mule headed back toward the fields with the empty sled skittering behind him. 'We'll let Saul take care of him,' Mr Terry told James. To the women at the table he called, 'That was the last load, there. Me and the men are going to cut out and have a beer up at the house.'

'Don't you give Lem more than one,' Missouri said.

'You know how he gets.'

'Well.'

He headed towards the house, wiping his face again with the bandanna, and James turned and said, 'You yell when you're ready to go, Joan.'

'All right,' Joan said.

When the men had left there was a different feeling in the air, blanker and stiller. The smell of sweat and mule and hot sun had drifted away, and for a minute the women just stood looking after them with their faces expressionless. Then Missouri said, 'Well,' and she and Mrs Hall took their places at their rods again and the others turned to the new heap of leaves on the table.

"That James stays out in the sun much more, he's going to change races,' Missouri said to Joan.

'I guess he might,' Joan said.

'He's a good man. Though a bit too quiet – don't let things show through.'

'No.'

Missouri waited, still without going back to her work. Finally she said, 'Just where is he from?'

The others looked up. Joan said, 'Oh… from around here he says.'

'Well, so are we all,' said Missouri. 'But what town?'

'He doesn't talk much about it.'

'That's kind of peculiar,' Mrs Hall called. 'You ever asked him?'

'He's not wanted or nothing, is he?' said Missouri.

'No.'

'You never know. I'd been married two and a half years before I found out Lem had been married before. Mad? I tell you-'

'If I were you I'd ask him.' Mrs Hall said.

'Well, I did,' said Joan. She was beginning to feel uncomfortable. 'He told me where he was from but it was just an ordinary town, like Larksville -'

Then why don't he say so?'

'Well, you know Ansel,' Joan said.

'There's an odd one.'

'He doesn't like for James to talk about it. He's afraid James'll send him back.'

'Good thing if he did,' said Mrs Hall. 'You ever been invited to meet their family?'

'Well, no.'

They had some kind of falling-out,' Missouri's daughter Lily said. Everyone looked at her, and she said, 'Well, that's what Maisie Hammond said.'

'Maisie Hammond don't know beans,' Missouri said. 'Haven't you learned not to listen to gossip?'

'If I was you, Joan,' said Mrs Hall, 'I'd just march right up and ask him. I'd say, "James, will you take me to meet your family?" Just like that, I'd ask.'

'No,' Joan said.

They went on watching her, waiting for her to say more, but she didn't. She concentrated on grouping the leaves together by the stems, a small cluster at a time, so that they lay flat against each other, and then she held them out to Missouri and waited patiently until Missouri gave up and started tying again. Each time Missouri took the leaves from her there was a funny numb feeling in Joan's fingertips, from the leaves sliding across layers and layers of thick tobacco gum on her skin. Tobacco gum covered her hands and forearms, and it had worked in between the straps of her sandals so that there was black gum on the soles of her feet. Tonight when she walked barefoot through the house she would leave little black tracks behind her. She rubbed the tip of her nose against a clean spot on the back of her hand, and Missouri clicked her tongue at her to tell her to hurry. 'I want to get home,' she told Joan, and Joan swooped down on another bunch of leaves and handed them to her. In her sleep she would see tables full of tobacco leaves, stack upon stack of yellow-green leaves with their fine sticky coating of fuzz and their rough surfaces that reminded her of old grained leather on book covers. Whenever she told her aunt about that, about dreaming every night of mules and leaves and drying barns, her aunt thought she was complaining and said, 'Nobody asked you to do it. I even told you, I said it right out, I didn't want you doing it. Secretaries don't work tobacco, honey.' But then Joan only laughed and said she liked seeing leaves in her sleep. 'There's lots worse I could dream of,' she said, and Mrs Pike had to agree.

Missouri had started talking again, now that she saw Joan wasn't going to answer any more questions. 'Let's get back to sitting,' she said. 'What led me to speak of it was, your working and all so soon after that, uh, tragedy occurred. Now, honey, don't you mind Mrs Pike. I know her, she feels like even James shouldn't of come. Feels like it shows disrespect. But look at it head-on and -'

'Well, not disrespect,' Mrs Hall called across. 'Not that, exactly. But I see Lou's point, I wouldn't have come today, Joan. I don't mind telling you.'

'What would I do at home?' Joan asked. 'Sit?'

'Exactly what led me to my discussion,' said Missouri. 'What sitting does, is -'

'You could have stayed around and helped out,' Mrs Hall said. 'Made tea and things. A person needs company at a time like this. And James there, why, he is very close to being Janie's cousin-in-law, or once removed, or whatever you call it -'

Once again they all looked at Joan, but she went on grouping leaves and they sighed and turned back to the table.

'Anyway,' said Mrs Hall, 'with his own brother on the verge of-'

'Well, this is sort of pointless,' Joan said. 'You just think one way, and me another. I don't think she wants any more than her own husband there, and that's what she's got. And Simon too, if she wants him.'

'Ain't that a funny thing,' Lily said suddenly. 'Up to last week, it was Janie Rose she never paid no attention to -'

'You hush,' Missouri said. 'This is Miss Joan's relatives we're talking about.'

'Well, I know that. Now, won't it Simon she used to brag on all the time? Won't it Simon that was spoiled so rotten he-'

'Hush.'

'My feet are killing me,' said Mrs Hall.

Her second hander, the pale one named Josephine, looked down at Mrs Hall's feet and gave one of them a gentle kick with the toe of her sneaker. 'With me it's sneakers or barefoot,' she said. 'What you wearing leather shoes for?'

'Because I'm older than you. I have to look decent.' She snapped off her twine and turned to the barn. 'Boy!' she called.

'Will you look?' said Missouri. 'She's a stick and a half ahead of me, and you two are poking along. Hurry it up, Lily.'

Lily handed her the next bunch and then stretched, raising her thin black arms an enormous length above her head. To show her disapproval Missouri jerked her string with a twanging sound, and one of Lily's leaves fell out of its bunch on the stick and landed on the dust. 'Oh, Lord,' Missouri said. She handed her string to Joan and bent to pick up the leaf, holding the small of her back with one hand. A pink slip strap slid down over her shoulder. 'Four hours ago it was four o'clock,' she said when she had retrieved the leaf. 'Now it's four thirty. When'll it ever be five?'

'Won't help you if it is,' called Mrs Hall, 'so long as you've still got leaves on your table.'

'Well, I can't help it if they loaded the most leaves on me.' She pulled her strap up again and took the end of the twine away from Joan. 'I was saying something,' she said. 'I have that fidgety feeling, like I wasn't finished.'

'Sitting,' Joan reminded her.

'Sitting? Oh, sitting. My Lord, how long I been on that? Well, anyway.' She snapped her fingers at Lily, who was gazing open-mouthed at a pecan tree, and Lily jumped and handed her another bunch of leaves. 'Originally,' Missouri said, 'I was getting around to a remedy for Mrs Pike. Well, now I've gotten to it. Mrs Pike is going to have to start working again.'

'Working?' Lily said, 'I didn't know Mrs Pike worked.'

'Will you hush?' Missouri switched the twine to her left hand and reached across to slap Lily's arm. 'I don't know where you spend all your time, Lily,' she said. She took up the twine in her right hand again and snatched Joan's leaves from her. 'Well, it so happens she does work. She's a seamstress. Teen-incy stitches and a Singer for her machine work. Miss Joan can tell you. Most of it's altering things, but she makes things from scratch also. Reason you might not know,' she told Lily, 'is she does it at home. Works in. A lot of right important people go there. Mrs Lawrence, the judge's wife, does – saw her drive up to the door once. Do you see what I'm getting at, Miss Joan?'

'Well, yes,' said Joan. 'You're saying this would snap her out of it. But being a seamstress is like working in a beauty shop – you have to carry on a conversation. And Aunt Lou just isn't capable right now.'

'Of course not,' said Mrs Hall. 'Why, she just don't have the heart to do that. Will you look at you people?'

'I got the answer,' Mrs Hall's first hander called. 'I don't see why you are all worrying.' She kept on handing as she spoke, thrusting precisely neat bunches at Mrs Hall with lightning speed. 'It's like when you've been sick,' she said. 'They have to walk you around by the elbow a while. Well, Mrs Pike needs to be walked around too, only in the talking sense. Joan here only works every other day; she can spare the time. She can greet the customers and tell them the news and all, so's they won't even notice how quiet Mrs Pike is. Then by and by Mrs Pike'll start to get interested in what Joan is talking about. She'll begin uncurling and saying a few words herself. That's why she was such a favourite before, Mrs Pike was; she could talk up a storm.'

Missouri was watching her with her mouth open. 'Char-leen,' she said, when Charleen had finished speaking, 'you are just as silly as you look, Charleen. You must think Miss Joan is some kind of a walking newspaper. Do you? She don't say two words in a day, Joan don't. Customers would drop off like apples in the fall, and Mrs Pike would have one more reason not to get a grip on things.'

'Silly yourself,' Charleen muttered, and bent closer over her pile of leaves.

'Mrs Pike's no worse than my sister Mary was,' said Mrs Hall. 'When Mary's oldest died she sat on the porch seven days and seven nights and it rained on her. I thought she'd mold, before we got her in again. Mrs Pike is at least talking some.'

'Not much,' Josephine said. She was scraping tobacco gum off her hands with a nail file while Mrs Hall tied a knot at the end of her stick. 'I went up to her at the burying and, "Mrs Pike," I said. "I surely am sorry." And you know what she said? She said, "This is where Simon's bedroom was going to be." I tell you, it scared me.'

'Well, they were going to build a house there,' Mrs Hall said. She slammed another stick in the stand. 'I say they should have put Janie Rose by the church, but that's an individual matter.'

Missouri took off her straw hat and began fanning her face with it. 'You can rest,' she told Joan and Lily. 'We're even now. Boy?'

'Yes'm.'

'Well, come on and get it.'

Joan and Lily leaned back against the table, half sitting on it, and Missouri tilted her head back so that she could fan her neck. 'Sun's about gone,' she said, 'but still working. What was it I was thinking, now? Lily?'

'Well, I'm sure I don't know,' Lily said.

'Hush. Wait, now – oh.' She stopped fanning herself, clamped her hat on her head again, and bent for another rod. 'Stop that standing around,' she commanded. 'Charleen, I take it back.'

'What?'

'What I said. I take it back. You only half silly.'

'Oh, why, thank you.'

'Only half as silly as you look. Stand up straight, Lily, you're a mess. What's that all over your hands?'

'It's tobacco gum, what you think?'

'Oh.' She snapped off her length of twine, with Mrs Hall watching closely, and reached for Joan's leaves. 'I'm a little vague, but I'm thinking,' she said. Then she frowned into space for a while. Finally she said, 'Growing old surely do damage a person.'

'Well, is that what you've been getting ready to say?' Mrs Hall asked irritably.

'Oh no,' Missouri said. 'It was something entirely different. I was working up to something.'

'You were talking about Aunt Lou,' Joan reminded her.

'Well, I know I was. If you all would just let me -'

'Personally,' said Mrs Hall, 'I think this is a lot of fuss for nothing. You think it's something wrong if Mrs Pike sticks to herself a few days. Well, something is wrong. Somebody died. And that's all I'm going to say.'

'It's just as well,' said Missouri. 'You keep distracting my mind.'

'Why, Missouri-'

'You said,' Missouri reminded her, 'you said that was all you was going to -'

Mrs Hall sighed and turned her back, muttering something but not attempting to argue any more, and Missouri nodded to herself several times. There now,' she said. 'Now, what was I -?' But when Lucy clicked her tongue in exasperation, exactly like her mother, Missouri waved her free hand at her to tell her not to speak. 'Now I remember,' she said. 'Growing old surely do – Well. Anyway. Now, of course we're not saying anything's wrong with Mrs Pike. Sure she's sad. Going to go right on being that way, always a little sad to the end of her days. But that don't stop us from trying to make her feel better; that's just natural. We all got reasons. Maybe we want to stop remembering the dead ourselves. Or a host of other reasons.'

She bent down and slapped a fly on her leg. 'Oh, you,' she said to the fly, and then reached out for Joan's leaves. Joan was holding the leaves too high and far away, and Missouri had to snap her fingers at her. 'Come on,' she said. Joan came to life and handed the leaves over.

'Anyhow,' said Missouri. 'Now I've lost my place again. Where was I?'

'Mrs Pike,' Joan said.

'Mrs Pike? Oh, her. Well, no, I was passing on to someone else. What's-his-name. What's his name?'

'Mr Pike?' Lily suggested.

'Just hush. Though he's in this too, of course. No, just hush -Simon. That boy of theirs. You know him, Joan?'

'He's my cousin,' said Joan.

'Oh, yes. Yes. Simon. Going to go to pieces if things go on this way. Do you see now what I'm getting at?'

'Well, no.'

'It's as plain as the nose on – Boy? Come on, now, quit that poking. I'm saying it's Simon should be in her beauty shop with her.'

'In her-?'

'I mean in her sewing shop. Look what you done now, got me all confused. Well, that's who you want.'

'You mean he should entertain the customers,' Joan said.

'That was my point.'

'Well-'

'He's the only one can help now. Not hot tea, not people circling round. Not even her own husband. Just her little boy.'

'I don't see how,' said Joan.

Missouri made an exasperated face. "You don't know,' she told her. 'You don't know how it would work out. Bravest thing about people, Miss Joan, is how they go on loving mortal beings after finding out there's such a thing as dying. Do I have to tell you that?'

She snapped her twine tight and held it there while she watched Joan scrape up the last of the leaves. 'I despise finishing the day on half a stick,' she said.

'Well, I'll be,' said Charleen. She leaned back against the table, shaking her head and watching Mrs Hall tie the end of her stick. 'I never. Was that what you did all this talking to say?'

'It was,' said Missouri.

At the other end of the table, Mrs Hall suddenly looked up. 'That's true,' she said slowly, but when they turned toward her she only shook her head. 'That's true,' she said again, and lifted her tobacco rod gently from its notches and handed it to the waiting boy.