Middy didn’t always tag along with her brother. On those occasions when she didn’t come, Appleseed wasn’t himself; he acted shy and left soon.
Hamurabi kept his promise and stood treat to a dish of barbecue at the café. “Mr. Hamurabi’s nice, all right,” said Appleseed afterward, “but he’s got peculiar notions: has a notion that if he lived in this place named Egypt he’d be a king or somethin’.”
And Hamurabi said, “That kid has the most touching faith. It’s a beautiful thing to see. But I’m beginning to despise the whole business.” He gestured toward the jug. “Hope of this kind is a cruel thing to give anybody, and I’m damned sorry I was ever a party to it.”
Around the Valhalla the most popular pastime was deciding what you would buy if you won the jug. Among those who participated were: Solomon Katz, Phoebe Jones, Carl Kuhnhardt, Puly Simmons, Addie Foxcroft, Marvin Finkle, Trudy Edwards and a colored man named Erskine Washington. And these were some of their answers: a trip to and a permanent wave in Birmingham, a second-hand piano, a Shetland pony, a gold bracelet, a set of Rover Boys books and a life insurance policy.
Once Mr. Marshall asked Appleseed what he would get. “It’s a secret,” was the reply, and no amount of prying could make him tell. We took it for granted that whatever it was, he wanted it real bad.
Honest winter, as a rule, doesn’t settle on our part of the country till late January, and then is mild, lasting only a short time. But in the year of which I write we were blessed with a singular cold spell the week before Christmas. Some still talk of it, for it was so terrible: water pipes froze solid; many folks had to spend the days in bed snuggled under their quilts, having neglected to lay in enough kindling for the fireplace; the sky turned that strange dull gray as it does just before a storm, and the sun was pale as a waning moon.
There was a sharp wind: the old dried-up leaves of last fall fell on the icy ground, and the evergreen tree in the courthouse square was twice stripped of its Christmas finery. When you breathed, your breath made smoky clouds. Down by the silk mill where the very poor people lived, the families huddled together in the dark at night and told tales to keep their minds off the cold.
Out in the country the farmers covered their delicate plants with gunny sacks and prayed; some took advantage of the weather to slaughter their hogs and bring the fresh sausage to town. Mr. R. C. Judkins, our town drunk, outfitted himself in a red cheesecloth suit and played Santa Claus at the five ’n’ dime. Mr. R. C. Judkins was the father of a big family, so everybody was happy to see him sober enough to earn a dollar. There were several church socials, at one of which Mr. Marshall came face to face with Rufus McPherson: bitter words were passed but not a blow was struck.
Now, as has been mentioned, Appleseed lived on a farm a mile below Indian Branches; this would be approximately three miles from town; a mighty long and lonesome walk. Still, despite the cold, he came every day to the Valhalla and stayed till closing time which, as the days had grown short, was after nightfall. Once in a while he’d catch a ride partway home with the foreman from the silk mill, but not often. He looked tired, and there were worry lines about his mouth. He was always cold and shivered a lot. I don’t think he wore any warm drawers underneath his red sweater and blue britches.
It was three days before Christmas when out of the clear sky, he announced: “Well, I’m finished. I mean I know how much is in the bottle.” He claimed this with such grave, solemn sureness it was hard to doubt him.
“Why, say now, son, hold on,” said Hamurabi, who was present. “You can’t know anything of the sort. It’s wrong to think so: you’re just heading to get yourself hurt.”
“You don’t need to preach to me, Mr. Hamurabi. I know what I’m up to. A lady in Louisiana, she told me …”
“Yes yes yes—but you got to forget that. If it were me, I’d go home and stay put and forget about this god-damned jug.”
“My brother’s gonna play the fiddle at a wedding over in Cherokee City tonight and he’s gonna give me the two bits,” said Appleseed stubbornly. “Tomorrow I’ll take my chance.”
SO THE NEXT DAY I felt kind of excited when Appleseed and Middy arrived. Sure enough, he had his quarter: it was tied for safekeeping in the corner of a red bandanna.
The two of them wandered hand in hand among the showcases, holding a whispery consultation as to what to purchase. They decided finally on a thimble-sized bottle of gardenia cologne which Middy promptly opened and partly emptied on her hair. “I smells like … Oh, darlin’ Mary, I ain’t never smelled nothin’ as sweet. Here, Appleseed, honey, let me douse some on your hair.” But he wouldn’t let her.
Mr. Marshall got out the ledger in which he kept his records, while Appleseed strolled over to the fountain and cupped the jug between his hands, stroking it gently. His eyes were bright and his cheeks flushed from excitement. Several persons who were in the drugstore at that moment crowded close. Middy stood in the background quietly scratching her leg and smelling the cologne. Hamurabi wasn’t there.
Mr. Marshall licked the point of his pencil and smiled. “Okay, son, what do you say?”
Appleseed took a deep breath. “Seventy-seven dollars and thirty-five cents,” he blurted.
In picking such an uneven sum he showed originality, for the run-of-the-mill guess was a plain round figure. Mr. Marshall repeated the amount solemnly as he copied it down.
“When’ll I know if I won?”
“Christmas Eve,” someone said.
“That’s tomorrow, huh?”
“Why, so it is,” said Mr. Marshall, not surprised. “Come at four o’clock.”
DURING THE NIGHT THE THERMOMETER dropped even lower, and toward dawn there was one of those swift, summer-like rainstorms, so that the following day was bright and frozen. The town was like a picture postcard of a Northern scene, what with icicles sparkling whitely on the trees and frost flowers coating all windowpanes. Mr. R. C. Judkins rose early and, for no clear reason, tramped the streets ringing a supper bell, stopping now and then to take a swig of whiskey from a pint which he kept in his hip pocket. As the day was windless, smoke climbed lazily from various chimneys straightway to the still, frozen sky. By mid-morning the Presbyterian choir was in full swing; and the town kids (wearing horror masks, as at Hallowe’en) were chasing one another round and round the square, kicking up an awful fuss.
Hamurabi dropped by at noon to help us fix up the Valhalla. He brought along a fat sack of Satsumas, and together we ate every last one, tossing the hulls into a newly installed potbellied stove (a present from Mr. Marshall to himself) which stood in the middle of the room. Then my uncle took the jug off the fountain, polished and placed it on a prominently situated table. He was no help after that whatsoever, for he squatted in a chair and spent his time tying and retying a tacky green ribbon around the jug. So Hamurabi and I had the rest to do alone: we swept the floor and washed the mirrors and dusted the cabinets and strung streamers of red and green crepe paper from wall to wall. When we were finished it looked very fine and elegant.
But Hamurabi gazed sadly at our work, and said: “Well, I think I better be getting along now.”
“Aren’t you going to stay?” asked Mr. Marshall, shocked.
“No, oh, no,” said Hamurabi, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t want to see that kid’s face. This is Christmas and I mean to have a rip-roaring time. And I couldn’t, not with something like that on my conscience. Hell, I wouldn’t sleep.”
“Suit yourself,” said Mr. Marshall. And he shrugged, but you could see he was really hurt. “Life’s like that—and besides, who knows, he might win.”
Hamurabi sighed gloomily. “What’s his guess?”
“Seventy-seven dollars and thirty-five cents,” I said.
“Now I ask you, isn’t that fantastic?” said Hamurabi. He slumped in a chair next to Mr. Marshall and crossed his legs and lit a cigarette. “If you got any Baby Ruths I think I’d like one; my mouth tastes sour.”
AS THE AFTERNOON WORE ON, the three of us sat around the table feeling terribly blue. No one said hardly a word and, as the kids had deserted the square, the only sound was the clock tolling the hour in the courthouse steeple. The Valhalla was closed to business, but people kept passing by and peeking in the window. At three o’clock Mr. Marshall told me to unlock the door.
Within twenty minutes the place was jam full; everyone was wearing his Sunday best, and the air smelled sweet, for most of the little silk-mill girls had scented themselves with vanilla flavoring. They scrunched up against the walls, perched on the fountain, squeezed in wherever they could; soon the crowd had spread to the sidewalk and stretched into the road. The square was
