Summer wasn't so good no more. Nothin t'do. No where t'go but next door. Ole lady kept promising that pony and never did it show up. Leading me on, teasing me. I'd show her. Make her sit over there all alone, wouldn't visit. Punish her. Last night I heard Momma telling Daddy how she saw that ole lady in black standing on a ladder propped against the wall. "And she was staring at me, Chris. Really staring!"
Daddy laughed. "Really, Cathy. What harm can her stares do? She's a stranger in a strange land. Wouldn't it have been friendly of you to wave and say hello-- perhaps introduce yourself?" I snickered to myself. Grandmother wouldn't have answered. She was shy around all strangers but me. I was the only one she trusted.
Another day of being mean to Cindy had caused everywhere to be named off-limits to me. But I was clever and stole outside and snuck quickly away, to next door, to where people liked me.
"Where's my pony?" I screeched when I saw the barn still empty. "You promised me a pony--so if you don't give me one I'll tell Momma and Daddy you are trying to steal me away!"
She seemed to shrink inside her ugly black robe while those pale, thin hands of hers fluttered to the neckline so she could tug out a heavy rope of pearls she usually kept hidden.
"Tomorrow, Bart. Tomorrow you get your heart's desire."
Met John Amos on the way home. He led me into his secret cubbyhole and whispered of "mandoings." "Women like her are born rich and they never need brains," said John Amos, his watery eyes hard and slitlike. "You listen to me, boy, and never fall in love with a stupid women. And all women are stupid. When you deal with women you have to let them know who is boss right from the start--and never let them forget it. Now, your lesson for today. Who is Malcolm Neal Foxworth?"
"My great-grandfather who is dead and gone but powerful even so," I said, not really understanding even as I said it.
"What else was Malcolm Neal Foxworth?"
"A saint. A saint deserving of a lordly place in heaven."
"Correct. But tell it all, leave nothing out."
"Never was there a man born smarter than Malcolm Neal Foxworth."
"That's not all I've taught you. You should know more about him from reading his journal. Are you reading it daily? He wrote in that book faithfully all his life. I've read it a dozen or more times. To read is to learn and to grow. So never stop reading your great- grandfather's journal until you are just as clever and smart as he is."
"Is clever the same as being smart?"
"No, of course not! Clever is not letting people suspect just how smart you are."
"Why didn't Malcolm like his Momma?" I asked, though I knew she'd run away, but would that make me hate my momma?
"Like his mother? Lord God above, boy, Malcolm was wild about his mother until she ran off with her lover and left Malcolm with his father, who was too busy to pay him any attention. If you read on, boy, you'll find out soon just what turned Malcolm against all women. Read on and increase your knowledge. Malcolm's wisdom will become yours. He will teach you to never trust a woman to be there when you need her."
"But my momma is a good momma," I defended weakly, not so sure anymore that it was true. Life was so "devious." (New word for today, devious.)
"Now, Bart," Daddy had said early this morning when he carefully printed the word and explained to me exactly what it meant, "I want you and Jory to find a way to fit devious into your conversation today at least five times. It means departing from the shortest way; crooked and unfair--D-E-V-I-O-U-S."
Spelled it for me, Golly day, I sure hated living in a "devious world." Dratted new vocabulary words were teaching me how devious everyone could be.
"Now I'm going to leave you alone so you can read more of Malcolm's words," said John Amos before he shuffled off, bent slightly forward and to the side.
I opened the book to the page where the leather bookmark was.
Today I just wanted to try a little of my father's tobacco, so I filled his pipe with what I found in his office, then stole outside and smoked behind the garage.
I don't know how he found out unless one of the servants told on me, but he knew. Fire came in his hard eyes and he ordered me to strip down to naked. Cringing, I cried when he whipped me, and then he put me in the attic until I could learn the ways of the Lord and redeem my sins. While I was up there I found old photographs of my mother when she was just a girl. How beautiful she was, so innocent and sweet looking. I hated her! I wanted her to die that very moment wherever she was in the world. I wanted her to be suffering as I was, with cuts bleeding down my back, while I nearly suffocated in that airless hot attic.
I found things in that attic, corsets with laces so a woman swelled out in front, deceiving men into believing she had more than what came naturally. I knew I would never be deceived by any woman, no matter how beautiful. For it was beauty that put me in the attic, and beauty that used the whip on my back, and it wasn't really my father's fault what he did. He was hurting too, like I was.
Now I knew what he'd said all the time was true; no woman could be trusted. And most especially those with beautiful faces and seductive bodies.
Lifting my eyes I stared into space, seeing not the
barn and all the hay, but the sweet and beautiful face of my mother. Was she devious? Would she one day run away with her "lover" and leave me to fend for myself with a stepfather who didn't love me nearly as much as he loved Jory and Cindy?
What would I do then? Would my grandmother take me in?
I asked her later on. "Yes, my love, I will take you in. I will care for you, fight for you, do what I can for you, for you are the true son of my second husband, Bart Winslow. Haven't I told you that before? Trust me, believe in me, and stay away from John Amos. He is not the kind of friend you should have."