Страница 56 из 69
She kept a bottle in her apron, and Momma would say, 'Idgie, you're just encouraging people into bad habits.' But Aunt Idgie, who liked a drink herself, would say, 'Ruth, man does not live by bread alone.'
"There must have been ten or fifteen hoboes a day that showed up. But these boys weren't afraid to do a little work for their grub. Not like the ones they've got today. They'd rake the yard or sweep the sidewalk. Aunt Idgie always let them do a little something, so as not to hurt their pride. Sometimes she'd let them come sit in the back room and baby-sit with me, just so they'd think they were working. They were mostly good guys, just fellows down on their luck. Aunt Idgie's best friend was this old hobo named Smokey Lonesome. God, you could trust him with your life. Never took a thing that didn't belong to him.
"Those hoboes had an honor system. Smokey told me he heard they caught one that had stolen some silverware out of a house, and they killed him on the spot and took the silverware back to the people he had stolen it from . . . back then, we didn't even have to turn a key. These new ones on the road and riding what's left of the rails are a different breed. Just bums and dope addicts that will steal you blind.
"But Aunt Idgie never had one thing taken." He laughed. "Of course, that may have been because of that shotgun she kept by the bed . . . she was as tough as pig iron, wasn't she, Peggy?"
Peggy called back from the kitchen, "Tougher."
"Of course, most of that was just an act, but she could be a hellion if she didn't like you. She had this ru
Peggy came out of the kitchen and sat down. "Stump, don't be telling them that."
He laughed. "Well, she did. Always doing something mean to that man. But, like I say, she just liked for people to think she was mean . . . inside, she was as soft as a marshmallow. Just like that time the preacher's son, Bobby Lee, got arrested . . . she was the one he called to come get him.
"He'd gone over to Birmingham with two or three boys and gotten himself all liquored up and was ru
"It cost Aunt Idgie two hundred dollars to get him out of jail and another two hundred dollars to take Bobby's name off the books, so he wouldn't have a police record and his daddy wouldn't find out . . . I went over there with her to get him, and coming home, she told him that if he ever let anybody know she had done it, she would shoot his you-know-whats off. She couldn't stand anybody knowing she had done a good deed, especially for the preacher's son.
"All that bunch in the Dill Pickle Club were like that. They did a lot of good works that nobody knew about. But the best part of the story is that old Bobby Lee went on to become a big-time lawyer, and wound up as an attorney general for Governor Folsom."
His daughter, Norma, came in to get the rest of the dishes. "Daddy, tell him about Railroad Bill."
Linda shot her mother an exasperated look.
Stump said, "Railroad Bill? Oh Lord, you don't really want to hear about Bill, do you?"
The boyfriend, who really wanted to take Linda out parking somewhere, said, "Yes sir, I'd love to hear about it"
Macky smiled at his wife. They had heard this story a hundred times and knew Stump loved to tell it.
"Well, it was during the Depression and, somehow, this person called Railroad Bill would sneak on the government supply trains and throw stuff off for the colored people. Then he'd jump off before they could catch him. This went on for years, and pretty soon the colored started telling stories about him. They claimed that someone saw him turn into a fox and run twenty miles on top of a barbed-wire fence. People that did see him said he wore a long black coat, with a black stocking cap on his head. They even made up a song about him . . . . Sipsey said, every Sunday in church, they'd pray for Railroad Bill, to keep him safe.
“The railroad put a huge reward up, but there wasn't a person in Whistle Stop that would have ever turned him in, even if they had known who he was. Everybody wondered and made guesses.
"I got in my head that Railroad Bill was Artis Peavy, our cook's son. He was about the right size and as fast as lightning. I followed him around night and day, but I could never catch him. I must have been around nine or ten at the time, and I would have given anything to have seen him in action, so I would have known for sure.
"Then, one morning, right around daybreak, I had to go to the toilet. I was about half asleep and when I got to the bathroom, there was Momma and Aunt Idgie in there, with the sink ru
"I said, ‘Hurry up, Momma, I cain't wait!' You know how a kid'll do. I heard them talking and pretty soon they came out, and Aunt Idgie was drying her hands and face. When I got in there, the sink was still full of coal dust. And on the floor, behind the door, was a black stocking hat.
"I suddenly figured out why I'd seen her and old Grady Kilgore, the railroad detective, always whispering. He'd been the one who was tipping her off about the train schedules . . . it had been my Aunt Idgie jumping them trains, all along."
Linda said, "Oh Granddaddy, are you sure that's true?"
"Of course it's true. Your Aunt Idgie did all kinds of crazy things." He asked Macky, "Did I ever tell you what she did that time old Wilbur and Dot Weems got married and went on their honeymoon at a big hotel in Birmingham?"
"No, I don't think so."
Peggy said, "Stump, don't be telling that story in front of the children."
"It'll be all right, don't worry. Well anyway, old Wilbur was a member of the Dill Pickle Club, and right after the wedding, Aunt Idgie and that bunch got in a car and drove over to Birmingham as fast as they could, and bribed the hotel clerk into letting them into the honeymoon suite, and they put all kinds of fu
Peggy warned him, "Stump . . ."
He laughed. "Hell, I don't know what it was. Anyway, they got in the car and came back home, and when Wilbur and Dot got back, they asked Wilbur how he liked his honeymoon suite at the Redmont, only to find out that they had been at the wrong hotel, and some poor honeymoon couple had gotten the shock of their lives."
Peggy shook her head. "Can you imagine such a thing?"
Norma stuck her head under the serving counter. "Daddy, tell them about the catfish you used to catch down at the Warrior River."
Stump's face lit up. "Oh well. You wouldn't believe how big those catfish were. I remember one day, it was raining and I got a bite so hard, it slid me right down the bank and I had to fight to not be pulled into the water. Lightning was striking and I was fighting for my life, but after about four hours, I pulled that grandaddy mud cat out of the water and, I tell you, he must have weighed twenty pounds or more, and he was this long . . ."