A few days after we heard the awful news, I was picking up Mother’s medicine at Doc Winkler’s drugstore when Carrie Langford came in with her little daughters. Doc Winkler was the only doctor in Lee County and what is more, his shop sold ice cream sodas. Poor Miss Carrie had gone all dark around those big dark eyes, and her glorious thick hair, pinned up too tight in mourning, had lost its shine. Her little Faith came over to me and whispered, kind of scared, “Our Mama’s been just crying and crying and we don’t know why.”
Darn it all if I don’t bust out with: “She’s crying cause some bad men shot your grandpa!” Those terrible words flew out like bats the moment I opened my mouth. Her grandpa had been real good to me at Chatham, so naturally I was upset, too, but at my age of almost twelve, I should have known better!
Hearing those words, Faith became hysterical, Grandpa, Grandpa! She would not stop wailing. Then Betsy started, Grandpa, Grandpa! because five-year-olds need attention even worse. They would not stop until their mother warned them to get their grief under control if they still wanted ice cream sodas. And just that moment-would you believe it?-the doorbell tinkled and in walked the first real live Indian we ever saw. Came right through the door in a high silk hat with an egret plume and a Seminole men’s frock with red, gold, and black stripes. This Indian walked straight out of the Glades into Doc Winkler’s Drug and Soda!
Betsy switched from Grandpa! Grandpa! to Mama! Mama!, never missed a breath, and Faith cried, “Mama? Is he going to scalp us?” Because back in those days, folks still talked about the Seminole Wars and the last redskins lurking in the Cypress and Shark River. Later I learned that Old Ice Cream Eater at Doc Winkler’s had been threatened with death by his own tribe for hanging around palefaces and gobbling paleface ice cream, too, for all I know.
Miss Carrie said, “No, child, that is Mr. Billie, he’s not here to kill little girls but only to enjoy a bowl of ice cream.” And we watched Mr. Billie hike that skirt way up to seat himself more comfortably upon his stool, and lo and behold, he didn’t have a stitch on underneath! Plopped his bare old brown behind right down and dropped that skirt over the stool and borrowed a toothpick off the counter to dig into his ear while he was waiting!
My mother made clothes for Mrs. Langford and her friends and was deathly afraid of losing her modest livelihood. When she found out what I’d said to those Langford girls, she burst into tears. Only a month before she’d had to send me over to apologize to Miss Carrie for having picked a beautiful big yellow rose that escaped out through her pickets and bloomed over the sidewalk. I picked that rose for my dear mother’s birthday present because she was sick and I didn’t have a penny, but not knowing that, my poor ma wept, saying, This child will be the death of me. I remembered those words on the day she died only a few years later.
When I went over to apologize, Miss Carrie invited me in for milk and pie. Neither she nor her brother Mr. Eddie visited Chatham while my family lived there so all I really knew about her was that Lucius Watson adored her instead of me.
Well, no wonder! Miss Carrie was beautiful, with a bountiful bosom and long soft brown hair and a complexion clear as a cowry shell and a faint scent of wildflowers-just an amazing person altogether and a good, good woman. And here was poor Nell with her home haircut close-cropped high above the ears so my ma could wash my neck. On top it shot up crazily like a hair fountain and fell down any old way over my spotty face. As Lucius teased in later years, I looked kind of odd and spiky-“like a wind-borne seed hunting some place to attach,” those were his words-but in my ma’s mirror I looked like some insane girl poking her head out of a bush.
Maybe because I was so uncouth, Miss Carrie insisted that I join her and her girls in their weekly tutoring in the ladylike speech and genteel deportment expected of a bank president’s family. Because I remembered her daddy very kindly and we both loved Lucius, we were soon fast friends.
• • •
I first met Mr. Lucius Hampton Watson around 1903 or 1904 at Chatham Bend, where my father Fred Dyer had been hired as the foreman and my mother was the seamstress and my older brother Watt showed up on school vacations to pester and bully his little sister. What I loved about Lucius was the way he protected me from Wattie and also his gentle way with all young animals, including a certain bucktoothed little fool who imagined him to be some sort of knight.
Lucius paid me no more mind than my ma’s knee patch on his britches but he only spoke sharply to me once, to shoo me out from underfoot. The addled child had strayed too close to the cane syrup boiler and the fire he was tending. Too young to understand that he was more frightened than furious, I ran off weeping. From that day on, utterly crushed, I gave him a little room, but my dirt-streaked face was poking around corners everywhere he went. All I could think about was this lean graceful boy-he was sixteen that year-whom I loved with all my heart.
In the late summer of 1905, my father packed his family onto the mail boat in a great hurry while his boss was absent in Key West. Wattie was glad to go back to Fort Myers but I was inconsolable, and fondly hoped that our sudden departure upset Lucius, too. Though I imagined I must be the cause, I realize now that his concern was for my parents, whose contracts read that if they quit their jobs before the harvest, they would forfeit every cent of that year’s pay. Having no idea why my father was so frightened, Lucius was urging him to reconsider. I urged, too, in my shrill silly way-not that I cared a hoot about their pay. Staying close where he couldn’t miss me, I wailed over the tragedy of our parting but could not get his attention; he was too busy scribbling a note to be given to his sister Carrie, recommending Mrs. Sybil Dyer as a seamstress. Thanks to this kind act, my mother would become established as a dressmaker to Fort Myers ladies, not only Miss Carrie and her friends but the Summerlins and Hendrys and in the winter season Mrs. Edison, upon whose bust she would make finery to be sent north in the summer to New Jersey.
I never saw my hero again until the day of Mr. Watson’s burial five years later. My mother wanted to attend but my father forbade it. I disobeyed him because I knew how awful it all was for the Watson children, not only the horror of their father’s death but as Mama said-she was grieving wildly, too, which was why my father got so angry-the dreadful scandal in our small provincial town.
On that cold sad November day, hoping to glimpse Lucius, I went to the cemetery by myself, looking as respectable as I knew how by hiding my horrible Sunday dress under my green sweater. Lucius spotted me and raised his hand, though not quite sure he recognized me. Once the grave was filled, however, he drifted away from the departing mourners and came toward me. He looked exhausted. “Nell?” When his pale face broke in a warm smile, I lost my head and ran and jumped and threw my arms around his neck, crying, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!” He had to detach me like a big green tick and set me down. While the mourners paused to wonder who that rude child might be, he answered gently. “I know you are, Nell, I know that. Thank you.” Courteous as ever, he asked after my family while making me feel he was glad to see an old friend from Chatham days even if that friend was only twelve.