THE LETTER IN THE CEDARCHEST

Now this is about the lives of Old Mrs. Woman, Sister Sammye, and Little Pigeon, and how they formed a household; but first, about Old Mrs. Woman.

Her early name, and rightful one, was Lucille Purdy; and she had had a pretty good life until she started getting fat. Lucille’s husband, a tall, good-looking man, with no stomach, a good chest and a deep voice, but he had evil lips—and whose mother had lived with him and Lucille from the day they married until the day she died in Lucille’s arms—had begun to hurrah her some two or three years back, especially when he saw her in her nightgown. He had said, “Lucille, one thing I cannot stand and that is a fat woman; I’ll leave you, swear to God, if ever you get fat. …” At first Lucille had laughed and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Purdy (no one ever heard her call him anything but Mr. Purdy—when his name was Duke), I won’t; I have already given up bread and potatoes.”

Yet Lucille kept putting on weight, there seemed nothing she could do to stop the fat acoming; and with the constant increase in stoutness came a more and more nervousness. Naturally. Mr. Purdy’s threat seemed to produce as much fat on Lucille as bread and potatoes. She noticed Mr. Purdy had begun to wear a moustache, which made him look younger and devilish, what with those lips, now with fringe on top.

When Mr. Purdy moved into a room to himself, Lucille cried alone in the master bedroom at night. Finally, one night she went into hysterics and accused Mr. Purdy of no longer caring about her. Mr. Purdy lost his temper and said, “You ought to kill yourself, Lucille, because you’re slobby and no longer any good to anybody, and you’re nervous and going crazy”; and he laid a revolver on the table by the side of Lucille’s bed. She lay all night crying and thinking seriously of taking Mr. Purdy up on his suggestion to blow out her brains. But she prayed and remembered the sweet Christian memory of old Mother Purdy who had suffered out her life to the end and then died in her arms; and did not use the gun.

Then Lucille found out Mr. Purdy was carrying on with his stenographer. A voice advised her this on the telephone, and then Lucille called on the phone, made certain investigations, and found it all out to be true. She had hysterics and ordered Mr. Purdy out of the house. He gladly went, admitting everything, said he wanted a divorce, Lucille said she would not give him one to her dying day, he said that he was going to be married to the woman in question (who was twenty-one). And he reminded Lucille of the revolver, to take her out of her misery.

Lucille had a very hard time. She read books from the Normal for the dreams she was having, about white and black horses pulling her up mountains, and about her pulling the same horses up mountains. She was also riding the horses sometimes. The books helped her some (yet they didn’t stop the dreams); but it was the minister of her church that really helped her—for a while. Helped her so much that she begun to have giggling and crying spells when she was in his office counseling with him. The minister was stumped as to what to do. The minister suggested that Lucille go into Sunday School work with children, and Lucille added that she loved working with children; so she did this. But other Sunday School teachers complained that Lucille was too fussy with the children, that she would humor them, then pinch them and even slap them, then cry over them. They asked her to take a rest.

It was while she was taking a rest, and crying most of the time, that she decided to go on with the divorce which she had so stubbornly opposed up to now. She took it to court, got the divorce, Mr. Purdy (still not married) left her the big house but took all the furniture out which was his by rights, he said, since it had been his mother’s. This left Lucille’s house completely bare except for the cedarchest which she had married Duke with, from her girlhood—she had been raised by two old women cousins, and an orphan since she was twelve.

Now Lucille was alone in her big empty house, and still putting on poundage. Her minister advised her to put her house up for sale and move into just a little board cottage somewhere, but the house was all Lucille had and she wanted to cling to it. She made her a cat pallet in the master bedroom and cooked on a gas burner she bought. She barely lived on the monthly allowance Mr. Purdy was compelled by law to send—and when he pleased, sometimes on time, most of the time not. She cried nearly all the time; and the neighbors who had known her all these years naturally began to turn from her and to suspicion her because she acted so funny. If they asked her questions about herself or her husband, she was quick to snap at them, “Ask me no questions I’ll tell you no lies,” and walk away. Therefore, one by one they let her alone; politely but firmly.

When she went back to her church they would not have her in the Sunday School and so she cried and said she knew it was because she was too fat, the minister couldn’t do much with her, she went into a red rage with the woman in the Sunday School, and this is when she asked to have her church Letter out. She got it, read it carefully to see that there were no mistakes in it: “This is to certify that Lucille Marie Purdy is a member of the Lord’s Household in good standing and full fellowship and to recommend her as a faithful servant to all those present. …” She put it in her cedarchest.

It was then that Lucille decided to take on boarders. She furnished two bedrooms when she found out three young men from the Normal would rent the rooms. The three young men moved in, two in the big room—these were the gentle one and the outspoken one—where Mr. Purdy had gone off to sleep and live when Lucille had got so stout, and one in the corner bedroom next to Lucille’s—this one was the young wild one who had worked his way to Spain on a freighter and had gone crazy over bullfights, bringing back from Spain a long black whip which he practiced cracking, even late at night you could hear the stinging hot crackling of it in his room. Lucille’s room continued to be the master bedroom, just furnished with a pallet and a cedarchest.

These three young men are a story in themselves, and it is peculiar how life arranged to bring them into Lucille’s house, and at such a time in Lucille’s life. Often Lucille said, “I know the Lord sent you all here; it is His Divine Hand; there is more love in this household than in any church, I am glad I have moved my Letter into this house.” But anyway, these three young men were a nice thing for Lucille to have in her house and Lucille became very nice with them in her house. They wondered about the state of the house, why it was not furnished, and so on, but they did not ask questions. Mostly they were at the Normal all day, and at nights they studied in their rooms or met in one another’s room to have their talk and laughter, which Lucille would overhear if she stood against the wall and listened; until one night Lucille knocked on their door at late night and said, “Listen here, since you are still up and talking would you like to move your conversation on down to the kitchen and have you some hot cocoa with it?” and in a little while they had formed the pleasant habit of meeting in the kitchen for hot cocoa every night about eleven. Naturally some talk ensued. The young men told of their work at the Normal and told of their lives and interests, the gentle one told how he wanted to be a poet (Lucille said she often wrote poems and would show him hers); the outspoken one disagreed with most of Lucille’s philosophy about life, but in a friendly way that made Lucille feel intellectually stimulated; and the wild one said he only wanted to wander and to travel, free on the road. Lucille responded that her father himself had been a sea captain and roamed and that that was why she was part gypsy, her two cousins raised her but never understood her, she had always had a gypsy heart. Then Lucille had something in common with each of the roomers, she declared; and it wasn’t long before Lucille had told the roomers all about her husband leaving her, explaining that he had taken the furniture; and as she told her story she broke out crying. The roomers were very sympathetic and tried to comfort Lucille.

After awhile you had this nice household of Lucille and the three comforting young men. They began to wait on her hand and foot, and Lucille wore fresh dresses and kept the house clean. They refused to allow her to sleep on a pallet and all bought her a daybed. They went through the winter this way. When it snowed so heavily that one time, some of the neighbors were surprised to hear Lucille’s voice squealing outdoors and looked out to see her shooting down the slope of her snow-covered lawn on a sled pushed by the three roomers. Life had changed for Lucille, she had a regular household, the roomers had built furniture of tables and bookcases and things and they had chipped in and helped buy other things to make the big living room nice, there was fire in the fireplace, often singing (the wild roomer played a guitar), and Lucille fixed supper every night for the household; they were all around the table like a family.

When spring came, the young wild roomer quit the Normal, he was too restless; and Lucille let him stay on free of charge until he could determine what to do, whether to get a job and study castanets, or what; and they all worked together in the yard and planted flowers in the beds. This is where Little Pigeon comes in.

Being for the most of the time alone over in her house across Lucille’s back yard, she lots of the time just stood at her window and watched across to see the life and lights of Lucille’s big changed house; all the shades were raised, now. She heard singing and she heard laughing and she saw figures busy in the lighted rooms of the house that had been dark so long. She heard guitars and she heard castanets and she heard the snapping of the bullwhip. Finally, one time when she could not find her purse and had called long distance to Rodunda to ask her widow sister Sammye where she had hidden it but Sister Sammye had just hung up in her face, Little Pigeon thought of the bright and living house of Lucille’s across the yard. She decided to knock on the door of this house. She did, and when Lucille came to the door, Little Pigeon said, “Mrs. Woman (for she did not know her name), I have lost my purse.”

Now Lucille had had a few experiences with Little Pigeon before, and with Little Pigeon’s sister Sammye, too; and she knew about the trouble and disorder of that household over across the yard and wanted nothing to do with it. Earlier, and just after Mr. Purdy had left Lucille, Sammye had come over and asked her please to keep an eye out after Little Pigeon while she was away, and Lucille had tried but it didn’t work out—mainly because of Sammye. Lucille wanted nothing to do with the two sisters, and she very quickly said to Little Pigeon, “You better go on back home and look for your purse again, or call your sister Sammye, because I am sure it is not here,” and was going to close the door, when one of the roomers, the gentle one, came up and began to make friends with Little Pigeon. He had seen her at her window and he had heard Lucille speak of the crazy woman next door. He invited Little Pigeon in before the fire. Little Pigeon came in timidly, looked all around, and said, “You all have a nice household here. Is it a party?” And they all said no and to sit down. They gave her some cocoa, Little Pigeon told a story about a place she and Selmus, her husband, had gone to when they used to travel around; and then the gentle roomer saw her home (having to stay in Little Pigeon’s house for her to show him all her things and tell him the story of them). Little Pigeon kept her new discovery of the party across the yard a secret from her sister Sammye, among other secrets she kept.

This started all the trouble. Constantly Little Pigeon’s voice at her back door would call out, “Mrs. Woman! Mrs. Woman!” And when Lucille would answer at her back door, Little Pigeon would have nothing to say but “Can you come over?” quietly. Lucille would give some excuse and not go; but finally she weakened and went over. Usually it was for nothing and Little Pigeon would have nothing to say, except to show her things and ask about the party in Lucille’s house. When Lucille would turn around and leave, Little Pigeon would weep very quietly and this would hurt Lucille, for she knew enough about tears. Finally, Lucille found herself over at Little Pigeon’s most every day, at one time or another, looking at Little Pigeon’s things, which Little Pigeon would count and tell about. Lucille would complain that she had her work to do in her house, to look after her roomers, they were such a handful, and Little Pigeon then began to appear every night at Lucille’s house, her face would be at the window or her knock on the door, and they would have to let her in to join them.

When Little Pigeon’s sister Sammye would come in from the next town of Rodunda and find that Little Pigeon had been neighborly with Lucille and over visiting in her house, she would be angry and order Little Pigeon to stop ever calling Lucille again. For Sammye had heard the stories in the neighborhood about Lucille; she, in fact, knew the whole story, and would have nothing to do with her. In turn, the neighbors would have nothing to do with Little Pigeon or Sammye because of Little Pigeon’s antics in the neighborhood, her wandering about and her calling the fire department and the police for the slightest thing, and then just to talk with them. Some of the neighbors tried to get Little Pigeon ordered to a Home, but Sammye stopped that and told them to mind their own business; and fell out with the neighbors.

So you had this complicated neighborhood, all enemies to Lucille and to Little Pigeon, having nothing whatsoever to do with either of them; and Lucille and Little Pigeon divided against each other by Sammye, but coming together when she was away.

Then things began to wear in Lucille’s household. Lucille began to pick on and pester the roomers, or humor and coddle them, much in the same way as she had treated the Sunday School children. She would fuss at them when they wouldn’t eat, she would order them around, she would criticize their habits, she would have spells of temper or poutishness; and sometimes she would suddenly change into such wildness, like doing a gypsy dance—even as fat as she still was (she seemed to have forgotten that)—while the wild roomer played his guitar or cracked his long black bullwhip. The outspoken roomer did not like what he saw, and the gentle roomer suffered most of all, for he had to return the clothes of Mr. Purdy which Mr. Purdy had left behind and which Lucille had given to him, and they fit perfectly, when she suddenly asked for them back. The roomers were more and more unsettled in Lucille’s house. They could not predict what she would break out and do, without any warning. The household was like a troubled mind, with tormenting ideas, desires and suspicions. The outspoken roomer got fed up with Lucille’s talk and tantrums and just stayed out of her way. The gentle one tried to reason with her but he could get no farther with her than the minister had been able to. So he withdrew. The young wild roomer tried to make light of her misery, to liven her up, of course, by cracking his whip suddenly behind her; but this only made Lucille scream into hysterics. Even Little Pigeon deviled Lucille by playing a kind of hide-and-seek with her: face at the window, voice at the back door, vanishing and appearing.

The first thing to go was the hot cocoa at night; no one would come down—just to go through all Lucille’s story and spells again. The next was supper; the roomers wouldn’t come down to that, either. So Lucille stopped cooking. Her bad crying spells started again.

Well, this situation grew and grew, the roomers were all in their rooms with doors shut; Lucille was shut out and left alone again. Lucille took it out on Little Pigeon and was mean to her, abusing her and teasing her and confusing her. Little Pigeon could not understand and did not know what to do, but she fought back gamely and seemed to have a good time doing it. Finally, when the roomers notified Lucille that they were leaving, Little Pigeon invited them to move over into her house, where the party, as she called it, could go on; but the roomers packed up and left, taking their furniture with them. Lucille remembered the revolver Mr. Purdy had given her, and his words with it, except that now it seemed to her that the roomers had left the revolver, and in the same way. She was on the point of using it upon herself. Why did everything spoil in her household? It was because she was so fat. She would stand for minutes before the mirror and look at herself, turning round and round. She would do this nude, too; and beat herself in the fattest places, she hated them so. She ran up and down the stairs nude, either to reduce herself or because she was going crazy, who knows. It was this way, running naked up and down the stairs in her empty house, that Little Pigeon found her once, and laughed until she cried. Whereupon Lucille covered herself and began to cry with Little Pigeon, there on the stairs. There was this sympathy between the two poor women. Then is when they became very close; and then is when Sammye enters the picture.

When Sammye came in from Rodunda and found Little Pigeon turned over in the hedge like a toy bird with its spindly legs kicking as if they were unwinding, she picked Little Pigeon out and what do you think Little Pigeon did for thanks? Sassed Sammye and said she’d pushed her in the hedge, all to run and get her purse. But Sammye didn’t care, she didn’t get mad or anything, she just picked Little Pigeon out and took her in the house and washed her off. And said, “You are my sweet sister that I love and adore.”

Then Little Pigeon said, “I can’t figure it all out. Old Mrs. Woman pushed me in the bush and went back to her house across the yard and the ghost of Sister Sammye come and pulled me out.”

Sammye said, “Forget the ghost of Sister Sammye and leave Old Mrs. Woman to her own house. It is all over, your playparty, and I am back here to look after you and to tend to you and I am no ghost either, I am your fleshandblood Sister Sammye. Sweet Little Pigeon.” And everything seemed all right.

Now that Little Pigeon and Sammye were old, both their husbands dead, Sammye came up from Rodunda as often as she could to stay with her as long as she could suffer it. Because Little Pigeon was no longer accountable to herself; and, besides, she had to have someone to give her her insulin every morning, no practical nurse would do it, no practical nurse would stay in the same house with Little Pigeon, Sammye had tried it, don’t worry, because Little Pigeon thought a nurse was trying to take her money, which was in a bank, and safe there, but that didn’t make no difference to Little Pigeon; she worried about it anyway. “Besides, Little Pigeon loves me and I love and adore her,” Sammye would say. “She is my sweet sister that I love and adore. She fights me a lot (I don’t want her Irish linens and her bone china), but that’s all right, that don’t make me no difference. She’s my sweet sister that I love and adore, truly do.”

Once Sammye missed her and called through all the house, through all the yard, went up and down the sidewalk calling through the neighborhood, but no Little Pigeon. Then she came back in the house and wondered whether to call the police again. Then Sammye heard a ruckus upstairs. Up she went and there was the kicking legs of Little Pigeon with the rest of her under the bed. Sammye said, “What on earth are you doing under there, Little Pigeon? Come out”; and Little Pigeon said, “Hush up, I’m looking for my lost black purse.”

“Oh have you lost that again?” Sammye said.

And Little Pigeon said, “You hush it because you have stolen it anyway”; and out she came fast as lightning. They had it all to go over again, the black purse. They spent half the day looking for it, and of course they found it, Little Pigeon had thrown it in the trashcan. Then said Sammye had done it. And was as mad as all outdoors.

Little Pigeon’s life was never hard, she was spoilt from the beginning. She was very beautiful, you could still tell it if you looked at her complexion; she still was, hair real fine and naturally curly, a set of flashing lashy eyes like Miss Maybelline, and a little sweetheart mouth. She was always prettier than Sammye, she was the flighty one, cute as a thimble, had all the boy friends, Sunday beau, Candy beau, every one; Sammye was the practical one, and had nothing. “And what does it matter if she was ugly to me then?” Sammye would declare. “I am sweet to her now and I will be till she dies, I don’t care if they say it’s for her money, that is a Satanish lie, I am here to look after her when I can be, for she is my sweet sister that I love and adore.”

Little Pigeon’s husband wedded her when he was twenty and she was eighteen, and they had lots of trips all their life, to Cuba and every place. He knew a lot about horses, bred his own, and Little Pigeon swore he brought his finest horse in the kitchen one morning to have breakfast with them. “But don’t pay any ’tention to her when she says that, it’s the effect of the insulin,” Sammye would say. “Makes her tell the wildest tales. But oh she is so sweet, that sweet sister.”

They never had chick nor child, Little Pigeon and her husband Selmus, just all they wanted, big cars and chinaware, Persian rugs and fine furniture. Sammye said she remembers coming to visit them when they were flourishing, and wanting to touch the pretty things, but Little Pigeon would say, “Take your hands off my crystal candy jar,” or, “Don’t smut up my Dresden compote made of Dresden.” Selmus would be down in the basement listening to the radio. He died there, of a sudden, in the basement listening to the horse races. But Little Pigeon was already weakening by then, in her notions of things. She needed insulin then but they didn’t know it. She was a sweet thing and cried at Selmus’s funeral. When Sammye and Little Pigeon came home from the funeral, Little Pigeon counted her silver that Selmus had given to her, and cried again; but not a tear fell on the silver to smutten it up, you understand; she was careful of that. “Oh now she’s sweet and I love and adore her, but I know her bad points, and I know her good points, too, of which they are bountiful,” Sammye would say.

“Pity Little Pigeon,” Sammye would say. “She’s got nothing in this wide world but me and a house full of fine things. (I don’t want any of them.) Her days run away in a dream. She dusts her porcelain, cleans her pretty Persian rugs, counts her linens and counts her silver. If an ant had crawled over one little spoon of that sterling in the night, Little Pigeon would know it the next morning. Yet she can’t see to find her purse.”

Well, Sammye stayed as long as she could with Little Pigeon, until she had to go back up to Rodunda to see after her own house. “After all,” she said, “I have my own house. Pigeon thinks I can just close that house up and run to her whenever she needs me, but she don’t reckon that I have a house, too, with my life in it and all my things, not so fine as hers, but my house; and all my responsibilities.” Once when Sammye had to leave Little Pigeon, she asked that old Mrs. Whatchamacallit next door please to look after Little Pigeon and not let her catch the house afire or leave the garage lights burning all night and then wake up and call the fire department because she thinks the garage is burning down and it the middle of the night. Now Old Mrs. Whatsername was in a bad fix, too; but she agreed to watch out after Little Pigeon after hemming and hawing that she had her hands full already. “How come?” Sammye said. “She has nothing to do—her husband’s just left her and she’s all alone in a big two-storied house in which she cries all day and half the night, I’ve seen her. Once I said, ’What’s the trouble, Mrs.—Thing?’ And she said, ’Because I’m the fattest woman in church.’ Then said she had taken her Letter out because the church showed favoritism. Said she had her Letter in her cedarchest and was going to keep it there, said that even that cedarchest was a better church than most; and cried and cried. I didn’t know what to say to humor her, but I finally said, Well I’m sure there are fatter women than you in church,’ but guess this was the wrong thing to say.” Anyway, she sure was the wrong thing for Little Pigeon, the same devilment in both of them and they fought like dog and cat when they came upon each other outdoors. Sammye said she knew for a fact that Old Mrs. Woman hit Little Pigeon because Little Pigeon showed her where and showed her the blue place it left. Oh well, they was a-pulling stunts right and left, they spit and they spat, and then Sammye had two of them on her hands. Then Old Mrs. Woman and Sammye had it good and proper, and Old Mrs. Woman ended up by saying, “Mrs. Johnson, your sister ought to be in an institution.” And Sammye said, “This strikes me as real funny, why don’t you let it strike you thataway. If anybody’s going to be sent to an institution it ought to be you.’“ For a long time after, Old Mrs. Woman did not speak to Sammye and Little Pigeon once, kept all her shades pulled down on the side of the house facing Little Pigeon’s, what she did in that big house no one knew, but it was guessed she went on crying and crying. Sammye told Little Pigeon time and time again not to call her anymore, but when Sammye was not watching, Little Pigeon would go to the back steps and call out before Sammye could catch her, “Mrs. Woman! Mrs. Woman!”—until Sammye would go out and shut her up and bring her in. There was this devilish attraction between Little Pigeon and Old Mrs. Woman.

Well, one time Little Pigeon and Sammye had a real frickus, all over the lost purse again, nobody could find it anywhere; and Sammye just couldn’t stand it any longer so just walked out the front door and went back to Rodunda, tired of it all. She stayed a few weeks, and no long distance calls came from Little Pigeon, no sound or sign of her; and Sammye said just let her stew and learn her lesson. Finally, though, Sammye got worried and was in a stew herself—that’s the way Little Pigeon did her: always turned things back onto her, and double—so took the bus and came on to Little Pigeon’s. She went in the house, unlocked as usual, and couldn’t find her anywhere. She called and she called, but no Little Pigeon. Then she looked out the window and what did she spy but the two of them, Little Pigeon, her sweet sister, and Old Mrs. Woman, prissing arm in arm down the sidewalk like two Queen of Shebas. Old Mrs. Woman and Little Pigeon had made friends! Sammye saw Little Pigeon all dressed up and all fixed up like she had never seen her before, her hair waved and set, lipstick on and rouge on, her ruby earbobs on, her good shoes on, and the right shoe on the right foot, and in her lovely fur coat. Glued onto her and just as prissy was Old Mrs. Woman, fat as ever but primped up, too, and they were going along like this. Sammye raised the window and called “Little Pigeon! Little Pigeon! This is Sister Sammye come to visit her sweet sister, come on in and let me kiss you hello!” But know what Little Pigeon did? Prissed at Sammye and raised her nose, turned her head away and walked on, Old Mrs. Woman clamped onto her and walking straight along without moving her eyes from ahead. This hurt Sammye to the core. But she pulled down the window and sat down in Little Pigeon’s living room to think about it. She thought, well I’ll leave; and then she thought, no, I’ll just stay, that’s what I’ll do.

Then they came home, after they had had their beauty walk and seen a show, they came in the house and began ignoring Sammye. Sammye could have been a ghost for all she knew. They went into the kitchen, whispering and cooing, and Sammye came in and said, “It’s time for your insulin, Little Pigeon,” just to see. Little Pigeon turned and declared that only Mrs. Woman gave her her insulin anymore. Then they fixed supper and invited Sammye to sit down and eat, oh they offered her some supper, but they never talked to her at all, they talked about the picture show they had seen, Old Mrs. Woman saying in her baby-talk, “What did the man in the picture show do, Sweetest Thing in This World?” and Sweetest Thing in This World answering, “Killed the woman!” And Old Mrs. Woman spoke back so smart, “Tha-a-a-s right!” It was plain to Sammye that Old Mrs. Woman had taken over Little Pigeon and had made a kindergarten out of Little Pigeon’s house, for she saw those tissue paper snow crystals pasted on the sun porch windows. Old Mrs. Woman would coo, “Now drink your milk, Sweet Thing”; and Little Pigeon would drink it right down. Then she said, “Now Sweet Thing it’s time for bed, let’s go on upstairs.” And up they went without a whimper from Little Pigeon. What is this new Little Pigeon, my sweet sister? Sammye thought. She just stood up and said, mad as the mischief at the bottom of the staircase, “Well how do you do!” Then she got her things and went straight back to Rodunda, where she wrote a letter to Old Mrs. Woman at Little Pigeon’s address. “I demand to know,” her letter stated, “what have you caused to come over my sister, what have you done to turn her against me?” Said, “If you think you will get her to give you some of her pretty things you are just sadly mistaken, because you won’t.” Said, “I want you to stop taking her around, and I want you to stop prissing her up and I want you to stop humoring her, right this very minute. She’s not your sister.” Sammye sent the letter.

In a few days a call came for Sammye and it was Old Mrs. Woman on the telephone, long distance, in her creamiest voice, as if she was a receptionist or something—and had never received the letter. “Your sister has lost her purse and says to call you because you have hidden it.” Sammye said, “I certainly have not and you will do me the favor of stopping ever calling me about my sister’s purse or about any other thing that goes on in my sister’s house, I am through. You have done something or said something to lowrate me in the eyes of my sister. You old crazy, you have lost your marbles. You have turned my sweet sister against me and if you are not careful I will take out action against you.” She told her upside down, crossways and crooked; then she hung up in Old Mrs. Woman’s face and began to think: now use your head, Sammye Johnson, and take aholt of the situation, now that you have told Old Mrs. Woman off. You have fussed and nearly pulled your hair out because of the worry of Little Pigeon, now here is somebody to look after her if you handle it right. Make out a list of what she must do for Little Pigeon, tell her you will pay her by the week, and you have got the practical nurse for Little Pigeon and one she apparently will let stay in the house.

A few days passed and Sammye could find nothing to do with herself. Rodunda was small and there were only a handful of people she would have anything to do with, and they were all busy with their husbands and housekeeping. Sammye begun to realize that she had nothing in her life to do or take her mind and interest because she had centered everything around worrying over Little Pigeon. She suddenly felt how alone she would be not to have to worry or look after Little Pigeon. What did she have? She looked around her house one night and got scared. She put on her things next morning and went to go see Little Pigeon.

But when she got there it was too late. They wouldn’t let her in because they shouted out the window that she had hidden Little Pigeon’s purse. That settles it, Sammye said; and went back to Rodunda. She kept saying to herself, But Sammye why are you so upset? You ought to be relieved. Take this good thing while you can. You are free of all that worry that was driving you to your grave.

Some nights in her house Sammye got unnerved because she was so all alone. She tried to fix up her house, to have some company, to visit around; but she was so all alone. Often she dreamt of Little Pigeon. Why didn’t she think of her sister, why didn’t she have the telephone operator call her sister? Finally she said to herself, This is too much of a good thing; and she got on the bus and went to go see Little Pigeon.

But when she got there they wouldn’t let her in again, even after three weeks. In fact, Little Pigeon’s face at the window looked like she thought Sammye was a stranger or a ghost. She didn’t care about her at all. And Old Mrs. Woman wouldn’t come to the window at all or unlock the door. Well, Sammye felt like some dream was going on inside that house, that she was left outside some dream. She cried, “I have to get in to see you Little Pigeon, I have to talk to you, I am your Sister Sammye, have you lost your mind?” What could she do? Night was falling and she left and went down to the drug store and ate her a sandwich, to let things settle. She walked on back to Little Pigeon’s in the dark, wondering whether she would have her in, this time; and thinking, well, maybe I am a ghost, I’ve been by myself so long I don’t know whether I’m live or dead.

But the drapes were drawn almost to, and when she peeked in between them she saw the two of them by the fire, Little Pigeon just dreaming and purring, Old Mrs. Woman lumped and rolled up into herself whispering some story to herself. But what kind of a room was this? The room was so full of decorations and stuff that there wasn’t enough space left in it to cuss a cat in. There were hanging paper lanterns, paper streamers streaming from the ceiling, paper balls and paper stars. They had made a fairyland playhouse out of Little Pigeon’s spodess living room. Then Sammye saw Old Mrs. Woman moving around through all the waving shapes and strands of colored paper. She saw her go to the mirror and look in it at herself and say, “I’m not so fat, am I, Sweet Thing?’’ And heard Little Pigeon answer back, “No, Mrs. Woman.’’

Sammye said to herself outside the window, “I know one thing and that is that Old Mrs. Woman is crazy. I’ll break up this playparty.” She began to beat on the sides of the house calling, “Little Pigeon! Little Pigeon! Let me in. I am your sweet sister who loves and adores you!” But she could not disturb the dream of this playhouse. She walked round and round the house, trying to understand it and decide what to do. She saw across the yard Old Mrs. Woman’s big dark empty house, wrapped in a dream, too. She felt so left out. Then she thought of what to do. She tried the basement door and it was unlocked. She went down there quietly and sat under them to see what else she could hear. Suddenly she heard the music begin, it was “Whispering,” and she heard their feet adancing, just like ghost feet. They danced and they danced, then the music stopped and Sammye heard their feet going up the staircase to bed. Then it was all quiet. Sammye went to sleep on the basement divan, cold and peeved, down among the pipes and storage like a mouse or a lonesome cricket.

The next morning they were up there, in the kitchen, over Sammye. She heard them fix their breakfast and eat it, she heard Little Pigeon getting her insulin. Then they went into the dining room and they were in the china and the silverware. Sammye heard Little Pigeon say where each piece came from, how her husband had given her this and that, not to smutten up the Dresden compote made of Dresden, Sammye heard her ghostly voice counting the table service of pure silver, one two three four five—and heard Old Mrs. Woman say softly, “Tha-a-a-s right!”

After awhile Little Pigeon suddenly came into the basement without a word of warning. She saw Sammye sitting there and did not pay her any mind. Finally Sammye spoke out and said, “Hello Little Pigeon!” and Little Pigeon said, “Hush up, ghost of Sister Sammye.” She was looking for her purse, very seriously, going through everything in the baesment. Then she said, “Well, I guess it’s not down here, guess Sister Sammye’s stolen it,” and went on up and out in her dream that Old Mrs. Woman had put her into.

This gave Sammye an idea. For then she knew that Old Mrs. Woman had told Little Pigeon that she had passed on, or something, and that her face at the window and around the house had been her ghost and not to worry about it. Sammye made her a plan. “If that’s the way they want it, I’ll just be a ghost, and a good one at that!” she declared. She decided to make her home in the basement for awhile, and started making it nice down there where poor Selmus had come to live when Little Pigeon abused him so, by making him go down there to listen to the horse races, which he adored.

Then when Sammye heard Old Mrs. Woman go out the back door, she watched her through the basement window and saw her going over to her big empty house across the yard. When Old Mrs. Woman was inside her big house, Sammye rapped on the basement ceiling and called out very mournfully, “Little Pigeon! Little Pigeon!” Sammye heard Little Pigeon’s feet acoming down the basement stairs. Little Pigeon came in the basement. The two stood looking at each other. Then Little Pigeon said, “You are Sister Sammye’s ghost, and go away.” Sammye said, “Now looka here, I am not my ghost, I am your real Sister Sammye and you are looking straight at me. I am live as a coal of fire, and want to know what’s going on in this house that I have to bang on the sides of it and at the windows to try to get in to see my own sister. What has Old Mrs. Woman done to you to change you? Now tell your sweet sister.”

Little Pigeon just swanked and said, “Go ’way, ghost of Sister Sammye.”

Sammye waited a minute and then said, in a ghost’s voice, “Put out something you treasure for a ghost and he will go away.”

“But what?” Little Pigeon asked. “You are trying to get my things, just like Old Mrs. Woman said.”

Sammye said, “I don’t care about your things, put out the ghost some supper. And never tell a soul.”

Well, this is the way Sammye got her supper, for a while.

Then Sammye started working her plan. Sammye thought, I’ll wart them to death, I’ll be a regular Jonah to those two, I’ll give them what they asked for and deserve. When Little Pigeon and Old Mrs. Woman would be out walking, Sammye would steal up into the house and touch her fingers on the silver or on the crystal. When they would come back Little Pigeon would find the prints and smuts of fingers on her things and say, “Somebody’s fingers been on my things. The ghost has been here.” And Old Mrs. Woman would look with big eyes and not know what to think. Or, again, Sammye would sneak Little Pigeon’s purse from where she had it and put it in another place. Sammye would hear the two of them tearing the house down looking for it.

Well, you don’t have to hear any more, you can see how it all ended up: Old Mrs. Woman began to get the blame from Little Pigeon for all the stunts Sammye pulled. She tried then to say there was no ghost and to blame Little Pigeon for trying to devil her, Little Pigeon was all mixed up but said there most assuredly was one, for she had seen it, etc. etc.; and it was the end of their happy honeymoon when Little Pigeon and Old Mrs. Woman had a knock-down-drag-out in the driveway and Old Mrs. Woman pushed Little Pigeon over into the hedge. Then is when Sammye appeared from the basement and picked Little Pigeon out.

Old Mrs. Woman went back over to her big empty house, back to crying; and everything was like it started out, except that Little Pigeon couldn’t get ghost out of her mind and still thought Sammye was Sammye’s ghost and Sammye could not change her mind. So Sammye stayed a ghost; anything to humor Little Pigeon. But otherwise everything was just the same, Sammye had Little Pigeon back, worrying her to death, calling her long distance at Rodunda when she was not with her, mistreating her and fussing at her when she was with her, and accusing her of stealing her purse or touching her things—Sammye got the blame for everything that was wrong—Sammye was about to pull her hair out with Little Pigeon, said she had no life of her own, said she had nothing, was just a ghost of herself. “But she is my sweet sister that I love and adore,” Sammye would still say.

Yet it was peculiar how there seemed to be a real ghost in Little Pigeon’s house, just as Little Pigeon had said; for very often they would hear commotions in the basement, and on many mornings they would come down to find the prints of fingers that had touched all over Little Pigeon’s things. Sammye would go down to the basement to look around for signs, but there seemed nothing. Once in a while she caught Little Pigeon still going faithfully down the basement stairs with some hot supper for the basement ghost and would have to stop her and try to reason with her that the ghost that used to be down there had gone away and would never come again. But this was difficult, since Little Pigeon was so far gone in her dream of things by that time; so often Sammye would just let her go and play with the ghost she thought was living in the basement. Sweet Little Pigeon.

But when Sammye went down to the basement one day, and just to get something this time, not to investigate or spy, what should she find but Old Mrs. Woman! Sammye smelled a rat and said, looking at her out of the corner of her eye, “Go ’way ghost of Old Mrs. Woman!” Old Mrs. Woman prissed and flaunted and said, “Put out something you treasure for a ghost and she will go away. Ha!”

Then Sammye, who had always been the practical one, decided to use her head. She sat down on the divan that used to be her bed when she was a ghost in the basement herself, and said, “Well, Mrs. Woman, this is foolishness, a ghost pestering a ghost, we’ll drive each other into insanity and all end up in the Home. I’m not going to give up and you’re not either. We mind as well be ghosts together. I’ve got no household anymore and you’ve got none, nor Little Pigeon either, except for what we make for her, by hook or crook; we mind as well make one whole household out of three pieces of households. Why don’t you move on in the basement, move your cedarchest with the Letter in it on over here and I’ll move my things in from Rodunda—and we’ll all three have us a household, us two old ghosts and the sweet Little Pigeon. She can’t get us out of her head anyway, thinks we’re here when we aren’t and we aren’t when we are. Everybody’s everywhere, so far as I can make out, and I’m beginning to not be sure where I am, myself—and I don’t believe you know. This shuttling from house to house is killing us both and will make ghosts of us before we know it. Come on over, Mrs. Woman.’’ And then Sammye said something which if she had said it much earlier in the game would have changed the whole story from the beginning; and saved a lot of traffic. She said it in a quiet tone that she used in talking to herself, “All we want, I guess, is a household that will let us be the way we are.”

The two women shook hands, here were the two ghosts down in the basement making covenant, bargaining to make the ghost story come true for Little Pigeon upstairs—who already believed in it anyway and had more or less made it come true, will or nill.

But Sammye and Old Mrs. Woman had a few things to settle first. Old Mrs. Woman said, “This basement is as much your house as it is mine, you seemed to like it well enough to live down here once. Why don’t you move in the basement, Sammye Johnson?” Sammye did not argue and suggested that they take turns living in the basement, adding that the divan was uncomfortable, though, even for a ghost to sleep on. Old Mrs. Woman said she would move in her daybed that the roomers had bought for her; and it was agreed upon. “One last thing,” Mrs. Woman said, “and that is please to note that my name is Lucille Purdy and you will do me the favor of please calling me the same.”

So Lucille moved her cedarchest with the Letter in it into the basement, and the daybed, too; and the household flourished. In a few years the life of the town all shifted in another direction and moved there, towards the new development of what had been just a no-good thicket, something was suddenly there—oil or mineral or better land or something—that the town craved or thought it did, the way towns do, sometimes; change their shape and size and way, trying to form something—what?—and trying to find something to gather round. It was a time when everything shifted and changed, swarmed and clustered around an idea or a craving, used it up or wearied of it, then scattered to pieces again, it was a time of clashes of cravings, it was like a bunch of sheep moving and wandering, shepherd or no—he only followed when he was supposed to lead and could not summon them all together, or there was no shepherd (maybe that was the trouble), he was lost under the hill.

People of this section followed the town into the thicket where the town became so changed; politicians fought, money came from another part of the country; the town thrived. The old houses in the left-behind section were torn down or simply just abandoned, almost as if in a hurry because of a plague or a flood, this left-behind section became a kind of ghost town—almost as if the whole living town had turned away from Little Pigeon and Sammye and Lucille and would have nothing to do with them. But they stayed behind, and did not even know they stayed behind, they did not even know there was another place to want to go to, their shuttling was through. For the shape of the household in Little Pigeon’s house was fixed forever, and it never changed again, it went on aflourishing—it had found something to hold it together, and that was a covenant of ghosts.

In a few years Little Pigeon died, still believing her house had two ghosts living in it, one above and one below, one stealing her purse and the other dancing with her in the paper room; and both of them giving her her insulin, listening to her count her things and tell about them.

After Little Pigeon was buried, the two women Sammye and Lucille had several good years together in Little Pigeon’s house; you could see them swanking down the sidewalk on many a sunshiny afternoon, arm in arm, hair all set and good clothes on, strolling through the neighborhood of empty houses and down deserted streets, Sammye in Little Pigeon’s ruby earbobs and in her good fur coat, Lucille fat as ever; and few people will ever know what had brought them together to be such friends, who had been such enemies.

Those who know the story to the end say the ghost of Little Pigeon came regularly and counted and touched all her things, but no more to devil the household or to cause it trouble, only just to join it and keep it whole, and that the basement room was always kept nice for her—it was her turn down there, now—until Sammye finally died and left Lucille with too many ghosts for flesh to bear; and so she opened her cedarchest and took out the Letter and put it in her bosom and then took out the revolver Mr. Purdy had given her years ago and ended the last life of the household—joining ghost to ghost, the best household and the longest lasting.

People of the town, the kind who always know mysterious stories about this old house ot that dead person, say the ghosts of two old women walk arm in arm through this ruined section when the sun shines in winter. That you can occasionally still see the three ghosts moving through the house. That one of the women was crazy and another committed suicide, and that the house was a household of violence and hatred and jealousy.

It is true that the house of Little Pigeon still stands, closed up and passed by, as it had always been even when the town was living close around it; so go and look at it if you don’t believe it. Go and look through the side windows at the faded paper streamers in the paper room, go around and find the withered tissue snow crystals peeling from the sunporch windows in the back. It has not been sold or rented or tampered with until this day, that anybody knows of, but has grown along in some dream of its own. The trees have grown up high around it and locked branches over it as if to roof it away from the world, and the hedges are uncropped and rank, high and thick as a wall. This makes it seem ghosthouse enough, and it is true that the house is known only as the house where three old evil women lived, a crazy woman and her sister and a woman who shot herself. But that’s one story. And if you know the whole story, as now you do, you can come stand at the window and hear a ghostly voice counting out the silverware and linens, or the riffle of ghost feet to the music of “Whispering”; and then you can have it all straight and can understand the household that was covenanted for there. And can understand the town, too; and can have your own story, ghost story or flesh story, out of the whole thing.

Anyway, that is the story about the lives of Old Mrs. Woman, Sister Sammye and Little Pigeon, and how they formed a household in a town that passed them by.