The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty

from the car. Somehow he didn't seem to want to go in, just catch his glimpse. He's a real modest man, you know, and would never push his presence on you unless he thought you wanted him; then he would.
    I was perfectly willing about it. I just prissed across the yard and up the steps to the porch and around the washing machine to the front door and called for Narciss. If there'd been a doorbell, I'd have rung it, at my own birthplace. I wore white gloves and a hat, as it was. And Narciss would be waiting to go to town, and holler "Miss Bonnie Dee!" And Bonnie Dee would sashay to the door wearing some creation and put out her little hand—not always too shining—and take the envelope. Uncle Daniel didn't get to see much of her—just a sleeve.
    "Ta ta!"
    "You're welcome."
    In the car Uncle Daniel raised his hat.
    And Narciss caught a ride to town on our running board.
    Once or twice Bonnie Dee had looked out as far as the road, and waved a little bit, but not too hard.
    So now I said to Uncle Daniel—in front of the others, to hear how it sounded—"Why don't you try not giving the money to Bonnie Dee? Maybe stop her charge account at Sistrunk's Store too. Nobody can live on chicken and ham forever! And see what transpires. What do you say, Uncle Daniel?"
    He says with round eyes, "What would we do on Saturday?"
    "What did you used to do?" I says. "What do you think of that idea, Mr. Springer?"
    Mr. Springer said he thought there was nothing to lose.
    "What do you think, Eva?" I said, because there she was, fastened to her straw.
    "I think just like Mr. Springer, there's nothing to lose," is all Eva says. Eva can draw you a coat-of-arms—that's the one thing she can do, or otherwise have to teach school. That's ours, up over the clock: Ponder—with three deer. She says it's not her fault if the gold runs—it's the doorbell ringing or something. She never does
anybody'
s over.
    "I think we'll try it, Uncle Daniel," I said. "I made my mind up while the rest of you ate ice."
    So I politely kept that Saturday's money for Uncle Daniel, and spoke to the butcher too. And guess what day she sent for us: Monday.
    You never saw a happier mortal in your life. He came hopping up those stairs lickety-split to tell me.
    I was up there in my room, reading some directions. That's something I find I like to do when I have a few minutes to myself—I don't know about you. How to put on furniture polish, transfer patterns with a hot iron, take off corns, I don't care what it is. I don't have to
do
it. Sometimes I'd rather sit still a minute and read a good quiet set of directions through than any story you'd try to wish off on me.
    "Oh, Edna Earle," he says. "What do you think? It worked!"
    And all of a sudden I just felt tired. I felt worn out, like when Mr. Springer stays over and makes me go to one of those sad, Monday night movies and never holds my hand at the right places. But I'll tell you what this was: a premonition. Only I couldn't quite place it at the time.
    Uncle Daniel was out of breath and spinning his best hat on his finger like a top. "I got the word," he says. "She sent it by three different people—the ice man, the blackberry lady, and the poor blind man with the brooms that liked-to never found me, but
he
told it the best. I was in the barbershop, you know. I just brought the whole string back with me to the hotel and gave them cigars out of the drawer} they all said they smoked. She says to come on. Says to come on before it storms, and this was to you, Edna Earle: please to go by the ice house on the way and put fifty pounds on your bumper for her. Come on, Edna Earle," he says, putting his hat on and putting mine on me. "Come see Bonnie Dee welcome me home. I don't want you to miss it. Where's Mr. Springer? I'd like him to come too."
    "Mr. Springer has just bolted out of town," I says. "I heard the car take the corner." Mr. Springer was the perfect listener until he had to go.
    "Come