Read The Ponder Heart for Free Online

though it was steadily breaking his heart. Like he used to be bound and determined to give you a present, but that was a habit he'd outgrown and forgotten now. It was safer for his welfare to let him talk than let him give away, but harder on his constitution. On everybody's.
    But I don't think he could bring himself to believe the story till he'd heard himself tell it again. And every night, when he'd come to the end, he'd screw his eyes up tight with fresh tears, and stand up and kiss me good night and pull his hat down off the rack. So I'd holler Narciss out of the kitchen for him—she came out looking sadder and sadder every time too—and she'd carry him on home. I knew he'd be back the next night.
    Eva Sistrunk said she couldn't make up her mind whether it was good or bad for this hotel—though I don't believe she was asked. Things would look like a birthday party inside, such a fine crowd—some out-of-town people hanging onto the story and commiserating with Uncle Daniel, and the Clay people cheering him on, clapping him on the shoulder. Everybody here, young or old, knew what to say as well as he did. When he sat there at the big middle table he always headed for, all dressed up in sparkling white and his red tie shining, with his plate heaped up to overflowing and his knife and fork in hand, ready and waiting to begin his tale of woe, he'd be in good view from the highway both north and south, and it was real prosperous-looking in here—till he came to the part about the note, of course, and how Narciss lightfooted it out to the barn and handed it to him so pleased, where he was feeding his calf—and he broke down at the table and ruined it all.
    But that's what he came in here for—cry. And to eat in company. He ate me out of house and home, not so much to be eating as to be consoling himself and us (we begged him to eat, not cry), but some nights, when he had a full house, I had to flit along by the back of his chair and say under my breath, "Uncle Daniel! F. H. B.!"
    He'd just catch me and say, "Edna Earle! Where do you suppose she could've got to by this time? Memphis?" Memphis was about the limit Uncle Daniel could stand to think of. That's where everybody else had it in mind she went, too. That's where they'd go.
    Somebody'd always be fool enough to ask Uncle Daniel how come he didn't hop in his car and drive on up to Memphis and look for Bonnie Dee, if he wanted her back that bad. Some brand-new salesman would have to say, "It can be driven in three hours and forty-five minutes."
    "Believe that's just what I'll do, sir!" Uncle Daniel would say, to be nice. "Yes sir, I'll go up there in the cool of the morning, and let you know what I find, too." "Miss Elsie Fleming—I wonder where
she
is," he said now and then, too. Well, he just never can forget anybody.
    But he wouldn't dream of going to Memphis, to find Bonnie Dee or Intrepid Elsie Fleming or you or anybody else. Uncle Daniel belongs in Clay, and by now he's smart enough to know it; and if he wasn't, I'd tell him.
    "Never mind, Uncle Daniel," I'd come up again and say when the tears fell. "Have a Fatima." He adores to smoke those. I order off after them for him, and always keep an extra supply on hand. And I'd light him one.
    I don't really think Uncle Daniel missed Bonnie Dee as much as he thought he did. He had me. He appeared at the Beulah every night of the world, sure as shooting, and every morning to boot, and of course when he came down sick out there, he hollered for Edna Earle.
    I locked up the Beulah—well, it wouldn't lock, but I spoke to it and said "Burglars, stay away"—and went out to Ponder Hill in my trusty Ford to take care of him. When I got there, I missed Grandpa meeting me in the hall and telling me this had put him in a quandary.
    The house is almost exactly the same size as the hotel, but it's a mile easier to run. If you know what you want done, you can just ask in the morning for how many