Free The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty Page A

Mrs. Ponder there in the parlor with you, woman?"
    "She ridin' de sofa."
    All the Peacocks laughed in court. They didn't mind hearing how lazy they were.
    "Was Mrs. Ponder expecting company?"
    "That's how come I ironed her apricots dress, all dem little pleats."
    "And company came?"
    Narciss looked around at me and slapped her leg.
    "Who was it? Tell who you saw."
    Narciss took him down by telling him she didn't see 5 but it was us. She ran out of the room first, but she had ears. They let her tell just what she heard, then.
    Narciss said, "Hears de car Miss Edna Earle ride around in go umph, comin' to a stop by de tree. Hears Mr. Daniel's voice sound off in a happy-time way, sayin' Miss Bonnie Dee was sure right about de rain. Hears it rainin', lightnin' and thunderin', feets pacin' over de yard. And little dog barkin' at Miss Edna Earle 'cause she didn't bring him a sack of bones."
    "So you could say who the company was," says old Gladney, and Narciss says, "Wasn't no spooks." But Judge Waite wouldn't let that count, either question or answer.
    "Did Mrs. Ponder herself have a remark to make?" says old Gladney.
    "Says, 'Here dey come. Glad to see
anybody.
If it gits anybody, hope it gits dem, not me.'"
    Uncle Daniel turned around to me with his face all worked in an O. He always thought whatever Bonnie Dee opened her mouth and said was priceless. He recognized her from
that.
    "Sh!" I said to him.
    "Keep on," says old Gladney to Narciss.
    "Can't keep on. I's gone by den."
    "But you do know this much: at the time you left the parlor, and heard the company coming across the yard and talking, Mrs. Ponder was alive?"
    Narciss gave him the most taking-down look she knows. "Alive as you is now."
    "And when you saw Mrs. Ponder next?"
    "Storm pass over," says Narciss, "I goes in de parlor and asks, 'Did I hear my name?' And dere Mr. Daniel and Miss Edna Earle holding together. And dere her, stretched out, all dem little pleats to do over, feets pointin' de other way round, and Dr. Lubanks snappin' down her eyes."
    "Dead!" hollers Gladney, waving his hand like he had a flag in it. Uncle Daniel raised his eyes and kept watching that flag. "And don't that prove, Narciss, the company had something to do with it? Had everything to do with it! Mr. Daniel Ponder, like Othello of old, Narciss, he entered yonder and went to his lady's couch and he suffocated to death that beautiful, young, innocent, ninety-eight-pound bride of his, out of a fit of pure-D jealousy from the wellsprings of his aging heart."
    Narciss's little dog was barking at him and DeYancey was objecting just as hard, but Narciss plain talks back to him.
    "What's that you say, woman?" yells old Gladney, because he was through with her.
    "Says naw sir. Don't know
he;
but Mr.
Daniel
didn't do nothin' like dat. His heart ain't grow old neither, by a long shot."
    "What do you mean, old woman," yells old Gladney, and comes up and leans over her.
    "Means you ain't brought up Mr. Daniel and I has. Find you somebody else," says Narciss.
    Gladney says something about that's what the other side had better try to do. He says that's just what he means, there
wasn't
anybody else—since nobody would suspect Miss Edna Earle Ponder of anything—but he stamps away from Narciss like she'd just cheated him fine.
    Up jumps De Yancey in his place, and says, "Narciss! At the time you heard company running across the yard, there was a storm breaking loose, was there not?"
    "Yes
sir
."
    "All right, tell me—what was the reason you only stayed to
hear
the company, not see them? Your best friends on earth! When they came in all wet and wanting to be brushed off, where were you?"
    "Ho. I's in de back bedroom under de bed," says Narciss. "Miss Edna Earle's old room."
    "Doing what?"
    "
Hidin
'. I don't want to get no lightnin' bolts down me. Come lightnin' and thunder, Mr. DeYancey, you always going to find me clear back under de furthermost part of de bed in de furthermost back room. And