This is another story about living in the country. We had to find out what old man Bogan was doing singing and hollering at sundown every evening, calling out for his long dead wife Mary.
Callin' Mary
When the wind was right you could hear him singin' just as plain. His voice was deep and sad and the air would somehow carry it so you could hear it real clear, and then it'd fade and you couldn't hardly hear it at all. It was a mournful, scary sound that'd come and go on the wind.
He'd sit on his porch and rock and sing in the evenin' just as the sun went down. It sounded sometimes like hollerin' at the top of his voice. But when he started callin' for Mary the hair'd stand right up on the back of my neck.
I was ten and Miz Mary Bogan had been dead just about all of my life.
His house was way off out in the middle of a ol' field and you could see a patch of his rusty ol' tin roof from our front porch. It set right smack dab in the middle of a bunch of great big old sycamores that must have been there forever. I remember him raisin' corn in that field when I was real little, but for a long time there wasn't nothin' raisin' in it 'cept weeds and briars.
One July evenin', me and Bobby, he was my best friend that lived down the hill, we decided we'd find out what ol' man Bogan was doin'. We'd been hearin' him holler at sundown so long we just had to see him do it up clost.
When the sun dropped behind the treetops we run through the field and snuck up on his house. We come up behind his henhouse. The chickens had done gone to roost and when we passed they started makin' a fuss so we scooted on by in a hurry. His old hound come up and started beatin' us with his tail and whinin', so we had to pet him to shut him up.
The whole yard around his house was hard packed dirt without a blade of grass. What the chickens didn't pick clean he scraped with a hoe and swept a broom made out of brush tops tied together. He didn't want no lawn or nothin' like it. Didn't have no lawn mower. Wasn't no sense in cuttin' no yard grass after workin' hard at the mill all day.
His house set up about three foot off'n the ground on stacks of bricks. His dog and chickens stayed under there when it rained. The house hadn't been painted ever, I don't reckon, cause the old boards was gray and stained, and the old screens had holes all over. Bugs could get in if they wanted to.
The evenin' settled in real quiet-like. A Whippoorwill whistled out in the field. Daddy once told me a Whippoorwill was sayin' "Chip fell out of the Whiteoak." Ol' bird wouldn't really say that but daddy told me that's what he said, and that's what his daddy told him. I knowed better. He was just whistlin'.
We ducked the overhalls and the long-john underwear hangin' on the line and waddled under the house like ducks. We got to where we could see him through some knot holes in the porch floor and we squatted there head to head tryin' to get a good look.
Old man Bogan had onct been a giant of a man and had worked in the loggin' woods cuttin' logs for the sawmill. It was told he could take a crosscut saw and cut a pine four foot across all by hisself. Then he'd chop all of the limbs off with a single bit axe so that big pine would look like a phone pole in less than 30 minutes.
Onct he chunked a baseball from home plate all the way over the fence at center field, but he could tap dance and was as light on his feet as one of them fancy dancers--big as he was. They said Miz Bogan used to have flowers growin' everywhere around that old house. He was a hard man, but mama said his favorite was daffodils and Miz Mary growed a yard full of 'em just for him every spring.
He set in his rocker with his bald head down between his old knotty fingers 'a cryin'. His heavin' sobs shook the whole porch. He'd moan and hit the arms of the chair and then beat his chest.
"Oohh, my sweet Lord. Come get me. Come take me now. Maaayreee. Where are you? I miss you so much, my sweet baby. Ohhh, pleeeze come back. Maayyreee."
When he started callin' for Miz Mary, me'n Bobby got real clost and looked all aroun' like she might jus' come a bustin' right up out of the ground somewhere any minute. We was scared enough to take off like scalded dawgs, but then he tuned up and start hummin' a little louder.
It was a deep rumblin' at first, like comin' out of a cave or somethin'. And then he bust out singin' so deep I thought things was gonna start vibratin'.
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Let me hide myself in thee." He got louder and louder and finally it was almost like hollerin.'
When Rock of Ages played out he went straight into Amazin' Grace. He leaned his head back and opened his mouth so wide you could see his pink gums where his teeth was onct at.
He would call out Maayree ever now and then.
He went on for a long time and then he sort of burnt out and set there without rockin' or movin'--just lookin' out in front of him. I knowed he wasn't lookin' at nothin.
He unhitched the galluses on his overhalls and let 'em fall down. He helt on to the chair arm and stood up unsteady-like and walked through the front door.
Me'n Bobby slipped out from under the porch and looked over the wore-out boards. He pulled open the screen door to the livin' room and went to the mantel over the fireplace where there was a bunch of old pictures in fancy little frames.
He squinted at each of 'em and finally took one down and come back out on the porch where there was yet some daylight. He trembled and sniffed a long sniff, lookin' at that picture. We could see it good from where we was, peepin' over the boards. He was too overcome to notice us just a few feet away.
The picture was of a lady of a pretty good size with a fancy lace collar standin' alongside of a tall big man in a suit and tie. He looked at it in the fadin' light and run the tips of his fingers over the glass.
He put the picture back and stood there, just lookin' blank at the mantel, with his ol' galluses hangin' to the floor, fore and aft.
After a little he sucked in a deep breath and sighed. He looked real tired and pale and like he had done emptied hisself out, kind of. He shuffled to the bedroom on the front corner, next to the porch. The windows was long and come all the way down to the floor and they was all open.
He took his overhalls off and dropped 'em on a chair. Old man Bogan had on a full set of long 'hannel underwear with a baggy trap door in the back.
When he set down in the middle of that saggin' old bed I thought it was gonna bust cause it squeaked somethin' fierce. In the almost dark he laid there a'lookin' up at the ceilin'. His lips was a movin' but I couldn't make out what he was sayin'.
He closed his eyes and in a minute was snorin' loud enough to keep the skeeters off.
Me and Bobby run through the field under a early full moon. When we got to the trail down the hill to Bobby's house, we caught our breath and stood there for a moment and just looked at one another. There just wasn't nothin' to say. He turned and ran to his house.
The singin' and hollerin' an' callin' went on through the rest of the summer 'til late fall when it started gettin' cool. Then it stopped.
One Sunday Miss Vitae Mae Wiggens from the Church stopped by his house to bring him a hot lunch. She found him settin' in his rocker on the porch, stiff as a poker, wearin' a suit and tie.
He was just a'settin' there, holdin' that little picture, the one with the fat lady and the man in the suit. He had a bunch of flowers in his other hand.
Miss Wiggens said he had on the happiest smile, and a look on his face like he was a' talkin' to somebody that he was really glad to see. That was true, 'cause I had to go to the funeral and pass by the coffin, and I seen that for myself. The undertaker couldn't have got that smile off if he'd tried. Even dead, old man Bogan looked happier'n when me'n Bobby seen him through that knothole.
We had done had a couple of good frosts by then, and the funny thing was, them flowers was daffodils, and they just grow in the spring. The one's he was holdin' was just fresh picked.
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