Old Josh, in: Cold and Hot Veins

One summer hot day, in 1859, Ella Hightower walked into the study room of her husband’s, Charles Hightower, “Dear, excuse me—“ she said, she had interrupted him, the neighbor Mr. Smiley, was standing by her husband, Charles now stood up from his desk, Mr. Smiley, was shaking her husbands hand, while putting some money in his pocket. It all happened quite fast, too fast thought Ella, as if for some reason, she was seeing something she should not have seen, or they did not want her to see. Mr. Smiley’s eyes were red as if he had finished weeping. He quickly left the room, somewhat giving a look of embarrassment towards Ella.
“What is it?” asked Ella to Charles, sitting her position in front of his desk, hands and eyes, as if to quietly get a direct answer.
“What did he want?” she insisted the second time.
“Nothing really of importance, just conversation,” said Charles.
“What?” said Ella, “it looked more like a transaction of some kind? Adding, “His eyes were red as if he had a hangover!” she implied.
“No, he was not drinking,” Charles responded, looking at her naively, and with a little chuckle.
“Well,” she hesitated frowning, “are you or are you not going to tell me, it was no accident he came here, and you are not being truthful to me.”
“I borrowed him $500-dollars, he said his wife is ill, and the crops are not doing well for him, and he had to hire a wash woman, and another cook, and he has to supervise the fields and now the household, until she gets better, since she’s been down a month or so,” said Charles.
“Why—how much do you think it costs to run this plantation a month?” asked Ella.
“Perhaps that amount, more or less,” said Charles.
Ella shifted her body away from the front of Charles for a moment,
“We could have used this money for next month’s bills, you’ve got two kids to think of, a wife, me, and Old Josh, and his two sons to feed, along with Granny Mae, and the other helper, and this is a mistake to be giving money away when they cannot afford to pay it back, you need to run after him and get the money back now,” she demanded.
Charles lingered about pushing his chair behind his desk back, walked to the front of it, held his wife, “Listen up,” he started, “please understand, I’ve known the family for most of my life, and so has my father, can’t you see, who else would he go ask for the money from, but me?” said Charles to Ella in a soft troubled voice.
Ella gave her neck a twist as if to say, forget this logic, we’re not in the banking business, and said absolutely, “it’s a good way to lose friends, and cause chaos in a family; it’s just a bad policy to lend money out without any collateral, you need to adopt an attitude of saying “no” this isn’t the first time, but it is a bad time, since we are not completely above water ourselves with the bills.”
The argument in the room might have been overlooked, under better circumstances, but war was coming on, and the Confederate Military was building up, and there was talk of having Charles becoming a Captain in one of the Alabama regiments, thus the future looked bleak at best, and there was a chance that Silas and Jordon, Josh’s boys might be drafted into the Confederate Army, unwillingly of course.

Ella walked over to the Smiley Plantation, when her Husband was down in Ozark doing some shopping with Silas, Old Josh’s boy, and she took Old Josh along to see the Smiley’s and see if Mr. Smiley’s wife was really sick.
As she neared the plantation, across the fields, she saw Mrs. Smiley sitting in a rocker looking out her living room window, fresh as a daisy, musing at the workers planting flowers around her Mansion. Ella and Josh didn’t go any further, she didn’t want to interrupt the scene, she turned to Josh as if to discuss the issue, but Josh knew what it was going to be, he saw Mr. Smiley counting the money when he came out of the Hightower house, he produced a grunt, nothing else, as Ella frowned; they exchanged no words, but walked silently side by side back to the Hightower Plantation.
When Josh left Mrs. Hightower, she exploded inside the house, Granny Mae heard her from the kitchen, and so did Lula, the assistant cook.
Then when Charles came back she confronted him, “You silly fool,
Josh and I went over to talk to the Smiley’s and they were planting flowers as if they had a million dollars, and Mrs. Smiley, was drinking tea by the window, with a $500-dress on, our money.”
“Well how could I guess, I would think you perhaps got something wrong during your observation?”
“The trouble with you is, you feel sorry for the wrong persons,” said Ella.

A few days passed and it seemed the unpleasantness of this particular issue had passed, but was not forgotten completely. Ella had went to town by herself to do some shopping, and a few hours after she left, Charles went. It was a very hot, hot day, and Charles had to go to the court house to do some documentation. He sat with a crowd of twenty-other people waiting by two windows, after a few minutes several more folks came in, had to stand in the small overcrowded room, no one willing to give up their seats, and Charles told himself: why should I, my wife always says I’m too much the gentleman, thus, I am older than sixty, let them stand, he took his number (as did the others, and read the newspaper waiting to be called by one of the two clerks.
Now the room was full bodies, body to body, everyone sweating, and the lady in front of him, close to the windows was asking other folks for their ticket, to exchange for her ticket, that she might go ahead of the others, she was a ways up, and it was just a whisper, not easily heard. He, Charles usually would have given his seat and number away to a woman, any woman; today he was not going to, not after his wife said he was easy, maybe to easy.
After three hours, the lady fell to the floor, and there was a rumble in the room, she fell onto someone, bounded off the person, and dropped to the wooden floor, a heatstroke or perhaps just fainted, people were saying; then Charles feeling no one was helping the women, after several minutes, stood up and pushed his way to the woman, out of curiosity and pity, and grabbed her franticly and was mumbling something, as he rushed her out to the fresh air and over to the doctor’s office.
Said Otis, the bartender from one of the local bars nearby,
“Why, that was Charles Hightower with his wife, Ella.


Inspired by my Sister in Law, in Huancayo, Peru.11-22-2008