"Mr. Bud"

The old black woman sat rocking on the small porch of the modest house built of unpainted wood and sitting in a grove of Persimmon trees. Two well-worn ruts barren of grass extended from the front yard and wound their way parallel out to the narrow dirt road that led into town. The old woman smoothed the wrinkles from the apron covering the front of her dress then proceeded to light her corn-cob pipe for her afternoon smoke.

Three children played underneath one of the Persimmon trees laughing as children about seemingly nothing. They watched the blue smoke from the old woman’s pipe gently drift off the porch and slowly disappear on the light wind. Staying here with their grandmother while their mother worked had long since come to seem normal over the past few years. They were door-step kids ranging in age from 12 for the oldest down to six for the youngest….about three years separated each one. Like many of their friends, they were children of a single mother home and the interaction with their grandmother became all the more important to them.

This was the time of day the children looked forward to because when granny came out on the porch it was normally story-tellin’ time. She told the best stories that left them hanging on the words and wanting more. The blue smoke from the pipe signaled that it was time to make their way over to the porch steps and see if there would be a story today. They ran in unison in the old woman’s direction yelling, “tell us a story, granny, tell us a story.”

Lizzie Edgar drew slowly on the pipe and looked warmly at the children now sitting on the steps waiting in anxious anticipation. “I don’t rightly know what story to tell you chillum today. Seems like I have told you every story that I know’d and most of them at least twice or more,” She said smiling at the children. “But let me try one more time and see if I can find somethin’ in my old head for you to learn from.” She added. The children said nothing in return, just patiently waited as the old lady played this game all the time.

“Did I ever tell you about the time when Mr. Bud died?” Lizzie asked her grandchildren. The kids quickly answered “no” in unison and waited for more. With that, Lizzie smiled and began her story-telling.

“Now you all know, like I done told you, we learn from the stories that we tell and we learn from the lessons of others. It ain’t no different in the case of this story. Every word of it is true and so is the lesson that come with it,” Lizzie said looking closely into the eyes of each child as she spoke the words.

“Mr. Bud was the man who owned this here land when I was just a girl in my young woman years. It was back about the time that I done met up with yore granddaddy and was thinkin’ hard on settlin’ down with him. He lived up the road yonder on another man’s place with his family and we was mighty sweet on each other. My family had lived on this place for most of my mama and daddy’s adult life. They works for Mr. Bud’s daddy who had the land afore he left it to Mr. Bud at his death. We was what some called, “share-croppers” in that we would help Mr. Bud in return for a portion of the crop and a place to live. That’s how we made our livin’.”

“Well, ya see, I married yore granddaddy in a little ol’ brush arbor church up over the hill yonder. It wasn’t no building but just a place to worship the Lord cut into the surrounding brush. They was pretty common back in that time. The preacher married us right there under the bright sunshine and we moved down here to this house and lived with my mama and daddy. My two brothers had gone off to the war out in the Pacific Ocean and never got back home. I was all that mama and daddy had left ya see.”

“Willie, yore grandpa, and I went right to work side by side with mama and daddy in the fields. It was hard work but we was glad to have it as folks didn’t have much back then. Some didn’t even have a job to go to so we felt like we was doin’ pretty good to have food on the table, a roof over our head, and a way to keep both of them there. Lots of folks thought we was doin’ pretty good and we was in our own way.”

“Mr. Bud was a white man, but that don’t make no difference. I just told you that so you would know. He was a good man and I know’d him all my life. When my mama and daddy got too old to work, Mr. Bud told me and Willie to just keep right on a workin’ and leave mama and daddy at the house. He said they would have a place to live and be taken care of for as long as they was on this earth. You see that place down yonder by the creek in that stand of Pine trees? That’s where yore great-grandmother and grand-daddy are buried along with yore two great uncles who died in the war. Mr. Bud gave us that place to bury our family when my brothers’ died in the war. They not really down there but we gots a grave for them to remember them by so it’s like they is there.”

“As I was sayin’, Mr. Bud was a good man and so was his family. When mama and daddy passed on and Willie and I began havin’ our family, Mr. Bud always gave us time off for birthin’ the babies and gettin’ them situated in the world. He would just say that him and Willie would have to work a little bit harder so that I could take care of them chillun’. I grew to love that man like he was a child of mine. He was a welcome to come into this house and fetch his self a piece of cornbread as anyone who ever put their feet under our table. Yes, he shore was.”

“Chillun, you may not realize it now, but we gets older by the day. Once I was young like you…runnin’ and playin’ without a care in this world. Then one day I becomes a woman, takes me a man, and starts to raise a family. Soon I have people lookin’ back at me for food, shelter, warmth, and love. Then I am not so carefree anymore. Then I have to worry about how we gonna make it; how we gonna pay the bills and get by. The world become a different place when you come to that bank of the creek.”

“Well, it just seem like no time and I look up one day and Mr. Bud is an old man himself. I understood that but it was somethin’ that frightened me very much because Mr. Bud didn’t have no son. He didn’t have nobody to carry on for him and run this farm and this land like he had when his daddy died. Our whole life here was built around Mr. Bud and now he was a getting’ old and one day surely he would die. I began to worry about what this family would do, where we would go, how we would live. At the same time, I could not tell Mr. Bud how to handle his business because his business was not none of mine you see?”

“As I told you, there was many times when things were kind of thin when the drought would come and the crops would barely survive. We be done worked hard in the fields all year side by side with Mr. Bud and his wife only to find out that all of us had almost worked for nothing. But we hung on and Mr. Bud, well, it didn’t matter how little he got from the crop, we always saw our part and we always had food and a place to live even in the hardest of them years. Mr. Bud made sure that was true.”

“Mr. Bud’s wife died first and it broke his heart. They had tried for so many years to have them some chillun’ with no success. They was very close and you could tell that they loved each other so much. Well, her dying just broke Mr. Bud’s heart and from that time on he just did not look at life the same way. It was like he had lost all there was in his life to care about. I prayed for him every night and hoped the Lord would stay by his side. But sometimes even the Lord can’t fix no broken heart especially when it is broke as bad as Mr. Bud’s was by his wife’s dyin’.”

“I think he knew hisself when the time for his dyin’ was a-comin’. I don’t know how he knew but I shore am sure that he did. He come down here and sat on the porch with Willie and me. He sat right on them same steps that you are sittin’ on right now. He told me and Willie that he did not have long on this earth and before he could get the words out of his mouth I had already broke down and started cryin’ like a baby. I begged him to please not die and leave me and Willie along in this world with these kids. What would we do without Mr. Bud? What would we do?”

“Well, that was when Mr. Bud reached into his overall back pocket and pulled out a deed to this here land. He told me and Willie that he had already signed the whole place over to us and it was ours free and clear for as long as we wanted to own it and raise our family here. Nobody had ever done nothin’ like that for my family or for me and Willie. We was speechless and Willie and I both just sat there on the porch and cried as Mr. Bud looked on. He knew how thankful we both was.”

“As I said, I don’t know how he knew he was dying but he was and it was just a few months afterward that we was standin’ over his grave and sendin’ him on to the Gloryland to be with his wife, Miss Emma. He left Willie and me a long letter detailing as much as he knew about the land and he also left us a little money so we could get the crop in the next year. As I already said, Mr. Bud was a good man.”

“Now maybe you chillun’ don’t know why I told you this story and maybe you do. But now you understands how you come to live with yore mama down here in this house and me and your grandpa lived up yonder in Mr. Bud’s white house. That’s the way it be for all yore lives and now you understand why it is.”

“I told you that story for another reason as well. I want all you chillun’ to realize that we is all human beings in this world. We may have different color skin and some different ways about how we do things, but in the end, we is all human and we got to be there for each other. Mr. Bud understood that and he lived his life that way. I don’t know how he understood it ‘cept maybe that his mama and daddy understood it too and they passed it to him just like I am passing it to you. One day you will pass it to your children and their children. Mr. Bud and his family made the world a tolerable place for my family and for you and it’s yore responsibility to do that…to be a Mr. Bud to someone else in this life. It’s the right thing to do; it’s the human thing to do and the world will be a whole lot better for it. Now, you go on and play…story-time is over for today,” Miss Lizzie said with a wave of her hand toward the Persimmon trees.

As the children ran off to their play, Miss Lizzie drew on the pipe slowly and thought back on the days of her youth and thought about how fortunate she had been in life to know Mr. Bud and his family. “Some folks don’t find that level of riches no matter what,” She mumbled to herself never moving the pipe from her lips. “No, they don’t”. She knew that it would not be long before she would see Mr. Bud, Miss Emma, and Willie again herself. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

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