The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

“What did she do?” Ophelia asked, wrenching her attention away from Jed and that phone call. Jed had said it was from Sheriff Burns, although that had struck her as odd at the time. Why would the sheriff— “Do? Why, she ran out in the hall an’ banged on Bessie Bloodworth’s door an’ called her to come have a look. But by the time they got to the window, the moon had went behind a cloud and they couldn’t see a blessed thing. Mrs. Sedalius said it was black as the inside of a wolf.”


Ophelia didn’t ask how Mrs. Sedalius knew what the inside of a wolf looked like. “Well,” she said doubtfully, “I suppose she might have been—”

Mrs. Adcock sat back in her chair. “That’s exactly what Bessie said, too. She was sure that Mrs. Sedalius was imaginin’ it. That ghost ain’t been seen for quite a while, you know, and folks’re figurin’ she found what she was lookin’ for and wouldn’t be around anymore. But later that night, after everybody had went to sleep, Bessie herself heard it”

Ophelia frowned. “Heard what, exactly? How do you hear a ghost?”

“Why, the sound of the spade, that’s what! The ghost was diggin’ out yonder, at the back of the garden where it’s all marshy an’ wet, by that cucumber tree. Bessie said at first she thought she was dreamin‘—you know, after hearin’ all about the ghost from Mrs. Sedalius. But she got up out of her bed an’ raised her window an’ heard it loud an’ clear. Clink-clink-clink.” Mrs. Adcock picked up a spoon and rapped it against her cup. “Jes’ like that. Clink-clink-clink.”

“And then what?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know, dear.” Mrs. Adcock put the spoon down. “Somebody come up to us jes’ then to ask Mrs. Sedalius ‘bout the Sunday School party, an’ she didn’t finish her story. But if it was me, I‘d’ve run right straight back to bed an’ pulled the sheet right up over my head. Wouldn’t you, if you heard a ghost diggin’ in the backyard?”

“Probably,” Ophelia said. She was going to see Bessie in the next day or so, to help clean up the garden. She made a mental note to ask whether Bessie had looked around to see if there had really been any digging.

Mrs. Adcock said she reckoned that the ghost was looking for the buried coffin of that dead baby, or a lost pair of shoes, or maybe a box of family silvef—she’d heard the story three different ways. She added that she was keeping all her doors and windows locked, so that if that escaped convict came around looking for food or money, he couldn’t get in. Then she thanked Ophelia for the coffee and borrowed an egg (so she’d have an excuse to come again, when she had another piece of gossip) and went back across the street, saying that she had to get ready to get her hair done over at Beulah’s Beauty Bower.

After she had gone, Ophelia sat at the table for a moment, thinking that it was a good thing that Mrs. Adcock had come over while Florabelle was out in the backyard hanging out the wash. Florabelle absolutely believed in ghosts. If she thought the Cartwright ghost was walking again, she’d throw her apron over her head and go sit with her face to the wall.

Ophelia was also glad that Florabelle hadn’t heard the other thing, too—although if people around town were talking about Jed and Lucy, the colored folks already knew it. Florabelle lived in Maysville, on the east side of the railroad tracks. When she went home at night, she caught up on the news from all her cousins and friends who worked for the white families in Darling. Ophelia considered asking Florabelle what people were saying about Jed and Ralph’s young wife. But Florabelle was like most of the colored women Ophelia had known in her life, kind and thoughtful, with a sturdy, innate dignity. She might’ve heard something, but she wouldn’t tell Ophelia what it was. It would be too embarrassing to both of them.

Ophelia got up and wiped the red-and-yellow-checked oilcloth with a dishrag, then got the broom and began to sweep. She was remembering the phone call a week ago yesterday, the one Jed had said was from Sheriff Burns. She was also remembering what she had heard on the party line that same evening, when Verna and Myra May were talking about Buddy breaking his arm when he drove his motorcycle into Ralph’s corncrib. Myra May had said it was Lucy who called Jed, not the sheriff, the way Jed claimed.

Ophelia hadn’t thought much about it at the time. There must have been a lot of excitement at the switchboard that afternoon, with telephone calls flying back and forth about the prison farm escape. It would’ve been easy for whoever was on the board at any given time to misremember who called who and what they said. Ophelia had meant to ask Jed when he got home, but Sam had fallen and scraped his knee when he was roller-skating, and by the time she’d patched that up, she’d forgotten all about it.