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"Is something wrong, honey?" Mamma asked, holding her smile.
"Eugenia's wheelchair, Mamma. I can't find it," I said. Mamma looked at the other women and released a short laugh.
"Why, honey, surely you can find something as big as a wheelchair."
"It's not where it always is in her room, and I've looked everywhere else in the house and asked Tottie and Louella and . . ."
"Lillian," Mamma said, sharply bringing me to a halt. "If you go back and look carefully, I'm sure you will find a wheelchair. Now, don't make everything seem like the Battle of Gettysburg," she added and laughed at the women, who then followed with a chorus of their own laughter.
"Yes, Mamma," I said.
"And remember what I told you, honey. Not too long and be sure she's wrapped warm."
"I will, Mamma," I said.
"You should have first said hello to everyone anyway, Lillian." She pinched her face into a look of soft reprimand.
"I'm sorry. Hello."
The women all nodded and smiled. I turned and walked out slowly. Before I reached the door, they had picked up where they had left off as if I hadn't even been there. Slowly, I started back toward Eugenia's room. I stopped when I saw Emily coming down the stairs.
"We can't find Eugenia's wheelchair," I cried. "I've asked everyone and looked everywhere."
She pulled herself up abruptly and smirked.
"You should have asked me first. When Papa's gone, no one knows as much about The Meadows as I do. Certainly not Mamma," she added.
"Oh Emily, you know where it is. Thank goodness. Well, where is it then?"
"It's in the toolshed. Henry noticed something wrong with a wheel or an axle. Some such thing. I'm sure it's fixed by now. He just forgot to bring it back."
"Henry wouldn't forget something like that," I thought aloud. Emily hated to be contradicted.
"Well then, he didn't forget and it's in her room. Is it? Is it in her room?" she demanded.
"No," I said softly.
"You treat that old black man as if he was some sort of Old Testament prophet. He's just the son of a former slave, uneducated, illiterate, and full of ignorant superstitions," she added. "Now," she said, folding her arms and straightening up again, "if you want the wheelchair, go to the toolshed and get it."
"Okay," I said, eager to get away from her and get the wheelchair. I knew poor Eugenia was on pins and needles back in her room and I couldn't wait to wheel the chair in and bring a smile back to her face. I hurried out the front door and down the steps, running around the corner of the house toward the toolshed. When I got there, I opened the door and peered in. There was the wheelchair, just as Emily had said, resting in a corner. It looked untouched, only its wheels were a little dirty from its being rolled over the grounds.
This was so unlike Henry, I thought. But then I thought, maybe Emily was right. Maybe Henry had come for the chair when Eugenia was asleep and didn't wake her to tell her he was taking it to fix. With all that Papa had him doing on the plantation, it was no wonder he forgot something occasionally, I concluded. I entered the shed and started toward the chair when suddenly the door was slammed shut behind me.
The action was so fast and so surprising that for a moment I didn't realize what had happened. Something had been thrown into the shed after me and that something . . . moved. I froze for a moment. There was barely enough light streaming in through the cracks in the old toolshed walls, but there was enough for it finally to register what had been thrown in behind me . . . a skunk!
Henry set traps for rabbits. He set out these little cages that they would crawl into in order to nibble the lettuce, which dropped the gate shut. Then he would decide if the rabbit was old enough and fat enough to eat. He loved to make rabbit stew. I didn't want to know anything about it because I couldn't imagine eating bunnies. They always looked so funny and happy to me, nibbling on the grass or hopping about the fields. When I complained, Henry said as long as you didn't kill one just for fun, it was all right.
"Everything feeds on everything else in this world, child," he explained, and pointed to a sparrow. "That there bird eats worms, don't it, and bats, they eat bugs. Foxes hunt rabbits, you know."
"I don't want to know, Henry. Don't tell me when you eat a rabbit. Just don't tell me," I cried. He smiled and nodded.
"Okay, Miss Lillian. I ain't inviting you to Sunday dinner whenever there's rabbit being served."
But occasionally, Henry would get a skunk in one of his traps instead of a rabbit. He would come along with a sack and throw it over the cage. As long as the skunk was in the dark, it didn't squirt, he told me. I guess he told Emily, too. Or maybe, she just learned by watching. One time or another, she would watch everyone who lived at The Meadows as if she had been ordered to spot sinful acts.
This skunk, obviously riled up by what had been done to it, eyed everything around it suspiciously. I tried not to move, but I was so frightened, I couldn't help but utter a cry and shift my feet. The skunk saw me and hit me full flush with its spray. I screamed and screamed and ran to the door. It was jammed shut. I had to pound and pound on it and the skunk hit me again before retreating under a cabinet. Finally, the door opened. A stick had been braced against it to keep it from opening easily. I fell out into the open air, the stench hovering all over me.
Henry came running from a barn along with some of the other workers, but they didn't get within ten feet of me before stopping dead in their tracks and crying out with disgust. I was hysterical, whipping my arms around myself as if I was being attacked by bees instead of the stench of a skunk. Henry took a deep gulp of fresh air and then, holding his breath, came to my aid. He lifted me in his arms and ran back toward the rear of the house. There, he set me down on the landing and went charging in to fetch Louella. I heard him cry, "It's Lillian! She's been doused by a skunk real bad in the toolshed!"
