The Front Porch Prophet

The public portion of the ceremony began to wind down around nine o’clock, and by ten or so the group had dwindled to John Robert, A.J., Maggie with a sleeping Emily Charlotte on her lap, Charnell Jackson, Doc Miller, Eugene, and Slim Neal, who was grief-stricken. Eugene told A.J. that Slim had actually broken down earlier in the day while writing a speeding ticket and had let the scofflaw off with a tearful warning when he found himself too overcome to resume. This was not the Slim they had all come to know and love, and even John Robert was unable to bring himself to run the maudlin public official off.

“Well, she’s in heaven now,” offered Charnell Jackson, raising his glass in tribute. With the crowds gone, John Robert had allowed the bar to open. Granmama herself had enjoyed the occasional drop of wine.

“Surrounded by ten million birds who want to have a word with her,” A.J. noted quietly with a smile. Eugene choked on his drink.

“Thirsty birds,” Maggie said with a chuckle.

“Ten million thirsty birds with the attitude that they wouldn’t eat a vegetable if you paid them,” Eugene said, laughing quietly. John Robert had a broad smile, the first on his features in some time.

Granmama had been a Christian saint among the women of the world, but she would not tolerate a bird in her vegetable patch. Her solution to this perennial problem did not involve scarecrows, which were ineffective, or shotgun blasts in the air, which tended to separate the telephone wires from the house. Ever since A.J. could remember, she had fed the birds to keep them out of her garden. Every morning, Clara pinched off a wad of biscuit dough for her feathered friends and loaded it down with as much salt it would assimilate. Then she made little balls out of the mixture and scattered them around her garden. The unsuspecting winged felons would hop up, cute as could be, and partake of these tidbits. An hour later they would be dead as a stone.

“Look, she’s feeding the birds,” Maggie had said during her first visit to the farm. “Your granmama is so nice.”

“She’s killing the birds,” A.J. corrected her. “She’s like the Joe Stalin of the bird world. She’s killed more birds than Colonel Sanders.”

“That’s not funny,” Maggie replied, taking Granmama’s side. She looked so sweet out there with her straw hat and apron, slowly working her way to the left in an attempt to flank an especially cunning blackbird that was resistant to her wiles. Coo, coo could be heard wafting in the breeze, although A.J. had no idea why Granmama was trying to lure a blackbird by making pigeon noises.

“I swear it’s true,” he said to Maggie. “Every day I go down with a bucket and pick them up. This place is bird hell.” So Granmama had been a tad judgmental with the avian population, but that was small potatoes when compared to the sins of the wretched world.

They toasted her quietly once again, and she in her pine box accepted their tribute with quiet repose. More stories emerged, testimonials to the life she had led and the woman she had been. Maggie shared the advice that had been offered upon her marriage to A.J.: Now, honey, you’ll have to put up with a certain amount of that business if you want to have children. Much good-natured kidding was heaped upon A.J., and for a few moments the cat had his tongue. Doc Miller told of the time he suggested she take a tablespoon or two of wine at mealtimes to aid her digestion. This was sound medical advice, and often the old ways were the best. Clara took right to the idea, and before long she was consuming a bottle of wine per day, but always one tablespoon at a time.

“She enjoyed her tablespoon of wine,” John Robert agreed, smiling slightly as he remembered the exact manner in which she poured her dosage.

“Damn, Doc,” Eugene said. “It’s a good thing you didn’t put her on salty dough.” Eugene had consumed uncounted tablespoonfuls of good Canadian whiskey by this time, but his observation had nonetheless been presented with the greatest respect.