Glory Be

Just after dark on a warm summer night, Ruthie, Betty Jean and I waited til Nana had fallen asleep over her knitting, shushed the dogs with bacon bits leftover from supper, and slipped out to meet the moonlight.

It was a grand night. The ocean was still and calm and hardly a thing but the grass was stirring on land. Across the passage, the lights of Westport twinkled like rows of Christmas trees and the moon - high, huge and softly yellow - hung in the sky and shed its light over the water. Stars shimmered in every corner of the sky and we could hear John Sullivan's violin clear as day, one of those sweet, old songs that he loved so. The three of us crept barefoot down the narrow front path, stopped only long enough to put on our sneakers, then headed for The Old Road.

Glory be, Ruthie whispered, Ain't it bright!

Betty Jean shot her a dark look full of warning, held one finger to her lips and made Hurry up! gestures with her free hand. Wishing we could be invisible, Ruthie and I tried to creep along a little faster.

By the time we reached Gull Rock undetected, we were feeling a little more confident. I decided not to think about the possibility that Nana might wake and with that grandmotherly sixth sense she seemed to have, get one of her feelings that something was amiss. I doubted she'd raise an alarm if she found our empty beds - twas far more likely she'd be waiting with a hand picked switch - but the thought of ending our adventure in the woodshed did raise the hairs on the back of my neck.

Hackles, I remember muttering to Ruthie, they're called hackles.


What? she frowned at me, her face very pale in the moonlight.


Nothin', I told her, I was thinkin'..... never mind, don't matter.


Betty Jean glared again, Will you two please hush up! she snapped, Sound carries for miles on a night like this!


I thought of hearing John Sullivan's violin and decided she was right. We hushed.

We passed the movie house and the dance hall, both looking forlorn and deserted - not loud and all lit up like they would be come Saturday night - ducked past the lights at the Titus place then kept to the ditch when we got to Miz Blackford's on account of the dogs. Another quarter mile brought us to the square, eerily empty and silent except for the swishing of the tide going out. We walked clear across to the other side of the cove on the hard packed sand, quiet as mice and only ducking down and flattening out when the headlights of Hubie Smith's rattletrap old Volkswagen appeared ahead of us. From the look of how he was driving, Hubie'd had more than his share of bootleg whiskey that night. There wasn't much chance he'd notice us and even if he had, he wasn't likely to pay us any mind. He was a solitary and close-mouthed drinker and it wouldn't have been the first time he'd seen something and written it off to one too many jugs. We plodded bravely on.


It was coming on midnight when we got to the house on the other side of the footbridge. In the moonlight, it was forlorn looking, full of shadows and shapes, nowheres near as welcoming as it looked in daylight. Johnny and his crew were already there and had begun the painting - the old fence was beginning to glow with a fresh coat of whitewash - and a couple of the Sullivan boys were hard at work in the yard, swiping the overgrown grass and weeds with scythes and looking all the world like some combination of hired men and grim reapers.


Glory be! Ruthie whispered as the scythes whooshed gracefully back and forth, Where'd they git them?



Don't matter! Betty Jean told her and gave her a shove, Git a rake and git to work!


Ruthie obediently did as she was told.


Harley Sullivan appeared at my elbow with a handful of rags, a long handled mop and a bucket of soapy water.


C'mon, he said roughly, They's windows to be washed and we ain't got all night!


It seemed like every island child and teenager was there, I marveled, all working silently in the moonlight. The tide mostly covered what small noises we made and by three or four, the grass had been cut and raked, the fence painted, the barn cleaned out and the front veranda swept. The windows shone and the woodpile was neatly stacked. We were all dirty, tired, blistered and well satisfied.


Glory be! Ruthie whispered as we trudged home, Good deeds ain't easy!


Ain't nobody to say a word! Harley Sullivan reminded us, You git caught, you say you was to a weenie roast and take your medicine!


We all agreed, even the little ones crossed their hearts, spit and hoped to die.


Improbable as it was, nobody talked and nobody got found out. The next day when the first afternoon ferry brought Grady Lent and his widow home for the funeral, the house was full of flowers, fresh linen was on each bed and there were new curtains at every window. The island women had been at work since dawn, stocked the small icebox and baked enough casseroles to feed an army. There had been poverty and suffering in the small house, long, lonely years of cruel illness and finally death. Grady had been too proud to accept help when it was most needed and might've done some small amount of good - in all his eighty some years he'd never hesitated to lend a helping hand to others but drew the line at charity to his own home, leaving his widow broken and poor, almost disabled by exhaustion and grief - the village had precious little to give except small kindnesses and we hoped she would be too worn out to argue or protest.


We watched her watch the casket being carried in. The men from the funeral parlor set it carefully in front of the window and then escorted her in. She walked slowly with her head down. They led her to a chair by the casket and spoke in soft whispers then discreetly left. James arrived in his best sermon suit and sat with her, offering what comfort he could but mostly just being there, holding her hand, hoping against hope for the right words.


Grady was laid to rest the following Sunday. At the graveside, John Sullivan played "I Come to the Garden Alone" on his violin and James spoke of heaven but what I remember most clearly is the widow when she somehow managed to gather us children to her like a flock of pigeons and talked to us in a soft, sad voice. She

was grateful for the women, she told us, for the food and the housekeeping, and to James for his kindness and caring, even grateful that the good Lord had finally seen fit to end Grady's suffering but what she was most grateful for was us, that we'd risked the woodshed and maybe worse to do a secret good deed. She would never tell, she promised us, but she knew. And it made her proud.


We couldn't very well ask questions about who had told her without giving ourselves away so we all agreed to keep the secret good deed a secret. It wasn't as hard as we thought.