Playing With Matches by Carolyn Wall Page A

plates on the first twelve steps that led to the second floor. Uncle, who had eaten five pies, refused supper and sat groaning in his chair, fingering a cup of weak tea and rubbing his belly. Auntie finally brought him the Pepto-Bismol while I started a new batch.
    “Clea?” she said, looking things over. “Don’t you think we have enough?”
    I studied my handiwork, the steaming, lightly sugared half-moons, and replied, “One more batch.”
    “Then you’ll eat something,” she said. “I’ll slice us that ham in the refrigerator and a tomato from the garden. Take a fork and score those cucumbers, will you? I’ve got the beets pickled with onion for tomorrow, and we’ll make potato salad in the morning. We’ll use mustard and vinegar—I don’t trust mayonnaise in the summer heat. Tonight, Cunny can have thin soup after he’s digested all those pastries.”
    With this last pronouncement, Uncle gave a big sigh.

    I’d been skeptical about holding a picnic in False River, the town’s main feature being cracked foundations, which were all that was left. There was part of a brick train station, and a weedy lot that was once the city park. It had a sand pit and two huge dead trees.
    But Uncle and his buddies had taken scythes and lawn mowers and turned the whole thing into a respectable rectangle of green. They erected several dining canopies for shade, while Mr. Hazzleton hammered a couple of booths, where cold drinks would be passed out. I knew what that meant. There’d be one with lemonade for us, and at the other, gents—and some ladies—could neaten their soda pop with gin.
    There was to be a great wooden tub of ice for striped watermelons,and long tables made of planks and old doors on sawhorses. The ladies would cover these with oilcloth while ladders went up for the hanging of red, white, and blue bunting.
    Most important, three gents from Greenfield were coming down with their instruments. In return for a fine dinner and a free outpouring of Mr. Hazzleton’s booze, they would play for the folks, and we might dance on the grass. I asked Uncle what instruments they would bring.
    “Well, the bass fiddle,” he said. I knew what that was, with its great, deep plunking. “A regular fiddle and a slide trombone.”
    I was picturing a golden horn winking in the sun, when Uncle gave Auntie a secret grin.
    “What?” I said.
    But Auntie just smiled.

    At one o’clock, she came downstairs in a pink flowered dress, with a bit of ribbon tying up her hair. She looked like a big, shiny doll.
    Uncle said to her, “My, you look pretty.” And he went and kissed her on the cheek. “Jerusha, you smell like a summer day.”
    “Go on with your smooth self,” Auntie said, but she took a paper fan and cooled herself. “It is a summer day. Now, quit actin’ the fool and get this stuff loaded up.”
    So we began to carry out the baskets and hampers and covered bowls. I got into the bed of Uncle Cunny’s truck and spread things around, then I sat down in the middle of the picnic food with my hands holding it all, while Auntie and Uncle climbed into the truck, and Uncle drove the road as slow as he could.
    There were already folks in the park when we arrived, and we had plenty of help laying out our stuff, Auntie preening and saying“Get on now” to every last compliment. But she was smiling something fierce. I hung back, with one eye on the Maytubby boys, who were kicking up sand, and a gaggle of kids playing chase in a nearby lot. Claudie and Plain Genie were there too. But mostly I watched Auntie. She wasn’t born here like the Reverend, but she’d adapted to False River like she’d been nowhere else. To look at her, and to listen and to know her, you’d never think she’d been with a circus. While I could imagine her feeding and watering chickens, and putting them to bed, I could not imagine her teaching them how to do tricks. I resolved to inquire further about that entire affair. Someday, I might even