Read Online Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga by Michael McDowell - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael McDowell
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back to Perdido in order to rebuild Baptist Bottom, the houses of which, because of the warped boards, looked more crooked than ever before. Fine carpets had to be thrown out because they could not be cleaned of the stain of river mud. Books and documents and pictures had been severely water-stained—even those that had been above the high-water line were not unaffected—and only those that were necessary (such as deeds in the town hall and prescriptions at the druggist’s) were retained.
But the flood wasn’t all bad, they would say later. When it cut off the town’s water supply for several days, the citizens of Perdido understood the inadequacy of their present system and quickly voted an expenditure of forty thousand dollars to build a new pumping station on the nearest two acres of land that hadn’t been flooded. Because everyone’s yard was torn up and most of the streets had been washed away, it seemed the appropriate time to install a modern sewage system—and so, with money borrowed from the owners of the three mills, new sewers were laid into the ground all over the town. Even Baptist Bottom was not forgotten in these improvements, and for the first time there were streetlamps to illuminate the tin roofs of the shacks at night.
Perdido was forgotten by all but the Baldwin County legislator who tried, unsuccessfully, to get loans in Montgomery, and by several firms in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania who had placed orders with one of the mill companies and now learned how late those orders would be delivered. But the effects of the flood remained a long while in Perdido, months and months after the waters had receded, even after the sewer lines had been laid and the new pumping station was drawing up the coldest and sweetest water that anyone in town had ever tasted. The stink of the flood never entirely went away, it seemed. Even after the slime had been swept out of the houses, the walls scrubbed down, new carpets laid, new furniture bought, new curtains hung; even after every ruined thing had been carted away and burned and the broken branches and rotting carcasses of dead animals had been washed out of the yards and grass had begun to grow again, Perdido would start up the stairs last thing at night and pause with its hand on the banister, and beneath the jasmine and the roses on the front porch, beneath the leftover pungency of supper from the kitchen, and beneath the starch in its own collar—Perdido would smell the flood. It had seeped into the boards and beams and very bricks of the houses and buildings. Now and then, it would remind Perdido of what desolation there had been, and what desolation might very well come upon the town again.
Chapter 3
Water Oak
During the five days that Miss Elinor spent at the Zion Grace Church, she had made herself as useful as possible, keeping the children, doing a little cooking, cleaning the church, washing the bedclothes, and complaining not at all. She had won the admiration of everyone but Mary-Love, and Mary-Love’s antipathy toward Miss Elinor was a subject of some remark. For lack of any better reason, it was ascribed to family pride—Mary-Love had seen what inroads Miss Elinor had made into the affection of Grace and the esteem of James Caskey, and possibly saw this as a dangerous disruptive element in her family. That, at any rate, was the least illogical possibility—though it was only a hypothesis; the real cause was probably something else altogether. No one thought to ask Mary-Love directly why she didn’t like Miss Elinor, but, as it happened, she wouldn’t have known what to answer. The truth was, she didn’t know. It was, Mary-Love confusedly told herself, Miss Elinor’s red hair—by which she meant: it was the way Miss Elinor looked, it was the way Miss Elinor talked, carried herself, picked up Grace, made friends of Miz Driver, and had even learned to distinguish among Roland, Oland, and Poland Driver—the female preacher’s three
But the flood wasn’t all bad, they would say later. When it cut off the town’s water supply for several days, the citizens of Perdido understood the inadequacy of their present system and quickly voted an expenditure of forty thousand dollars to build a new pumping station on the nearest two acres of land that hadn’t been flooded. Because everyone’s yard was torn up and most of the streets had been washed away, it seemed the appropriate time to install a modern sewage system—and so, with money borrowed from the owners of the three mills, new sewers were laid into the ground all over the town. Even Baptist Bottom was not forgotten in these improvements, and for the first time there were streetlamps to illuminate the tin roofs of the shacks at night.
Perdido was forgotten by all but the Baldwin County legislator who tried, unsuccessfully, to get loans in Montgomery, and by several firms in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania who had placed orders with one of the mill companies and now learned how late those orders would be delivered. But the effects of the flood remained a long while in Perdido, months and months after the waters had receded, even after the sewer lines had been laid and the new pumping station was drawing up the coldest and sweetest water that anyone in town had ever tasted. The stink of the flood never entirely went away, it seemed. Even after the slime had been swept out of the houses, the walls scrubbed down, new carpets laid, new furniture bought, new curtains hung; even after every ruined thing had been carted away and burned and the broken branches and rotting carcasses of dead animals had been washed out of the yards and grass had begun to grow again, Perdido would start up the stairs last thing at night and pause with its hand on the banister, and beneath the jasmine and the roses on the front porch, beneath the leftover pungency of supper from the kitchen, and beneath the starch in its own collar—Perdido would smell the flood. It had seeped into the boards and beams and very bricks of the houses and buildings. Now and then, it would remind Perdido of what desolation there had been, and what desolation might very well come upon the town again.
Chapter 3
Water Oak
During the five days that Miss Elinor spent at the Zion Grace Church, she had made herself as useful as possible, keeping the children, doing a little cooking, cleaning the church, washing the bedclothes, and complaining not at all. She had won the admiration of everyone but Mary-Love, and Mary-Love’s antipathy toward Miss Elinor was a subject of some remark. For lack of any better reason, it was ascribed to family pride—Mary-Love had seen what inroads Miss Elinor had made into the affection of Grace and the esteem of James Caskey, and possibly saw this as a dangerous disruptive element in her family. That, at any rate, was the least illogical possibility—though it was only a hypothesis; the real cause was probably something else altogether. No one thought to ask Mary-Love directly why she didn’t like Miss Elinor, but, as it happened, she wouldn’t have known what to answer. The truth was, she didn’t know. It was, Mary-Love confusedly told herself, Miss Elinor’s red hair—by which she meant: it was the way Miss Elinor looked, it was the way Miss Elinor talked, carried herself, picked up Grace, made friends of Miz Driver, and had even learned to distinguish among Roland, Oland, and Poland Driver—the female preacher’s three
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