Purlean and Ug Upton owned a mom-and-pop store, and paid top dollar for pecans.
Few folks knew his real name, but one look explained “Ug.” A mule kicked him on the cheek, and his jaws no longer matched, giving his face a frightful twist. The blow also affected one eye, which focused momentarily and then roamed, which scared me stiff.
Boss, my father, had a pecan grove, and each year Jaybird and I gathered the nuts, sold them to the Uptons and split the proceeds with Boss. Dad was so tight folks said he didn’t even take in all the air he needed. Giving something for nothing was not his way. If I wanted Christmas cash, I earned it.
That fall, pecans covered the ground. Jaybird always tried to make play of work, and devised a technique whereby we walked in circles, spiraling out from the tree trunk, filling buckets and dumping them in burlap bags.
I was saving for my first shotgun, and eagerly anticipated the weekly trips to Upton’s in Jaybird’s old truck to sell the harvest and split the cash. Mr. Wade at the hardware store promised to hold the Remington shotgun until a week before Christmas, but if I didn’t have the money by then, he’d have to offer it to other customers. He let me hold the brown-stocked, blue-barreled beauty a couple of times, and I savored the smell of gun oil.
That Saturday, Upton’s was packed with folks selling pecans. Ug weighed and wrote out receipts, which Purlean redeemed at the cash register. In his haste, he scribbled two receipts, giving one to Jaybird … and one to me. Not noticing this, Jaybird handed his receipt to Purlean, took the money, gave me change for candy and a pop, and moseyed out front.
Purlean was as slow-witted as Ug was ugly, and I knew she wouldn’t notice the duplicate receipt. The gun oil smell pushed me over the edge, and I got in line, furtively glancing at Ug. Purlean peered down at me through scratched bifocals and counted out the cash. The Remington was mine!
Noticing my smiling face as we rode along, Jaybird asked why I was so happy. When I told him about my clever trick, the old black man eased off the road and U-turned. I froze in fear.
“Please don’t go back … I’m scared of Mr. Ug,” I pleaded. “He’ll never know.” Jaybird drove on. Stopping in front of Upton’s, he muttered, “I’ll wait here.”
“Mr. Ug, somehow me and Jaybird got paid twice, and didn’t discover the mistake until we headed home.”
My knees knocked. That eye focused on me, and then began roaming, as a toothless smile creased his slanted jaw.
“That’s a mighty honest thing you did,” he drawled, peeling off a twenty from the returned money. “Here, boy, Merry Christmas.”
Between what I wheedled out of Jaybird, plus the twenty and my stash, I had enough to buy the gun. That was my best Christmas.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
