- Whatever happened, it happened in extraordinary times in a season of dreams.

- The time is past.

- The time is now.

- And also to come.

- The world mysterious, unique, comic and profound, the vision of Eudora Welty.

- A Season of Dreams.

- [Announcer] The Mississippi Authority for Educational Television presents the New Stage Theatre production, "A Season of Dreams", the vision of Eudora Welty.

- [Eudora] One summer morning when I was a child, I lay on the sand after swimming in the small lake in the park.

The sun beat down; it was almost noon.

The water shown like steel, motionless except for the feathery curl behind a distant swimmer.

I was looking at a rectangle brightly lit with sun, sand, water, a little pavilion, and around it all a baud of dark rounded oak trees.

Ever since I had begun taking painting lessons, I had made a frame with my fingers to look out at everything.

I do not know even now what I was waiting to see, but in those days, I was convinced that I almost saw it at every turn, to watch everything about me I regarded grimly and possessively as a need.

All through the summer I had lain on the sand beside the small lake with my hands squared over my eyes fingertips touching, looking out by this device to see everything.

It did not matter to me what I looked at; from any observation, I would conclude that a secret of life was about to be revealed to me for I was obsessed with notions about concealment, and from the smallest gesture of a stranger, I would wrest what was to me a communication or a presentiment.

- A secret of life about to be revealed, that was Miss Eudora Welty reading from her story "A Memory", but she might have been speaking of her writing as well, for out of those small gestures of strangers, she wrings worlds of revelation.

She makes us see new, hear new, smell new.

She causes us to see a familiar site freshly.

- It was a nice house.

It was a place where the days could go by and surprise anyone that they were over.

- To hear silence.

- The thing that seemed like silence must have been the endless cry of all the crickets and locusts in the world, rising and falling.

- To sense an old house on a wet day.

- It smelled of rain, of fish, pocket money and pocket.

- Smells like the school basement to me, pee pee and old erasers.

(dramatic harp music) - Through all her life, Eudora Welty has looked out through those squared fingers, seeing everything, showing us the pictures she frames.

From her pen has come a body of work unique in American writing, "The Ponder Heart", "Delta Wedding", "A Curtain of Green", "The Golden Apples", "The Robber Bridegroom", "The Bride of the Innisfallen", "Losing Battles".

During this hour, we offer a sampler of her work and her world, visiting Welty places, meeting Welty people.

But most of all, we hope to experience some of the feelings she has shared.

She can sum a philosophy in a sentence.

(dramatic harp music) - There's too much excitement in the world altogether.

I think it's mostly because people are layers of violence and tenderness wrapped like bulbs.

I don't know what makes them onions or hyacinths.

- The heart cannot live without something to sorrow, and be curious over.

- The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.

- All things are divided in half, night and day, the soul and the body, sorrow and joy, and age and youth.

- I'd rather a man be anything than a woman be mean.

- Happily, very few of Miss Welty's women are.

In the wonderful, mythical towns of her early fiction live a number of God-fearing ladies who may sometimes mean too well, but who are seldom mean.

From the short story "Lily Daw and the Three Ladies", some events that began one day in the post office of Victory, Mississippi.

When the letter came from the Ellisville Institute for the Feeble-minded of Mississippi, Aimee Slocum with her hands still full of mayo ran out front and handed it straight to Mrs. Watts.

- What'll Lily say when we tell her we're sending her to Ellisville?

- Why, she'll be tickled to death!

Lily Daw's getting in at Ellisville!

- I do hope they take care of her down there.

- Oh, I've always heard it's lovely down there, but crowded.

- Lily lets people run over her so.

Why, last night at the tent show, the man was just before making Lily buy a ticket to get in.

- A ticket!

- Till my husband went up and explained she wasn't bright, and so did everybody else.

Oh, it was a very nice show, and Lily acted so nice.

Why, she was a perfect lady, just set in her seat and stared.

- Oh, she can be a lady, she can be.

That's just what breaks your heart.

- She kept her eyes on, what's the thing makes all the commotion?

The xylophone and the xylophone player, never turned her head from right to left the whole time, set right in front of me.

- The point is what did she do after the show?

Lily's gotten so she's very mature for her age.

- Oh, Etta.

- That's how come we're sending her to Ellisville.

- Well, defiant Lily is a different thing.

- Well, now where in the wild world do you suppose she is?

I don't see any sign of her, either on this side of the street or on the other side?

Let's try Ed Newton's store.

- You ladies looking for Lily?

She was in here about an hour ago telling me she's fixin' to get married!

- Ed Newton!

- Why, she is not, she's going to Ellisville, Ed!

I am Aimee Slocum are paying her way out of our own pockets.

Besides, the boys of Victory are on their honor.

Lily Daw's not gonna get married.

It's just a notion she's got in her head.

- Well, more power to you ladies.

- What we've got to do is persuade Lily it'll be nicer to go to Ellisville.

- Just to think, we buried Lily's poor defenseless mother, gave Lily all our food and kindling and every stitch she had on, and sent her to Sunday School so she could learn the Lord's teachings, and her baptized a Baptist.

Then when her old father commenced beating on her and tried to cut her head off with the butcher knife, we went and took her away from him, gave her a place to stay.

- Now Lily's almost grown up.

In fact, she's grown.

- Oh, talking about getting married!

- [Narrator] When the ladies climbed over the dusty zinnias, and walked through the open door of Lily's house without knocking, there was Lily.

- [Etta] Hello Lily!

- Hello.

- [Aimee] What are you doing, Lily?

- Packing silly, packing my hope chest.

- [Etta] Where are you going?

- Going to get married.

I bet you wish you was me now.

- Talk to me dear.

Tell Mrs. Watts why you wanna get married.

- No.

- We've thought of something that would be so much nicer.

Why don't you go to Ellisville?

- Wouldn't that be lovely?

Goodness yes, wouldn't you like to go to Ellisville instead?

- No.

- Why not?

- 'Cause I'm gonna get married.

Lily, we'll give you lots of gorgeous things if you'll only go to Ellisville instead of getting married.

- What'll you give me?

- I'll give you a pair of hem-stitched pillowcases.

- And I'll give you a big caramel cake!

- I'll give you a souvenir from Jackson, a little toy bank.

Now will you go?

- No.

- I'll give you a pretty little Bible with your name on it in real gold!

- What if I give you a pink crepe dasheen brassiere with adjustable shoulder straps?

- Wish I could go to Ellisville.

They let you make all sorts of pretty baskets.

- I'd rather get married.

- We've all asked God Lily, and God seemed to tell us and Mr. Slocum too, that the place you ought to be so as to be happy is Ellisville.

- Could I take my hope chest to go to Ellisville?

- [Etta] Why yes!

- Oh, if I could just take my hope chest.

- All the time it was just her hope chest.

- Oh, praise the fathers!

- Okay, toots!

- I think I'd better stay.

Where, where could she have picked up an expression like that?

- Pack up; Lily Daw's leaving for Ellisville on number one.

(train bell ringing) - Nearly everyone in Victory was hanging around the station waiting for the train to leave.

The Victory Civic Band had assembled without any orders and were scattered throughout the crowd.

Mrs. Watts was going to travel as far as Jackson to help Lily change trains and make sure she went in the right direction.

- Goodbye, Lily.

- Goodbye, silly.

- I do hope they get my telegram to meet her in Ellisville.

It was so hard to get it all in in 10 words too.

- Get off, Aimee before the train starts and you break your fool neck!

Oh I declare, it's so hot!

As soon as we get a few miles down the road, I'm gonna slip my corset down.

- Now don't cry there, Lily.

You just be good and do what they tell you.

Remember, it's all because they love you.

- [Lily] Look!

- Don't look; don't look at anything till you get to Ellisville.

(train chugging) - Could you tell me, madame, where a little lady lives in this berg named Miss Lily Daw?

- What do you wanna know for?

- Talk louder!

- She's gone away, gone to Ellisville!

- Gone?

- Gone away to Ellisville.

- Well, I like that!

- What business do you have with Lily?

- We was only gonna get married, that's all.

- The xylophone, the xylophone!

- Did you say Ellisville?

Well, maybe she didn't say she would.

Maybe she said she wouldn't.

Women!

Well, if we play anywheres near Ellisville, miss, in the future, I may look her up and I may not.

- Wait mister, I'll get her for you!

Wait Mr. engineer, don't go!

- [Aimee] The xylophone player, the xylophone player can marry her; yonder, he is.

- Nonsense, it he's there I don't see him; where is he?

You're looking at one-eyed Beasley!

- No, the little man with the cap, now hurry.

- Never saw him before in my life.

- Come on, this is a train we're on.

- All right, don't have a conniption fit, girl, come on.

- Where're we going now?

- We're taking you to get married.

- I don't wanna get married.

I'm going to Ellisville.

- Hush now, and we'll all have ice cream cones later.

- Hello toots, what's up, tricks?

- So you're the young man we've heard so much about.

Here's your little Lily.

- What say?

- My husband happens to be the Baptist preacher of Victory.

Isn't that lucky?

I can have him here in five minutes!

- Why, I just feel like crying at a time like this.

(train chugging) Oh, the hope chest!

(wedding harp music) - Eudora Welty, so far as we know, does not engage in literary talk about her work or the work of her friends.

Nor does she take kindly to symbol-seeking, the search for hidden meanings.

She is often approached by well-meaning fans with questions like, - Miss Welty, does the Freudian symbolism in "Why I live at the P.O" negate Uncle Rondo's disposition towards the Eastern philosophy?

- Now that hopefully is not a direct quote from anybody, but it does make the point that Miss Welty, like all artists, is subjected to a lot of foolish questioning.

She receives it all with her natural kindness and generosity but also with the firm answer that she writes stories, and the symbolic significance that others may see in them is to use her precise phrase "none of me".

She writes about people and what people they are, and what an abundance of wit is contained in just the names she gives to them.

Why in "Golden Apples" alone, you'll meet-- - Main families of Morgana, Mississippi.

- King MacLain.

- Mrs. MacLain.

- Nema Snowdy Hudson.

- Coma Stark.

- Mrs. Stark.

- Me, Miss Lizzy Morgan.

- Felix Spites, Billy Texas Spites, Miss Perdida Mayo, Miss Haddie Mayo.

- Victor and Virgie.

- Also.

- Lumises, Carlisles, Holifields, Nesbits.

- Boses, Sissems, and Sojourners.

- Also.

- Plez, Louella, and Telly Morgan.

- Elberta, Twosie and Exum McLane.

- Blackstone and-- - Juba.

- In the Mississippi Delta, weddings occur on many levels, one of which is just keeping all the names straight, along with your manners and your kinfolks.

Here, Dabney, the young bride in "Delta Wedding", introduces her wedding party to her uncle's wife.

- Robbie.

(gentle music) This is Nana Delaney, Gypsy Randall, Delta and Dagmar Wiggins, Charles E. McCleod, and Bitsy Carmichael.

And there's Pokey Calloway, Dickie-boy Featherstone, U.B.

McCleod, Xian Yong, Peewee Kirkendoll, and Red Bowen, and they're in the wedding.

You're my aunt-in-law, isn't that right, Robbie?

- There's one thing most Welty characters have in common.

They love to talk, and to tell stories.

(gentle music) And when it comes to storytelling, nobody can beat the proprietor of the Beulah Hotel and niece of one of Miss Welty's best loved character's, Uncle Daniel.

Here then from "The Ponder Heart," talking to a traveling man, just stopped by the Beulah, is Miss Edna Earl Ponder.

- Grandpa just wanted to teach Uncle Daniel a lesson.

But what he did was threaten him with the asylum.

That wasn't the way to do it.

I said Grandpa, you're burning your bridges behind you.

But Grandpa said, "Miss, don't want to hear "any more about it."

I warned him.

So he warned him.

For nine years.

Then one April night at Easter time, Grandpa and old Judge Tip Kleinehan came and took Uncle Daniel to Jackson, and consigned him.

Of course from the word go, Uncle Daniel got more vacations than anybody down there.

In the first place, they couldn't find anything the matter with him.

In the second place, he was just so precious, all he had to do was ask for something.

Seemed to me he was back home here visiting more than he was ever gone between.

And popped full of good stories.

He had a pass from the asylum, and a pass on the branch train.

And well, it just worked out grand.

But then one time, Uncle Daniel turned the tables on Grandpa.

Oh not on purpose, of course.

Uncle Daniel is a perfect gentleman.

Something like that would just have to happen.

He wouldn't contrive it.

One time for a treat, Grandpa brought Uncle Daniel home to vote.

Well, the next day, he took him back to the asylum in the new Studebaker.

They left home too early, and they got there too early.

And there was a new lady on the desk instead of the good old one.

Well of course Uncle Daniel was far and away the best dressed and most cheerful of the two.

So the lady asked Uncle Daniel who the old man was.

Man alive, Uncle Daniel says.

Don't you know that's Mr. Ponder?

The lady was loading the Coca Cola machine at the time.

She says, "Oh foot, I can't remember everybody."

And she called someone, and they came and took Grandpa.

Hat, stick, and all.

Backed him right down the hall and shut the door on him.

Well, Uncle Daniel waited and dallied, and had a Coca Cola when they got cold.

Then he lifted his hat politely, and he backed out the front door.

And he found Grandpa's car with the engine still running, waiting under the crepe myrtle tree.

And he drove it on home.

Though by the time he got here, he was as surprised as Grandpa.

Well, the rest of it is that down in Jackson, the madder Grandpa got, the less stock they took in him of course.

Well that's what crazy is.

It took Grandpa all day to make it on back here.

With the help of Judge Kleinehan's grandson and no telling what papers.

(chiming) - And who's to say it was Uncle Daniel who was crazy and Grandpa who was sane?

Or where's the borderline between?

Just where does truth end and fantasy begin?

Now, take the case of Ruby Fisher in "A Piece of News."

Ruby Fisher, just in out of the rain, back from one of her fleeting alliances with a traveling man (gentle music) who happened by her remote farm home while husband Clyde was away.

This time it was a coffee salesman.

Gave Ruby a one pound sample as a souvenir.

Soaking wet, Ruby stood in front of the cabin fireplace, shaking her red head crossly, like a cat reproaching itself when not knowing better.

She was talking to herself.

- Pouring down rain.

Pouring down rain.

(humming) Well how come he wrapped it in a newspaper?

Ruby Fisher?

Mrs. Ruby Fisher had the misfortune to be shot in the leg by her husband this week.

Misfortune.

Mrs. Ruby Fisher had the misfortune to be shot in the leg by her husband this week.

Well that's me.

Clyde!

Where are you, Clyde Fisher?

(thunder rumbling) Clyde?

It ain't like Clyde to take up a gun and shoot me.

Even if he heard about the coffee man with the Pontiac car, I don't think he'd shoot me.

It's only when Clyde makes me blue I go out in the road, and car slows down, and has a Tennessee license.

Lucky kind.

Well.

Of course if Clyde finds out about it, he slaps me.

This paper's wrong.

Clyde never shot me even once.

There's been a mistake made.

What would it be like if he did shoot me?

I'd be lying there dying.

I have a nightgown to lie in, and a bullet in my heart.

Underneath a brand new night gown.

My heart would be hurting with every beat.

That's more than my cheek when Clyde slaps me.

I'd be crying from the pain.

Clyde would be standing there, looking like he used to look.

His black hair hanging down, and he'd say-- - [Clyde] Ruby, I done this to you.

- That's the truth, Clyde.

You done this to me.

And I'd die.

My life would stop right there.

Clyde would have to buy me a dress to bury me in.

He'd have to nail me up in a pine coffin.

Carry me out.

Nail me up.

Cover me up.

All the time, he'd be wild, shouting all distracted.

Thinking about how he could never touch me one more time.

- What's keeping supper?

- Clyde.

Hello Clyde.

- Where you been anyway?

- Nowhere special.

- Don't you talk back to me.

You've been hitchhiking again, ain't you?

Some day I'm gonna slap the living devil out of you.

Newspaper.

Where'd you get that?

- Look at this here.

- Miss Ruby Fisher had the... Had the misfortune of being shot in the leg by her husband this week.

- Well?

- It's a lie!

- Well that's what it says in the paper about me.

- Well I'd just like to see the place I shot you.

- You might have.

- Look, look, it's a Tennessee paper.

See, Tennessee.

That wasn't none of you they'd wrote about.

- It was Ruby Fisher.

And my name is Ruby Fisher.

- There's another Ruby Fisher in Tennessee.

Fool me, huh?

Where'd you get that paper?

(thunder rumbling) - [Narrator] Ruby folded her still trembling hands into her skirt.

She stood stooping by the window until everything outside and in was quieted.

It was dark and vague outside.

The storm had rolled away to faintness.

Like a wagon crossing a bridge.

- Humor can be dissected, as a frog can.

But the thing dies in the process, and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.

EB White said that, and he might have had the humor of Eudora Welty in mind.

The only valid advice when presenting it is listen and enjoy.

(gentle music) The scene is now a small town beauty parlor.

Leota and her 10 o'clock shampoo and set customer Miss Fletcher, from the short story, "The Petrified Man."

- Reach in my purse and get me a cigarette without no powder in it if you can, Miss Fletcher.

Honey don't like no perfume cigarette.

- Look at the peanuts, Leota.

- Honey, them goobers been in my purse a week if they's been in there a day.

Mrs. Pike bought them peanuts.

- Who's Miss Pike?

- Missus Pike's this lady from New Orleans.

A friend, not a customer.

You see, well like maybe I told you last time.

Me and Fred and Sally Jo all had us a fuss, so Sal and Jo up and moved out of their room, so I rented it to Missus Pike and Mr. Pike.

Missus Pike's a very decided blonde.

She bought me the peanuts.

- She must be cute.

- Honey, cute ain't the word for what she is.

I'm telling you Missus Pike is attractive.

She has her a good time.

She got a sharp eye out, Missus Pike has.

Hair falling out.

- Oh, Leota.

- Commencing to fall out.

- Is it any dandruff, any?

- Just falling out.

- I bet it was that lace permanent that you gave me that did it.

Remember you cooked me 14 minutes.

- You had 14 minutes coming to you.

- Bound to be something.

Dandruff.

I couldn't have caught a thing like that from Mr. Fletcher, could I?

- Well, know what I heard in here yesterday?

One of Thelma's ladies sitting over yonder in Thelma's booth getting a machines.

Now I don't mean to insist or insinuate anything, Miss Fletcher honey, but Thelma's lady just happened to throw out.

I forget what we was talking about at the time that you was P-R-E-G. Now lots of times, that'd make your hair do awful funny, fall out, and God knows what all.

It ain't our fault.

That's the way I look at it.

- Who was it?

- Honey, I really couldn't say.

Not that you look it.

- Where's Thelma?

I'll get it out of her.

- Honey, I wouldn't go and get mad over a little thing like that.

I'm sure that somebody didn't mean you no harm in the world.

How far gone are you?

- Just wait, Thelma!

- [Thelma] Yeah?

- Thelma, honey.

Throw your mind back to yesterday if you can.

- I got my lady half wound for a spiral.

- This won't take but a minute.

Who is it you got in there, old horse face?

Throw your mind back to yesterday and see if you can remember who your lady was who just happened to mention my customer's pregnant, that's all.

She did denote.

- Honey, I ain't got the faintest.

I really don't recollect the faintest.

I'm sure she didn't mean you no harm.

- Was it that Miss Hutchinson?

- Miss Hutchinson?

Oh, Miss Hutchinson.

No precious, she come in Thursday, didn't even mention your name.

Bet she didn't even know you're on the way.

- Thelma.

- Well all I know is whoever it is will be sorry.

I just barely knew myself.

You just let her wait.

- Well honey, I just want you to know.

I haven't told any of my ladies, and I ain't gonna tell 'em.

Even that you're losing your hair.

You get you one of those Stork-a-Lure dresses and stop worrying.

What people don't know don't hurt nobody, as Missus Pike says.

- Did you tell Miss Pike?

- Well Miss Fletcher, look.

You ain't never gonna lay eyes on Missus Pike, or her lay eyes on you.

So what difference does it make in the long run?

- I knew it, Miss Pike.

- I reckon I might as well tell you.

Wasn't any more Thelma's lady told me you was pregnant than a bat.

- Not Miss Hutchinson?

- No lord.

It's Missus Pike.

- Miss Pike?

How in the world could she know I was pregnant or otherwise when she don't even know me?

The nerve of some people.

- Well, here's how it happened.

Remember Sunday?

- Uh huh.

- It was Sunday me and Missus Pike was all by ourself.

Fred and Mr. Pike gone over to Eagle Lake saying they was gonna catch 'em some fish, but they didn't, of course, so we set in Missus Pike's car.

It's a 1939 Dodge.

- 1939, huh?

- We's getting us a Jacks beer piece.

That's the beer Miss Pike says is made right in, and also, she won't drink no other kind.

So I seen you drive up to the drug store, and get out and run in for a second, leaving, I reckon, Mr. Fletcher in the car, and come running out with what looked like prescription.

So I says to Missus Pike, just be making talk.

Right yonder is Miss Fletcher, and I reckon Mr. Fletcher.

She one of my regular customers, I say is.

- I had on a figured print.

- You sure did.

Well Missus Pike, she gave you a good look.

She very observant, good judge of character.

Cute as a minute, you know.

And she says, "I bet you another jacks "that lady's three months on the way."

- What gall.

Miss Pike.

- Missus Pike ain't gonna bite you.

Missus Pike is a lovely girl.

You'd be crazy about her, Miss Fletcher.

But she can't sit still a minute.

We went to the traveling freak show yesterday after work.

I got off early about nine o'clock.

In the vacant store next door.

Well ain't you been?

- I despise freaks.

- Honey, talking about being pregnant and all, you ought to see those twins in a bottle.

You really owe it to yourself.

- What twins?

- Honey they got these two twins in a bottle, see.

Born joined plum together.

Dead, of course.

- Ugh!

- Well, ugly, honey!

I mean to tell you.

Their parents was first cousins and all like that.

- Me and Mr. Fletcher aren't one spec akin, or he never could've had me.

- Of course not.

Neither is me and Fred, not that we know of.

What Missus Pike liked was the pygmies.

They got these wild pygmies down there too, you know.

Teeniest men in the universe.

About 42 years old.

Just suppose he's your husband.

- Mr. Fletcher is five foot nine and one half.

- Fred's five foot 10, but I tell him he's still a shrimp.

These pygmies were kind of dark brown, Miss Fletcher.

Not bad looking for what they are, you know.

- I'm sure I wouldn't like 'em.

What'd that Miss Pike see in 'em?

- I don't know.

She just cute, that's all.

But they got this man.

This petrified man.

And everything ever since he's nine years old, when it goes through his digestion, see, somehow Missus Pike says, goes to his joints, and has been turning to stone.

- How awful.

- He's 42, too.

That looks like a bad age.

- Who says so, Miss Pike?

Bet she's 42.

- No, she's 33, born in January, an Aquarian.

He could move his head like this.

All he could do.

He could move his head just one quarter of an inch.

How'd you like to be married to a guy like that?

Of course he looks just terrible.

- I guess he does.

Mr. Fletcher takes bending exercises every night of the world.

I make him.

- All Fred does is lay around the house like a rug.

I wouldn't be surprised if he woke up one day and couldn't move.

- Did Miss Pike like the petrified man?

- Not as much as she did the others, and then, she likes a man to be a good dresser and all.

- You can tell it when I'm sitting down alright.

I say you sure can tell it when I'm sitting straight on and coming at you this way.

- Why honey, no you can't.

Why I'd never know.

Why if somebody was to come up to me on the street and say Miss Fletcher's pregnant, I'd say, heck, she don't look it to me.

(light music) - After young Eudora Welty completed her academic studies at Columbia, she took a publicity job with the WPA Project.

Traveling around Mississippi on assignment, she found material for some early stories before she settled down in the family home in Pinehurst Street in Jackson.

- [Eudora] When I decided just to go ahead and write stories, I no longer could meet as many people, but that didn't seem to matter much.

Why just to write about what might happen along some little road Natchez Trace, that reaches so far back into the past and has been the trail for so many kinds of people, is enough to keep you busy for life.

- When Miss Welty calls the names of trees, plants, animals, (gentle music) the ones that thrive along the old Natchez Trace, she calls them with lyrical pleasure.

The names from Mississippi woods and Welty stories make their own poetry.

♪ What is the time and place ♪ Here are all possible trees in a forest ♪ ♪ And they grow tall ♪ And as great and as close to one another ♪ ♪ As they could ever ♪ Grow in the world ♪ Green willow ♪ White peach ♪ Catalpa ♪ Black willow ♪ Crepe myrtle ♪ Pomegranate ♪ Live oak begone ♪ And cypress ♪ Muscadine, sweet oak, magnolia ♪ ♪ Persimmon, palmetto and cedar ♪ ♪ Honey locust, wild plum, mimosa ♪ ♪ China berry, white pine, hickory ♪ ♪ Sweet gum, dogwood, sycamore ♪ ♪ Sweet gum red ♪ Hickory yellow ♪ Dogwood red ♪ Sycamore yellow - Which sets the scene for the Welty novella, "The Robber Bridegroom."

(gentle music) - It is there we meet the dashing robber, Jamie Lockhart.

And the story centers on one of his Natchez Trace escapades, which either happened, or it did not happen.

Once upon a time.

- Away out in the woods from Rodney's Landing, in a clearing in the live oaks and the cedars and the magnolia trees, with the Mississippi River a mile to the back, and the old Natchez Trace a mile to the front, was the how Clement Musgrove had built that had grown from a hut, and there was smoke now coming out of the chimney.

- And there in the kitchen was his wife Salomi, stirring a ladle in a pot of brew.

- And there at the window above was his daughter Rosamond, leaning out to sing a song which floated away on the air.

She was wearing a beautiful new dress the green of sugarcane.

- Which Clement had bought her that very day.

- For she was determined never again to wear any other.

And golden hair pins, and a petticoat stitched all around with golden thread.

- The like of which the young ladies were wearing in New Orleans.

- Rosamond was truly a beautiful golden-haired girl, locked in her room by her stepmother for singing, and still singing on, 'cause it passed the time away better than anything else.

- Well, my fine lady.

- She said.

- I need herbs for the pot, for all that you got yesterday have lost their power today.

Pick me nothing but the fine ones growing on the other side of the woods, at the farthermost edge of the indigo field.

And don't dare come home until you have filled your apron.

- Oh.

- Cried poor Rosamond.

- But that will ruin my dress.

- That.

- Said the stepmother.

- Is because you were fool enough to wear it.

- Rosamond passed through the woods, in the field of indigo, and came to the side of a deep dark ravine.

And at the foot of this ravine ran the old Natchez Trace, that old buffalo trail, where travelers passed along, and were sat upon by bandits and Indians, and torn apart by wild animals.

There were thorns and briars, and among them, the green herbs growing.

No matter how many Rosamond picked, they always seemed to be just as thick the next day.

So Rosamond held up her fine skirt, and threw the herbs into it as she picked.

It was not long before she opened up her mouth and began to sing.

♪ The moon shone bright (gentle music) ♪ It cast a fair light ♪ Welcome says she ♪ My honey, my sweet ♪ For I have loved thee ♪ This ever long year ♪ And our chance it was ♪ We could never meet - No sooner had she finished (feet galloping) the first verse of the song, when there was a pounding of hoof beats on the trace below.

And along in the cross-branches of the trees came riding none other than-- - Jamie Lockhart, who is the Robber Bridegroom, among other things.

- Jamie lived two lives and wore two faces.

When he stained his face with berry juice.

- Jamie was the dashing bandit of the Trace.

- But when he washed off the stain and dressed up-- - No gentleman appeared finer than he.

- Good morning.

- Said Rosamond.

- That is a grand dress you are wearing out for nothing.

- Said Jamie with a look coming into his eye.

- All my dresses are like this one.

Only this is the worst of the lot.

And that is why I don't care what happens to it.

- How lucky you are today then, my girl.

You may put off the clothes you are wearing now, for I am taking them with me.

- And who told you you might ask me for them?

- No one tells me and no one needs to tell me.

For I am a bandit, and I think of everything for myself.

So pull your dress off over your head, my bunny, for you'll not go a step further with it on.

- Well then, I suppose I must give you the dress.

But not a thing further.

- Then she stood before Jamie in the wonderful petticoat, stitched all around with golden thread, and at once he must have that too.

- Pull off your petticoat, for the dish requires the sauce.

- If my mother knew I had to give up the petticoats as well, her heart would break.

- Then she stood in front of Jamie in her cotton petticoats too deep.

- Off with the smocks, girl, and be quick.

- Are you leaving me nothing?

- I am taking some and all away with me.

Off with the rest.

- God help me.

- Cried Rosamond, who had sometimes imagined such a thing happening, and knew what to say.

- Were you born of woman?

For the sake of your dear mother, who may be dead in her grave like mine, I pray you leave me my underbody.

- Yes, I was born of woman, but for no birth that she bore or your mother bore either will I leave you with so much as a stitch, for I am determined to have all.

- So Rosamond took off her first smock.

- You may not know.

- She said.

- That I have a father who has killed 100 Indians, and 20 bandits as well.

And seven brothers who are all in hearty health.

They will come after you for this, you may be sure, and hang you to a tree before you were an hour away.

- I will take them all eight as they come, then.

- And he took out his airy little dirk.

- Off with the last item, for I must hurry if a father and seven sons are waiting for the chase.

- But Rosamond.

- Who had imagined such things happening in the world and what she would do if they did.

- Reached up and pulled the pins out of her hair, and down fell the long golden locks, almost to the ground.

- But not quite, for I am very young yet.

- Thank you now.

- Said Jamie, gathering up all the clothes from the grass, and not forgetting.

- The golden hair pins from France.

- But wait, which would you rather?

Shall I kill you with my little dirk to save your name?

Or will you go home naked?

- Why sir, life is sweet.

And before I would die at the point of your sword, I would go home naked any day.

- Then goodbye.

- Said Jamie.

And leaping on his horse, (horse whinnying) and crying-- - [Jamie] Success!

- Away he went.

Leaving her standing there.

When Rosamond reached home, the sun was straight up in the sky, and there were her father and stepmother sitting on either side of the front door in their chairs.

- Rosamond, speak.

Where are the pot herbs I sent you for?

- But her father said-- - In God's name, the child is naked as a jaybird.

What in the name of heaven has befallen you?

- Well, I will tell you.

- Said Rosamond, but first, her father put over her his planter's cloak, which doused her like a light and said.

- Before you begin, remember that truth is brief.

And if you lie now, you'll catch your death of a chill.

- Every day I go to the fartherest edge of the indigo field, to the other side of the woods to gather the herbs that grow there.

- First they did not believe her, but by dark, she had told it the same way at least seven times.

Until there was nothing else to do but believe her.

Unless they jumped down a well.

- Where did the bastard go?

- Cried Clement, the moment he was convinced.

- For I will follow him and string him to a tree for this.

- I gave him my word you would indeed, father.

But he replied there was no hope for you to saddle your horse for that, since he was aiming to cross the river into the wilds of Louisiana, where you could never get at him.

- Nevertheless, Clement saddled his horse and rode all night looking for the bandit, and finding nothing but the dark, the cold.

But to Salomi, he said-- - There is one thing that bandit did not count on, and it is this.

I know the man to catch him where I cannot.

The man who has the brains and the bravery, and the very passport to do it.

And that is Jamie Lockhart, the man who saved my life at the Rodney Inn, and the very man to avenge my daughter's honor as well.

- Then Rosamond appeared, dressed in her old blue gown, and Clement asked her for the last time.

- Are you sure you didn't fall into the bayou and get your dress wet, so you had to leave it to dry there on the bank?

Might it not be there still?

- No father, it was a bandit who took it, and all just as I told you.

- [Clement] Well, Sunday night, which is tomorrow, I am bringing Jamie Lockhart to search out and kill this bandit of the woods.

But in the meanwhile, stay away from the place where the pot herbs grow, and never go there again.

For the next time, the bandit may do worse.

- But Rosamond only opened the window and sang a song which floated away on the bright blue air.

♪ The moon shone bright ♪ It cast a fair light ♪ Welcome says she ♪ My honey, my sweet ♪ For I have loved thee ♪ This ever long year ♪ And our chance it was ♪ We could never meet - Welty's stories are rich in folklore, in sayings, snatches of nursery rhymes, superstitions, songs.

(bright music) - Pear tree by the garden gate, how much longer must I wait?

- If you thank a friend for a flower, it will not grow for you.

♪ In the nighttime at the right time ♪ ♪ So I've understood ♪ 'Tis the habit of sir rabbit ♪ To dance in the wood - Sty sty, get out of my eye.

Get on that stranger passing by.

♪ 23, 24, last night, or the night before ♪ ♪ 24 robbers at my front door - She's thin as a rail and white as a ghost.

- A long life, manly sons, loving daughters, God-willing.

- Wake up, Jacob, day is breaking.

Peas in the pod and the hoecake's baking.

- My name is Samuel Hall, and I hate you one and all.

Damn your eyes.

(gentle music) ♪ Out of my way, all you foxes, owls, beetles ♪ ♪ Jackrabbits, coons, wild animals ♪ ♪ Keep out from under my feet little bobwhite ♪ ♪ Down through pines now up through oaks ♪ ♪ Jackrabbit, coon, and woodchuck ♪ ♪ Bobwhite, bear, and panther ♪ And run little quail ♪ For we'll be after you ♪ Ain't she cute, ain't she smart ♪ ♪ Don't look twice, it'll break my heart ♪ ♪ Everybody loves my gal - Son Alford sings that in "At The Landing" accompanying himself on the mandolin.

It's his fast song, Miss Welty tells us.

And just by telling us that, she tells us a lot about Son Alford.

We can figure that he's likely limited in range, but with a strong sense of the fitness of things.

These quick insights can startle us, and make us say, "Why yes!

"Yes, that's exactly the way so-and-so is."

Like-- - Livy knew she was a nice girl to wait on anyone.

She fixed things on a tray like a surprise.

- Goat was full of curiosity.

Anything he found penned up he would let out, including himself.

- She even goes out in the rain, which Southern women despise most of all.

- The peacocks are the kind of people keep the mirror on the outside on the front porch, and go out and pick railroad lilies to bring inside the house.

And wave at trains 'til the day they die.

- I guess he don't know nothing about wives at all.

His wife's a deaf.

- It looked like somebody kin to himself.

- And then in the wide net, there's William Wallace Jameson.

- William Wallace Jameson's wife Hazel was going to have a baby.

But this was October, and it was six months away, and she acted exactly as though it would be tomorrow.

When he came in the room, she would not speak to him, but would look straight at nothing as she could, with her eyes glowing.

If he only touched her, she stuck out her tongue, or ran around the table.

So one night, he went out with two other boys down the road and stayed out all night.

But that was the worst thing yet.

Because when he came home in the early morning, Hazel had vanished.

He went through the house not believing his eyes, balancing with both hands up.

His yellow cowlick rising on end, and then he turned the kitchen inside-out looking for her.

But it did no good.

Then when he got back to the front room, he saw she had left him a little letter in an envelope.

That was doing something behind somebody's back.

He took out the letter, pushed it open, held it out at a distance from his eyes.

After one look, he was scared to read the exact words, and he crushed the whole thing in his hand instantly.

But what it said was that she would not put up with him after that, and was going to the river to drown herself.

Drown herself?

But she's in mortal fear of the water.

He rushed out front.

His face like the red of a red-picked cotton field he ran over, and down in the road, he let out a loud shout that Virgil Thomas, who was just going in his own house, to come out again.

He could just see the edge of Virgil.

He had one foot inside the door.

He was almost in.

They met halfway between the farms under the shade trees.

- Hadn't you had enough for the night?

- I've lost Hazel.

She's vanished, gone to drown herself.

- That ain't like Hazel.

- You heard me.

Don't you know we have to drag the river?

- Right this minute?

- You ain't got nothing to do 'til Spring.

- Let me go set foot inside the house, and speak to my mother and tell her a little story, and I'll come back.

- This will take the wide net, said William Wallace.

His eyebrows gathered, and he was talking to himself.

- How come Hazel would go and do something like that?

- I reckon she got lonesome.

- Well that don't argue.

Drowning herself for getting lonesome?

My mother gets lonesome.

- It argues for Hazel.

- How long has it been now since you and her was married?

- It's been a year.

- It don't seem that long to me.

A year?

- It's this time last year.

It seems longer.

I recollect the first time I seen her, and that seems a long time ago.

She's coming down the road, carrying a little frying-sized chicken from her grandma under her arm.

And she held it real quiet.

I spoke to her with nice manners.

We knowed each others names, being bound to, just didn't know each other to speak to.

I says to her, where are you taking the little frying-size chicken?

And she says, "Mind your manners."

And I kept on.

And after a little while she says, "If you wants to walk me home, take littler steps."

So I didn't waste no time.

It's just four miles across the fields full of blackberries, and from where we was walking, there was doe fur down below, looking sizeable-like and clean, spread out 'tween the two churches like that.

When we got down, I says to her, "What kind of water is in this well?"

And she says, "The best water in the world."

So I took a dipper, and she drank, and I drank.

I didn't think it was that remarkable, but I didn't tell her.

- What happened that night?

- We ate the chicken.

And it's tender, 'cause that wasn't all they had.

Night I was trying out their table, they had good things to eat from one end to the other.

Her mama and papa sat at the head and the foot of the table.

And we was face to face with each other, cross it.

With, I recollect, a pat of butter in between.

Had real sweet butter.

With a little tree draw down it, elegant-like.

Her mama eat like a Mayan.

I taken her a whole hat full of blackberries, and she didn't even pass some to her husband.

Hazel, Hazel, she'd hop up from time to time, and take a pitcher of new milk, and fill up the glasses.

I'd heard how they couldn't have a singing at the church without an a fight over her.

- She's a pretty girl, alright.

It's a pity for ones like her to grow old and get like their mothers.

- That's another thing.

Her mama would get wind of this and come after me.

- Her mother would eat you alive.

- She just been watching her chance.

Why did I think I could stay out all night?

- Just something come over you.

- Well first, it was just a carnival over to Carthridge, and I had to let 'em guess my weight.

And after that-- - And it was nice to be sitting on your neck in a ditch, singing in the moonlight, and playing on the harmonica like you can play.

- Even Hazel did sit at home knowing I was drunk, that wasn't gonna kill her.

What she know'ed ain't never killed her before.

Hazel is smart for a girl.

- She's a lot smarter than her cousins over in Beulah.

Especially Louise never did get to be what you call a heavy thinker.

Why Louise could sit and ponder a whole day on how the little tail of the C got through the L in the Coca Cola sign.

- Hazel is smart.

You ought to see her pantry shelf.

Open the door, looks like 100 jars.

I don't see how she could turn around and jump in the river.

- Just something come over her.

- I always behaved before, 'til the one night, last night.

- Yes, but the one night, and she was waiting to take advantage.

- She jumped in the river 'cause she's scared to death of the water.

And that was to make it worse.

She remembered how I used to pick her up and carry her over the oak log bridge.

How she'd shut her eyes and make a dead weight, hang on tight around my neck.

Just for a little quick.

I don't see how she brought herself to jump.

- Jump backwards, didn't look.

(gentle music) - Welty characters talk a great deal about love.

Not William Wallace, perhaps.

He doesn't put his love for Hazel into so many words.

- But even when they don't talk about it, it's there.

Underlying every story Miss Welty writes.

- And William Wallace learned while searching for Hazel that love is the secret.

- The source of all elation, and great hope.

- Or the old trouble.

- 'Cause there are so many ways to love, and some of them so foolish.

- You can learn about many kinds of love in these stories, if you listen, and open your heart as wide as the author's eyes.

- Remember what Shelley said in "Delta Wedding?"

George takes us one by one.

That is love, I think.

- That's part of love, but maybe Edna Earl Ponder is closer to the real meaning when she says of Uncle Daniel... - I don't know if you can measure love at all.

But Lord knows there's a lot of it.

And it seems to me from all the studying I've done over Uncle Daniel, and he loves more people than you and I put together ever will, that if the main one you've ever set your heart on isn't speaking for your love, or he's out of reach someway, married, or dead, or just plain nit-witted.

You've still got that love banked up somewhere.

What Uncle Daniel did was just bestow his all around quickly.

Men, women, children, love.

There's always somebody wants it.

- Uncle Daniel just has a gift, for the kind of love that goes out to everybody.

But sometimes, a first love going out to one person only can make you feel loved by and lover of the whole world.

Like young Jenny in "At The Landing."

- She had one love, and that was all.

She dreamed she lined up on both sides of the street, and watched her love come by in a procession.

She herself was more people than there were in the whole town of Rodney's Landing.

And her love was enough to pass through the whole night, never lifting the same face.

- But there is the other face of love.

The love which makes a circle, closing out the world.

Children understand that.

They're so often hurt by it.

Laura in "Delta Wedding."

- It was funny how sometimes (gentle music) you wanted to be in a circle, then you wanted out of it in a rush.

Sometimes the circle was for you.

Sometimes it was against you when you were in it.

Sometimes in the circle, you longed for the lone outsider to come in.

And sometimes you couldn't wait to shut her out.

It was never a good circle unless you were in it.

Catching hands, knowing the song.

A circle was ugly without you.

- Rebel Reed in "Delta Wedding" take a much more down to earth view of love.

- You're either born spoiled in the world or you're born not spoiled.

And people keep you the way you are, 'til the day you die.

The people you love keep you the way you are.

- As Katie Rainy says in "Shower of Gold," time goes by like a dream, no matter how hard you run.

Time, its mystery pervades many Welty stories.

Time and the dream go on.

There are no endings.

Here then are a few not endings, but final words from some of the stories.

They refuse to end.

They echo in our awareness, they live in our memory.

They direct us on.

- From "Lily Daw and the Three Ladies."

- The band went on playing.

(gentle music) Some people thought Lily was on the train, and some swore she wasn't.

Everybody cheered though.

The straw was thrown up into the telephone poles.

- "The Whistle."

- Outside as though it would exact something further from their lives, the whistle continued to blow.

- "Flowers for Marjorie."

- They turned, and walked back side by side.

When the roses slid from his fingers and fell on their heads all along the sidewalk, two little girls ran up and put them in their hair.

- "A Visit of Charity."

- Wait for me, she shouted.

And as though at an imperial command, the bus ground to a stop.

She jumped on, and took a big bite out of the apple.

- "The Bride of the Innisfallen."

- Opening the door, she walked into the lovely room, full of strangers.

- Always the expectancy.

Always the eagerness for what is to come.

Always the assurance that tomorrow will come.

One of the loveliest expressions of this comes at the end of one of the most comic of Miss Welty's stories.

"The Wide Net."

William Wallace, remember, set out with a sinking heart to search the river for his missing wife, Hazel.

After a long and hard and frustrating day, William Wallace returns home.

He went up on the porch and entered the door, and all exhausted, he had walked through the kitchen when he heard his name called.

- [Woman] William Wallace.

- What do you want?

He stood stock still.

Then she opened the bedroom door, with the old complaining creak, and there she stood.

She was not changed a bit.

Where were you when I come in this morning?

- I was hiding.

I was still writing on the letter, and then you tore it up.

- Did you watch me while I was reading it?

- Yes.

You was so close, I could've put out my hand and touched you.

- Then he bit his lip, and gave her a little tap and a slap, and he picked her up and spanked her.

Do you think you'll do that anymore?

- I'll tell my mother on you for this.

- Will you do it anymore?

- No.

- It was just as if he had chased her and captured her again.

- She lay smiling in the crook of his arm.

It was the same as any other chase in the end.

(gentle music) I will do it again if I get ready.

Next time will be different, too.

And then she was ready to go in, and rose, and looked out from the top step, out across their yard where the China tree was and beyond.

Into the dark fields, where the lightning bugs flickered away.

- He climbed to his feet too, and stood there beside her, with a frown on his face, trying to look where she had looked.

- After a few minutes, she took him by the hand, and led him into the house.

Smiling, as if she were smiling down on him.

(gentle string music)