"...jes an ole black cook." (Chapter Three to "The Last Plantation")

Chapter Three

“…jes an ole black cook.”
(Part of: “The Last Plantation” Chapters)



Doctor Ritt (Albert John Sr. Ritt, born 1891) who owns a bank in Fayetteville, and is a medical doctor, is called in the morning to the Wallace Plantation, he knows the Wallace boys first hand, his older brother went to school with him James J. Ritt, class of 1897, born the same year the Wallace boys were.
Minnie Mae had discovered Wally dead on his back, exposure to the elements, she presupposed, told Frank about it, woke Burgundy up in the chair she had fallen to sleep in.
Doctor Ritt looked at the old man, an impressive face, a little bald, muddy nose and eyes, and muddy blue-jeans, some gold in his teeth showing, “The second fall did him in,” said the doctor. He must had tried pretty hard to get up out of that slush, hit his head hard the second time, see here, the pump, he was knocked out, froze to death the rest of him. He reeks with alcohol; perhaps he thought he was warm, nothing more to say Frank. Too bad someone left the window open.”
Frank turned to Burgundy, and gave her the evil-eye, didn’t say a word, just the evil-eye.
Captain Chamberlain from the Fayetteville police station, was on hand, and said in so many words: it doesn’t look like a crime and made some notes, left just like that, as if nothing really unusual took place; a mornings work for him, completed in fifteen-minutes at the plantation, and an hours ride out to the Wallace Plantation, and another hours ride back to Fayetteville.
“Where’s you sister,” asked Dr. Ritt.
“She’s visiting folks in Ozark, Alabama, she’s always down there, likes it there better than here, I’ll let her know don’t worry,” commented Frank.
“You alright Frank?” asked Minnie Mae.
“I’ll never be alright again, what you talking about, alright; do you think I’m sick,” he said trying to catch his breath from this exhausting shock.
“I reckon I knows more ‘bout you than you-all knows about yourself, cuss you is sick in dhe heart, and you need to rest before you have one of those heart attacks, folks talk about…” said Minnie Mae.
“What did you come down here for Doc, Wally or me?” asked Frank.
“For Wally of course,” replied the doctor.
“Then do what you-all need to do, and leave me alone,” said Frank, walking up to his room, a tear in his eye.
“Aint that somethin’ ” said Minnie Mae.
“Yes,” said the doctor, they were together all those years, I wonder who left the window open? Maybe he feels guilty.”
“No, he dont feel no guilt, he knows.”
“Who then,” asked the doctor.
“Yous got to ask him, not me, I’m jes an ole black cook.”


Written in the afternoon, and retyped in the evening of 6-17-2008