“How long do ya think Evan’s goin’ to hang around?” Wilbur Humphrey asked, looking directly at Jethro.
“I’ve not heard him say.”
“He hangs around here a bit, don’t he?”
“Not much. Joe goes over there some. I don’t understand what brought him back here but figure it’s none of my business. He’s good about helpin’ out a neighbor when he can. He come over and fixed a fender on my car.” Jethro stopped talking as Julie approached with a pitcher of lemonade to refill their cups.
“There’s plenty of cake and pie left. Better come get second helpings.”
“Think I’ll do that.” Jethro got to his feet.
Birdie was alone at the picnic table.
“Any more of that pie left?”
“There sure is.” Birdie looked into his eyes and smiled. “I saved a big piece, just for you.”
“I like hearin’ you say it even if it ain’t so.”
“How do you know it’s not so, Mr. Smarty Jones?” She let her lower lip protrude as if she were pouting.
“I just know, that’s all.” Jethro felt like a schoolboy each time he talked to her. She was the prettiest thing he’d seen in a long time. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed a woman’s company until he met her. Jethro managed to croak out the words he was determined to ask before the afternoon was over. “Would, ah … you like to go to the picture show Saturday night?”
“How sweet of you to ask!” she gushed. “But …I don’t know if I can. Ruth said something …” Birdie let her voice trail. “Can I let you know later? I’ve not been anywhere since I came here except here to the ball games and to the revival meeting. Gracious! That wasn’t any fun. I’d like to go, Jethro, and I will—if I can.”
Jethro saw the women coming back to the table and murmured, “Let me know.”
“I will, Jethro. I sure will. It was so sweet of you to think about me.”
Birdie lowered her head, pretending to be scraping a pan, so that she’d not have to talk to the women as they moved along the table selecting food for the children. She had no intention of hooking up with a man who had six children at home and especially not the father of Julie Jones. Birdie had taken an instant dislike to the girl that Ruth applauded for stepping into her mother’s shoes and taking over the responsibility for her brothers and sisters.
Julie might know about cleaning, canning and slopping hogs
, Birdie thought as she watched her.
She can prance around with the pitcher of lemonade, but she doesn’t know squat about attracting a man or making kids mind. If I had that little four-year-old brat and that mouthy Jill for a few weeks, I’d teach them to act like ladies damn quick.
Birdie continued to watch Julie with a critical eye. The dress she wore was limp as a rag. She’d attempted to brighten it with a white collar, which did nothing but make her face look all the more sun-browned and brought out the freckles on her nose. Didn’t she know that buttermilk would remove them and lighten her skin?
Now that she thought about it, she didn’t think that Julie was competition for her. A man like Evan who had left this god-forsaken place and seen some of the world wouldn’t, couldn’t, be interested in an ignorant farm girl who didn’t know anything but how to wash clothes, can beans and put up chow-chow.
Lordy mercy! How long am I going to have to live in that awful house where Ruth lets her kids run wild, where there isn’t an indoor toilet or electric lights and all there is to do all day long is work, work, work?
Birdie cautioned herself to be careful and keep her options open. If things didn’t work out with Evan Johnson, she might have to settle for Jethro Jones …for a while. She’d have to take it a step at a time.
Birdie had been trying to save a piece of custard pie for Evan, but when she went to get lemonade for Elsie, one of the Taylor boys reached into the pie pan and took it. Birdie was furious but smart enough not to let it show. She wrapped the empty plates in a towel, put them in Ruth’s picnic basket and went to sit on the porch swing. Evan was on the porch with Joe and Thad Taylor, who was a year older than Joe but not quite as tall.
Joe asked Thad, “Have you met the new policeman?”
“Last night. He seems all right. We shot the breeze for a while. Roy and I went to town to see what was goin’ on and to gawk at the girls.”
“See anythin’ interestin’?”
“Wanda Landry. She’s the hottest thin’ around …painted face, short skirt, bobbed hair, earrings down to her shoulders. She had red beads twisted around her neck that hung all the way to her knees. Her hair’s red now.”
“Wow! Did you talk to her?”
“A minute or two. She’s too fast for me.”
“The Hollingworths are havin’ a dance when they finish their new barn. Why don’t you ask Wanda to go? Bet she’d jump at the chance.”
“She’d wear a dress up to her butt and cause a stampede. Hell, if I go to a dance I don’t want to spend my time fightin’ the yokels off her. I want to have some fun. You goin’?”
“Sure. Ever’body’s invited. How about it, Evan? Want to go to a barn dance?”
“When?”
Evan was leaning against the porch post and thinking about moving out into the yard to put some distance between himself and Birdie, who was looking at him each time his eyes passed over her. Elsie, her daughter, was sitting so prim and proper in a chair while the other children were running and playing in the yard. The girl was a miniature of the mother. Pity the man who got the two of them.
“A week from Saturday night. Will said the barn would be ready by then.”
“A barn dance?” Birdie leaned forward eagerly and clapped her hands. “How exciting! Oh, I’d love to go.”
“Have you ever been to a barn dance, Mrs. Stuart?” Thad asked.
“No, but it sounds like fun!”
“If you’ve not been to one,” Joe said, “you may not like it. Sometimes they get down and dirty.”
“Down and dirty? What do you mean?”
“Ah …” Joe hesitated. “You tell her, Thad. You’ve been to more of them than I have.”
“I don’t know if I should.”
“She needs to know, if she plans to go. It’d be a shock to her to get there and find out—”
“I guess you’re right.” Thad put his foot up on the porch and leaned his forearm on it. “Well, Mrs. Stuart, in this area everyone wears old clothes to a barn dance.”
“I can understand that … in a barn, of course they’d not dress up.”
“And they dance barefoot. Shoes are left at the door.”
“Barefoot? Hummm … that’s strange.”
“Not so strange if you knew what they put on the floor to make it slick for dancing.” Birdie was wide-eyed and interested. Thad continued in a serious voice. “City folk wouldn’t understand this … but country folk like to get back to how things were done in the olden days. What do they call it, Joe?”
“Fiddle, I don’t know. Old ways are born and bred in folks livin’ around here. You’d better tell her, Thad.”
“Mrs. Stuart, you need to know that fresh cow pies are brought in to slicken up the dance floor. Best ones are after the cows have fed on fresh green grass. Isn’t that right, Joe?”
“You bet. Green grass makes the manure wetter—doesn’t dry out so fast. It not only makes a better dance floor, but it’s good for feet. Cures itching and scales between the toes.”
“Why, I never heard of such a thing!” Birdie sputtered.
“It’s true. Old-time doctors will tell you that fresh cow manure cures itchy feet,” Thad said without hesitation. “My granny said so, and I read it in one of those old-time medical books. Sometimes, after a hard day, folks put it in a dishpan and soak their feet in it, that is if it’s fresh and the cows have fed on fresh grass.”
“I…I meant that I never heard of dancing in that … stuff.”
“I’m not surprised.” Thad nodded his head gravely. “Some of our traditions never leave this area. I don’t suppose you ever heard about mixing the white on chicken droppings with a spoonful of sugar and taking it for lung congestion. Works like a charm, don’t it, Joe?”
Joe nodded gravely. “Papa took it once. Saved his life, Mama said.”
Thad continued, “Our ways are strange, I’ll admit it. You know what we do to get rid of warts? Rub them with the hand of a corpse three mornings in a row. They’ll vanish slick as a whistle. I swear it.” Thad put his hand over his heart.
“A dead … person?” Birdie’s eyes reflected her horror.
“Yup. Newly dead, if there’s one handy. That’s one of my granny’s remedies. Hers were best. Another one that she swore by was that if a baby kissed a red rooster’s behind before the age of one year, it would never have whooping cough. Folks in this area hold on to that one. That and slickin’ up a dance floor with cow manure is right at the top of the list.”
“That’s …so nasty!” Birdie exclaimed.
“Maybe so,” Joe said, “but it serves two purposes. Folks around here like to kill two birds with one stone.”
No longer able to contain the laughter rumbling in his chest, Evan left the porch, walked quickly around the side of the house to the back porch and ran head-on into Julie. He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from toppling over.
“Sorry.” He began to laugh. “Sorry, Julie.”
A smile was spread charmingly on his usually serious face, rearranging his features until he was … handsome as sin.
“What’s tickled your funny bone?”
His hands still gripped her shoulders. His eyes shone as he laughed. Julie couldn’t take her eyes off his face.
“It’s …that brother of yours and Thad Taylor. I’ll tell you about it sometime. Lord, it’s funny how they can spin a yarn.” Then, realizing he was still holding on to her shoulders, he dropped his hands.
“Hey, Evan.” Joe came down the side of the house. “Why’d ya run off?”
“How could you keep a straight face?”
Joe grinned broadly. “It wasn’t easy. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about Queeny wantin’ to go to the barn dance.”
“Queeny? What in the world are you two talking about?” Julie asked.
“You’re too young to know the ways of men of the world and how we have to connive to get along, little sis.”
“Oh, you. The two of you have been up to something. I hope it wasn’t anything to do with Eudora.”
“No. No.” Joe held up his hands, palms out. “Nothing to do with Miss Meadows.
She’s
a nice lady.”
“All right, then.” She looked up at Evan. He was smiling into her eyes and tides of warmth washed over her. “I’m going to hold you to your promise to tell me later.” “You’ll have to remind me.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Her silly heart was fluttering like that of a caged wild bird. Her eyes refused to leave his face. “I don’t like the pleased look on my brother’s face. He’s pulled a shenanigan. I know it.”
“I never said a word. But I enjoyed every minute of it.”
“You could have helped us out a little.” Joe clapped Evan on the back.
“You were doing fine without any help from me.”
“Thad was just getting warmed up when I left.”
Still grinning, Evan shook his head. “I’d better get on home. Thanks, Julie, for the cake and lemonade.”
When had he stopped calling her Miss Jones? Julie hoped that he didn’t know how her insides were acting.
“ ’Bye, Evan.” Julie’s throat tightened as she said his name. With a final smile, she walked away from the most pleasant few minutes of the afternoon, of the week … of a lifetime?
Joe and Evan headed for the back lot, where Evan had left his horse. “
Now Thad’s telling her about the hog roast they’ll have after the dance and that a prize is given to the one that can stuff the longest string of hog guts with mashed pumpkin.” Joe could hardly contain his laughter. “He already told her about the horseshoe games they play with cow pies instead of horseshoes, and about the contest to catch the greased pig and twist its tail off. Thad can sure spin a windy story.”
“You’re no slouch yourself, Joe.”