Courting Miss Hattie (27 page)

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B
y the time the heat of July had settled in, the cotton crop was laid by. Good weather had helped the cotton grow tall and strong, and all that was left was for the boils to blossom and the pickers to pick. The word was that cotton was thin in the
Deep South
but the weevils were thick. That meant a higher price per pound and good news for
Arkansawyers
. The mood in the county was light, and the need for laughter and music was in the air. It was a special time of year, between chopping and picking, when all the other farm chores were caught up and neighbors who had barely had time to pass a word together since spring gathered for fun and celebration.

Hattie had a brand-new dress for the July Fourth picnic, white lawn with a pleated bodice and a sash of bright blue satin. In honor of the holiday she pinned two bright red poppies to her hat. For the first time in her life, she would be attending a community outing on the arm of a man, and she couldn't keep from smiling and humming as she packed the last of the huge basket of victuals. Feeding eight on the ground was no small task, but she took it on gladly.

The last few weeks had seen improvement in her life and her outlook. Reed had finally begun to act like himself again, although he had still not returned to their former breakfast ritual. Harm would disappear for days at a time but kept returning to do his share. He was quieter now, yet he seemed to have formed a truce with Reed.

And Mr. Drayton—no,
Ancil
, she corrected herself. She had decided to start thinking about him on a first-name basis.
Ancil
had been a prince and a gentleman. He continued to call upon her two nights a
week,
and she had become increasingly relaxed in his presence. His "
smoochy
-smooches" were still not quite what she would have hoped, but she rebuked herself for wasting a thought on such trifling. She had put her foot down about the pinching, and he had acted the perfect gentleman since.

As she heard the wagon pull up in the yard, she hurried out to meet him. The last evening she had seen him, he had spoken with great seriousness about the future. She felt confident that he was going to declare himself soon. The very idea of it made her nearly light-headed.

By the time she reached the porch,
Ancil
had pulled the team to a stop. "Well, good morning, Miss Hattie," he called out. "Don't you look like a flag
yourself.
"

She accepted the statement as if it were a compliment and asked the boys to come get the picnic basket.

"Daddy says there's going to be fireworks and I can stay up and watch!"
Ada
told her excitedly as
Ancil
offered her a hand into the wagon.

"Fireworks?" Hattie asked, looking at
Ancil
with almost as much excitement as his daughter.

"That's what I hear," he said. "Preacher Able told me they sent all the way to
Memphis
for 'em. Should be something to see." His wide gap-toothed grin was infectious, and Hattie found herself smiling back as they headed down the road.

Picnicking was not all that was involved in the July Fourth celebration. There were games for the children—sack races, horseshoes, tag, and hide-and-seek.

Just downstream a mile or so, there were cockfights in progress to. Although the practice was illegal and considered immoral by many, Preacher Able, the community conscience who heartily disapproved of gambling, was enough of a Southerner to relish a good cockfight. The women pretended not to know the feathered battles existed, and most of the children honestly didn't know, but the men would slip off to spend some time betting on the life of the best-looking roster.

Hattie and the Drayton family spread their quilts under the shade of a huge water oak. Seating herself sideways on her knees, Hattie spread her skirts around her in an attractive swirl, modestly covering her limbs.
Ancil
stood behind her, leaning against the tree with a proprietary air and dipping snuff.

Enjoying the role of the lady of the house for the first time, Hattie cheerfully greeted friends and neighbors as they came by to visit a spell.
Ancil
Drayton had never been a particularly popular fellow, but Hattie was well liked. And because the two of them were the subject of much gossip and speculation, the stream of acquaintances was unending.

Mary Nell, for once, was on her best behavior. Apparently seeing the advantage of the notoriety of her father and his lady-friend, she sat most of the day with Hattie.

"Did you make that dress, Mary Nell?" Hattie asked her at one point, admiring the pale blue gingham.

The young girl, lacking an audience for her good behavior and seeing her father had stepped away to talk to one of the farmers, gave Hattie a half sneer for an answer. "It's one of my mama's that I cut down," she said finally. "You don't think my skinflint pa would buy me cloth, do you?"

Hattie was startled. That was exactly what she did think. A father took care of the needs of his children, and one of the needs of a young girl reaching maturity was pretty clothes to give her confidence.

With questions still in her mind, Hattie's attention was drawn to Emma Tucker, Reed's sister, walking toward them on her husband's arm. "Hattie," she said brightly. "Now don't you just look fit to be
tied.
" Turning her head, Emma regarded the younger girl. "I see you're putting your hair up. Isn't that something,
Sidney
? Before you know it, all these children will be near grown."

It was obvious that Mary Nell didn't appreciate being considered only "near grown," but she preened under the attention of the Tuckers, one of the county's most well-to-do families.

"I haven't seen Andy here today," she said, abruptly interrupting her elders.

Emma gave the girl a speculative glance. "Oh, he's here. He would never miss that fiddle music tonight. I never saw a boy who loved dancing as much."

Ancil
moseyed back to the group at that moment. "Never cared for dancing myself," he said. With a glance to Hattie, he added, "My ma was hard-shell Baptist. She didn't approve a bit. I never quite got the hang of it myself."

"I don't usually do much dancing myself," Hattie said, not bothering to point out that it was due more to lack of partners than lack of interest.

Emma and Sidney moved on to visit with the
Howleys
, and Mary Nell shortly made herself scarce on the pretext of checking on her brothers.

Farming was the subject of the day, and speculation on how high cotton prices might go was everywhere. Several farmers inquired about Miss Hattie's rice field too.

"It's just growing beautifully," she assured them, smiling. "Why, it's already nearly a foot tall, and we've got near half of the growing season still to go."

"Don't know why you bother with all that work," one man said. "With cotton doing so well, it seems like a wasted effort."

Hattie continued smiling, undisturbed by her neighbor's lack of enthusiasm for the project. "Cotton is doing well this year," she agreed. "But who knows what will happen with the next crop. I'm looking toward the future, and I believe the future in eastern
Arkansas
is rice."

The men generally gave her a tolerant look and wished her well. "Cotton is our crop," a farmer from near Hadley told her unequivocally. "This rice growing is just a flash in the pan."

Ancil
continued his vigil beside her, visiting with all those who stopped by and occasionally speaking to Hattie, forcing her to crane her neck awkwardly to meet his gaze. It was during one of those personal interchanges that
Ancil
suddenly looked beyond her.

"Morning,
Tyler
," he said evenly.

Hattie quickly turned her head to find Reed and Bessie Jane standing in front of them. Reed already had his jacket off and slung over his shoulder. He'd rolled up his shirtsleeves, and the crisp white cotton contrasted starkly with his well-tanned arms. But what captured Hattie's attention were his warm cinnamon eyes.

"You look very pretty today, Miss Hattie," he said, his words strangely soft on the breeze.

Feeling a pleased flush stealing over her cheeks, she laughed self-consciously. "So you like my new dress," she said, choos
ing to misunderstand.

Reed smiled broadly at her confusion. As a fellow farmer Miss Hattie was undaunted, but gussied up in her finery, she was as subject to flattery as the next woman. "The dress is nice too," he said, not allowing her to mistake his meaning.

"Well, for new dresses and pretty ladies,"
Ancil
said, "you ain't going to have to look far." He gave Bessie Jane a low, clumsy bow.

Belatedly, Hattie glanced over at Reed's intended and nearly blanched in mortification. Bessie Jane was a confection of pink and rose chiffon. Her hair was painstakingly arranged with pink and white ribbons, and a pink and rose parasol completed the outfit. It had obviously come straight from
St. Louis
, and Hattie's new handmade paled pitifully in comparison.

"That is the most beautiful outfit I've ever seen," she said with as much goodwill as she could muster. It was annoying enough to be compared to a woman both younger and prettier, she thought, and having clothes made by a modiste surely bordered on the unfair.

Bessie Jane acknowledged the compliments, then added with a shrug, "Mama thought I should save it for my trousseau, but I didn't want to wait that long to wear it."

"Well, I'm certainly glad you didn't wait,"
Ancil
said. "It's just not fair for all your pretty clothes to be wasted on a man who will already be your husband."

The little group all laughed politely, as if
Ancil's
joke were actually funny.

* * *

As the afternoon wore on, the fresh summer dresses wilted, and the children's excitement was subdued by the heat and the good food. As the youngsters found shady spots to play marbles, tell tales, and speculate on the evening's fireworks display, the afternoon became more relaxed and informal for the adults.

Bessie Jane was alone for the first time of the day. She'd told Reed she wanted time to visit with her friends, but she had quickly become bored by the gaggle of giggling gossips, and a sense of exhaustion nearly overwhelmed her. Stealing away, she headed for the river to take a short respite in the private sanctuary created by an aged weeping willow. Wishing she could drop to the ground and stick her feet in the cool water, she stood, careful not to damage her gown, and gazed at the river. She was watching the water go by, but she was not seeing it, not thinking about it. She was trying not to think at all.

A light
touch on her hand abruptly drew her back to the present. Automatically decorating her face with the winsome smile she forced herself to maintain, she turned to face the intruder.

Her pretense of girlish sweetness faded instantly as she faced Harmon
Leege
. "What are you doing here?" Her whisper communicated both anger and anxiety.

"I
saw you slipping in here," he said. "I wanted a word with you alone, so I followed you."

"Someone could have seen you!" she exclaimed, glancing hastily through the willow's leafy covering to assure herself that no one was watching. "You've got to leave right now. Do you have no care at all for what people will think of me?"

"No one saw me," Harm said with a sigh of disgust. "Don't you think that it's time,
Bess, that
you quit worrying about other people and start worrying about our future?"

"'Our
future'?" Her tone was incredulous. "I thought I'd made our future perfectly clear down by the dock." Turning away from him, she stared out at the river again. "You're leaving here to go up north and get rich, or you're staying here and making a living as a junkman. You can do whatever you want. You have no one here to tie you down."

"Is that what you want, Bess? Do you want me to leave?"

Refusing to examine her own heart, she avoided the question. "It's what you've always wanted. To go someplace where you can be accepted for who you are, not who your parents were. I'll be staying right here. In the fall I'll marry Reed
Tyler,
we'll buy Miss Hattie's land, build us a little place, raise a house full of children, and go to church on Sundays."

"Is that what you want?" he asked her. "To spend the rest of your life with a man you don't love?"

"Reed Tyler is the best catch in the county," she answered, carefully repressing her feelings in the matter. "He's good-looking and hardworking, and he'll make a fine husband."

"Well, I hope Reed and your father will be very happy, because you won't."

Spinning to face him, she stared at him with disappointment. "You don't wish me happiness?"

"Yes, I do wish it for you," he said. "But you'll never find it with him."

Tears sprang to her eyes at his words.
"I suppose some would say that it's exactly what I deserve."