Courting Miss Hattie (51 page)
"Sick?" Reed asked.
The child's black curls danced as she nodded. "She
run
out to the privy and I heard her throwing up."
"Snooping, snooping. You follow Mama like a shadow," Cole taunted his sister before silencing at his father's disapproving glance.
"Well, you just get in the car, Sally," Reed said, "and I'll go check on your mother."
Climbing over the door instead of opening it, young Sally joined her brothers in the back seat of the shiny black vehicle.
Before Reed could make good on his promise to check on his wife, Hattie came hurrying out of the house. "We're going to be late for sure this morning," she said with dismay as she settled in her seat.
"It won't be the first time," Reed said. Turning to glance at the children in the backseat, he made a grand pretense of making sure all were accounted for.
"One, two, three, four," he said, pointing at each one of
them in an old family joke that he couldn't keep track of his
own children.
As the childish laughter in the backseat receded, Hattie took his hand and laid it gently on her abdomen.
"Five," she said.
"Five?" His eyebrows rose.
She nodded. Reed just sat looking at her for a moment. With a warm smile, he leaned over to give his wife a bite of peaches.
"
Ew
, mush!" the occupants of the backseat complained loudly.
Reed ignored them. "Are we still trying for eight?" he whispered.
"I hope not," Hattie replied, and the two giggled conspiratorially.
Giving her a tiny peck on the nose, Reed sat back up to put the car in gear, then hesitated. Leaning back toward Hattie, he said seriously, "I don't think
I
can face them at church today."
She frowned. "What
are
you talking about?"
"With five children, everybody
knows
what we've been doing!"
Hattie Tyler's laughter floated on the morning air as the shiny new car headed down the road toward church. The summer sun shone warmly on the fertile fields that surrounded them. On each side of the road, bright and green and stretching, as far as the eye could see, grew acres and acres of
