The Edge of Town (15 page)

“Nothing.” Joe bent his head over his place. “We were just funnin’.”

“I like him,” Joy blurted in the quiet that ensued. Seated on the stool between Jill and Julie, the child seemed unaware that her mouth and chin were smeared with the butter that had been put on her bread.

“Who are you talkin’ about, little piggie?” Jack wrinkled up his nose. “Oink, oink.”

“I ain’t no piggie.”

“Your face looks like it.”

“Does not.”

“Who do you like, sugarfoot?” Joe asked.

Jason answered: “She likes Mr. Johnson. I like him, too.”

“Julie likes him,” Joy announced.

“Is that right?” Joe’s laughing eyes settled on Julie and watched the color come up her neck to flood her face.

“Of course I like him.” Julie rose to bring the bread pudding to the table. “I’d like the devil himself if he saved me from walking up that hill at high noon.” She set the warm pudding in the middle of the table and went back to get the pitcher of cream.

“He’s smart enough not to let that sticky-sweet Mrs. Stuart get her claws in him.” Jill helped herself to the pudding, then reached for the cream when Julie brought it to the table. “She’d sure like to get herself a man who’d—”

“That’s enough!” Jethro glared at the girl. “You’ve been runnin’ off at the mouth quite a lot lately.”

“I was only sayin’—”

“Enough!” Jethro’s booming voice reached into every corner of the farmhouse.

Startled by her papa’s anger and his unusually loud voice, Joy began to whimper, Jill’s eyes filled with tears, Jason looked as if his papa had struck him. The older boys silently helped themselves to the pudding.

* * *

“It’ll probably not be as fancy as something she brings to the ball game.”

Jill sifted sugar and cinnamon on top of the Everyday Cake Julie took from the oven. The cake was a family favorite. The recipe had been passed down from Julie’s grandmother, who, with her husband, had come to Missouri from Wyoming.

“She’ll bring custard pie,” Julie said absently, knowing perfectly well whom Jill was talking about. “Be careful what you say about her in front of Papa.”

“Why’d he get so mad all of a sudden?”

“I’m not sure, but I think he may like her and doesn’t want to hear her criticized.”

“Think he likes her? Bull-foot. I know he does. What’ll we do if he marries that … that—”

“Watch it, Jill. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But the way it stands now, each time we say something against her, it makes him defend her all the more.”

“I don’t understand
that
at all. I wish Mr. Johnson liked her. If he did, Papa wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Ever since Evan had asked her to go out with him, Julie’s heart had fluttered each time she thought about it. He hadn’t mentioned it when he brought them home from church. He hadn’t really had a chance, she reasoned. What if he didn’t mean it … or forgot about asking her? What if she got ready and he didn’t show up? Oh, Lord, would she be able to stand the humiliation? Well, she’d not make plans to go if she didn’t hear something more from him between now and then. She had to get him out of her mind. There were things to do.

“Maybe we’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” Julie said, in an effort to bring her thoughts back to the present.

“If Miss Meadows comes, try to finagle it so that Papa takes her home. Maybe he’ll see the difference between a nice lady and a floozie.”

“A floozie?” Julie rolled her eyes. “You’re a schemer, but it might work.”

“If he’s got to have someone, why can’t it be someone nice like Miss Meadows?”

“I doubt that Miss Meadows would be interested in Papa. She isn’t looking for a home, and she has her mother to take care of.”

“Her mother isn’t going to live forever.”

“Don’t let your dislike for Mrs. Stuart ruin your afternoon. Go make yourself pretty for Roy Taylor—or is it Thad you like?”

“I don’t like either one of them. I’m going to marry a man like Mr. Johnson who’s been someplace and done something important. Why are folks giving him the cold shoulder?”

“You noticed?”

“Sure. I may be just a kid, but I’m not dumb. Only one person spoke to him besides Miss Meadows.”

“Who was that?”

“Old Mrs. Patrick.”

“She was a friend of his mother’s.”

“The Birches don’t like him and Mrs. Taylor said something silly like ‘blood will tell,’ whatever that means. Ruby’s papa said, ‘An apple don’t fall far from the tree.’ ”

“Evan got blood from his mother, too. She was a nice person. Everyone liked her.”

“Julie! Ya better come get Joy,” Jason yelled in through the screen door.

“What’s she doing?” Julie dried her hands on a towel.

“The little stinkpot’s on Papa’s car.”

“She can’t hurt it.”

“She’s … on the top!”

“Oh, my goodness.” Julie hurried out the door.

* * *

A breeze came up in the middle of the afternoon just before the neighbors began to arrive for the ball game. Jason had put the base bags on the field and Jack and Joe had set the door that served as a picnic table on the sawhorses.

When a Ford coupe came up the lane, it was immediately recognized as belonging to Reverend Meadows. Jill let out a whoop.

“Miss Meadows is coming!” Jill was at the door of the car the instant it stopped. “I’m so glad you came.”

Eudora got out of the car. Julie came from the house and greeted Eudora, then spoke to the reverend, who sat in the car with the motor running. “Can’t you stay awhile?”

“Not today, Miss Jones. Mrs. Meadows and I will stay with Mother and give Eudora a little time to enjoy herself.”

“We’ll see to it that she gets home, Reverend.”

“I’ll appreciate it. Good-bye.” The small car turned around in the barnyard and headed back down the lane.

Eudora was wearing a blue-checked gingham dress with a white collar. Just what a woman would wear to a picnic, nothing fancy. She was not one to put on “the dog,” Julie mused, and she was able to fit into any situation. She could afford to dress as stylishly as any woman in town if she chose to. Her father had left her and her mother well provided for. They lived in a small neat house next door to the church parsonage.

“I’m so glad you came.” Jill was so excited she was fairly dancing. Julie hoped that her exuberance would not be overpowering and make Eudora uncomfortable.

Sidney, dirty and stinking from a chase across the hog lot and with his fur full of cockleburs, waited at the porch step. When Eudora paused to pat his head, the dog’s tail swung back and forth so hard his hind legs almost left the ground.

Julie led her guest through the kitchen to the front of the house and out to the porch swing. Jill came out with a couple of cardboard fans the furniture store had given out as advertising. She sat on the edge of the porch and proceeded to tell Eudora in detail about the neighborhood ball games, forgetting that last summer Eudora had been out when they played.

Jethro and Joe appeared, carrying a big heavy bench. Jethro was wearing his duck britches and a fresh shirt. He had shaved while Julie and the children were in church. He came to the porch and greeted Miss Meadows.

“Howdy, ma’am. I take it that was the preacher’s car that turned around in the yard. I was just coming down from the loft. I’m sorry I missed him.”

“Hello, Mr. Jones. Brother had to hurry back or he would have stayed to watch the game.”

Jethro chuckled. “The Baptists frown on our Sunday games. At the revival last night the preacher said something about how folks who fail to keep the Sabbath holy will find themselves in the fiery furnace. I’m glad to know that the Methodists are a little more broad-minded.”

“The Baptists get pretty radical at times, but they mean well.”

Joy darted from around the house chasing the big red rooster. As she went to pass Joe, he caught her up in his arms.

“Come here, you little bugger! That rooster is goin’ to turn on you one of these days and peck your legs good.”

“He was eatin’ … chicken do-do,” Joy shouted as Joe held her above his head.

“Maybe he likes it.”

“It’s nasty! Put me down—” Joy’s legs were churning up and down.

“I see Joy’s drawers. I see Joy’s drawers.” Jack had appeared, carrying several baseballs and a couple of bats.

“I don’t care,” Joy shouted her favorite words. “Put me down—you old … poot!”

“Not till you promise to behave yourself.”

“I’ll bite you.”

“I’ll bite you back.”

“Put her down, Joe.” Julie had qualms about what Joy would say next.

The instant Joe stood Joy on her feet, she ran. He took a few steps after her. She shrieked and disappeared around the side of the house.

Julie noticed that her father was smiling. Her heart lifted. He loved his children, and she was sure that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.

Jethro was still smiling when he said, “Boys, take the bench over to the shade so the ladies can watch the game.” Then, to Miss Meadows, “That child is a handful. The older kids spoil her rotten.”

“Little girls are supposed to be spoiled.” Eudora laughed as if she were truly enjoying herself.

“Here come the Taylors.” Jill flounced down the steps. “Joy,” she called. “Sylvia’s comin’.”

Two wagonloads of Birches came next, and then came the Jacobses. The Humphreys were the last to arrive. Wilbur stopped the wagon in the lane beside the porch. Jethro went to help first Ruth Humphrey down, then Birdie Stuart. Ruth reached into the wagon bed for her two-year-old and Jethro lifted Mrs. Stuart’s girl down. The girl immediately grabbed her mother’s skirts.

Ruth Humphrey wore an everyday dress that appeared to have gone through many washings, but Birdie looked as if she were headed for church or to a social event. Her dress was made of pink-flowered voile with rows of ruffles around the neck and on the bottom of the calf-length skirt. She wore white stockings and white shoes with small heels and pointed toes. Her hair was combed back and held with a flat ribbon on the top of her head. Strands of hair formed flat curls on her forehead and spit curls on her cheeks.

Julie had seen the style in
Collier’s
magazine on very young girls. In her opinion Birdie was too old for such a hairstyle, but she promised herself that she would say nothing critical of the woman …today. She noticed that her father’s eyes lingered on Birdie, who was laughing up at him in a flirtatious way. He was almost beaming as, his hand in the middle of her back, he ushered her to the porch. Julie’s heart sank.

She was as sure as this was Sunday that her father was smitten with Birdie Stuart.

Determined to keep her anxiety to herself, Julie went to the end of the porch and called out to Ruth after Ruth had directed her redheaded twins to take their picnic basket to the table.

“Ruth, the children are out back playing on the swing.”

The Humphrey girls took off around the house after a word from their mother. The Stuart child peeked around from behind her mother and shook her head when asked to go.

Jethro lingered until he saw that Birdie Stuart was seated on a chair on the porch before he went to join the men who were tossing the baseball back and forth.

The Humphreys didn’t attend church often except when a revival meeting was in town. But Ruth knew Eudora Meadows and, after speaking to her, introduced her to her sister-in-law.

“How nice that you could come visit your brother and his family,” Eudora said after she was told that Birdie and Elsie had lived in such places as St. Charles, St. Louis and Memphis.

“Yes,” Birdie said softly. “They’ve been wonderful to me and Elsie … in our sorrow.” She smoothed the skirt of her dress out to keep it from wrinkling and listened while her daughter whispered in her ear.