The Edge of Town (36 page)

“Come on,” Jill commanded her brother when she came out onto the porch. They were to meet Ruby May Jacobs at the end of the lane and walk with her to school.

“Jason, don’t drop your pencil and new tablet. Jill, come home with Jack and Jason after school.”

“Oh, all right. You’ve said that a dozen times.”

“I don’t want you to forget.”

“How can I forget when you keep harping on it? I don’t know why Jason couldn’t have ridden on the horse with Jack. Ruby May and I like to talk about things we don’t want him to hear.”

“Jack wanted to go early and Jason wasn’t ready. Jason can ride home with him. Jack said that he’d wait for you. That should please Ruby May.”

“Yeah. All she’ll do is look ga-ga at him and won’t hear a word I say.” Jill made a disgusted noise and her lips turned down. She finished securing two books with a strap and flung them over her shoulder.

Hating to see them go, Julie watched her brother and sister walk down the lane toward the road. She wasn’t looking forward to spending the day with Birdie and Elsie. Breakfast had been almost over when Birdie came out of the bedroom dressed as if she weren’t expected to do a lick of work.

“I intended to help you with breakfast, Julie. I overslept. I got up as soon as I heard someone stirring around.”

She’d have to have been dead, Julie thought, not to have heard Jill tromping down the stairs. Jill had grinned at Julie wickedly when she slammed the stairway door.

“Sit down, Birdie,” Jethro said. “I’ll pour you some coffee.”

“This is the first day of school, isn’t it?” Birdie had said after she sat down. “What grade are you in, Jill?”

“Ninth.”

“Ninth? Did you get a late start, dear?”

“Why? Do you think I’m dumb and failed a grade? I didn’t. I’m right where I’m supposed to be for my age. As a matter of fact, I’m younger than some.”

“No! How could I possibly think that you were dumb? Country schools usually run a little behind city schools. Anyway, you look awfully pretty this morning. I just bet the boys will think so, too.” Birdie turned a smiling face up to Jethro when he brought her coffee. “You’re going to have to watch her, Jethro. The boys will be swarming all over the place in a few years.”

Julie looked at Joe and almost laughed when he made a gagging sign behind Jethro’s back. Last night she had gone to her brothers’ room; and, after making sure Jason was asleep, and whispering because their father was sleeping in the next room, she had told them of their father’s suspicion of Evan and what she had learned from Helen Jacobs.

“That old bitch,” Joe whispered angrily. “Evan is as decent a fellow as I’ve ever met. I’d not have let you go out with him if I’d heard the slightest bad thing about him.”

“Why is she saying that?” Jack asked.

“She’s getting even with him because he wouldn’t have anything to do with her,” Joe answered.

“Why would she tell such lies?” Julie asked. “Do you think she told Evan I was meeting a man in the woods?”

“We’ll ask him. Won’t we, Joe?”

“Don’t do that. It’s too embarrassing.”

“Why not, Sis? Evan’s smitten with you.” Jack turned to his brother for conformation. “Ain’t he, Joe?”

“Yeah, and only God knows why,” Joe teased and leaned down to peek into his sister’s face.

Julie had shrugged off her brother’s words even as her heart did a fancy dance in her chest. She had gone back to bed feeling better for having shared her concerns with them.

They had discussed their father’s infatuation with Birdie and the tactics she was using to turn him against Evan. Both boys were angry that their father would believe that Evan had designs on Jill.

The breakfast dishes were still on the table when Julie went back to the kitchen after seeing Jill and Jason off to school. There was no sign of Birdie. Joe and her father had decided to dig potatoes today. The potatoes would lie out in the sun for a day. After the dried dirt was shaken off, they would be put in the cellar. Most years they had enough potatoes to last until spring.

Julie put the soiled dishes in the dishpan and covered them with hot water. The leftover biscuits went into the warming oven and a clean cloth covered the necessaries in the middle of the table. When Joy and Elsie got up, they could have biscuits and apple butter for breakfast.

Julie went into the yard, where Joe had filled the big iron pot with water and had built a fire beneath it. The water was already steaming. As long as Julie could remember, Monday had been wash day, and on Tuesday she ironed.

This morning the clothes were already piled on the back porch. The wash bench was set up in the shade of the house and on it were the two big galvanized tubs, one filled with warm water, one with cold for rinsing. The extremely dirty work clothes would be boiled in the iron pot.

Although it was backbreaking work, Julie didn’t mind was day when the weather was nice. She buried her arms in the warm suds and let her mind wander as she worked.

She was worried that Birdie Stuart had told Evan the tale about seeing her meet someone in the woods. If she had, it must have been before they went out last Saturday night. He had treated her with the utmost respect, not at all as if she were a loose woman who met men in the woods, although she had let him kiss her. Because of that, did he think she was … fast?

In her mind Julie went over every single word they had exchanged Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon. Had he really said, “I’ve found the girl I want to court”? She didn’t think Evan was the type to joke about something like that, yet it was hard for Julie to believe that he could have meant it.

Joy, knuckling her eyes, came out onto the porch holding up her nightdress.

“I wanta biscuit with jam on it.”

“Mrs. Stuart is in there. Ask her to give you one.”

“She won’t.”

“She won’t?”

“She said I wasn’t nice.”

Julie brought her hands out of the wash water and dried them on her apron as she stepped up onto the porch. She opened the door and ushered Joy in ahead of her. Elsie, dressed in a fresh ruffled dress, and with her hair arranged in the fat curls, sat beside her mother at the table. On Elsie’s plate were biscuits and a generous serving of strawberry jam. Birdie had taken the jar from the bottom shelf of the pie safe and gouged out the sealing wax. Without a word, Julie lifted Joy to her stool.

“I told her that nice young ladies didn’t come to the breakfast table in their nightclothes,” Birdie said.

“She isn’t a young lady, she’s a child.” Julie’s voice was not friendly. “And you have no business telling Joy to do anything.”

“Well, if you want her to grow up … countrified—I don’t think Jethro will agree with you.”

“He hasn’t had any complaints so far.” Julie was so angry her hands were shaking.

“Not that he’s told you about,” Birdie said smugly.

Julie put a generous amount of the strawberry jam on Joy’s biscuit before she spoke.

“If you’ve got something to say, Mrs. Stuart, say it and stop beating around the bush.”

“All right. Jethro wants me to teach Jill and Joy some manners. He thinks they should know how to act like ladies. We both realize that it’s too late for you.”

“Is that right? I guess I’ll have to ask him about that. Joy, come out to the porch and eat. You can get dressed later.”

For a minute anger blurred Julie’s vision. She carried Joy’s plate to the porch and settled the child down by it. Back at the washtubs, she was so agitated that she rubbed the soiled clothes viciously on the scrub board, wrung them out and tossed them into the rinse water.

The nerve of the woman, to help herself to the jam Julie had saved to put on Jason’s birthday cake and to tell Joy she couldn’t eat until she was dressed.

If she wanted a war, she would get one!

Jethro came into the yard with a wheelbarrow full of potatoes that he dumped on the ground near the root cellar.

“You just now eating breakfast, sleepyhead?” He stopped at the edge of the porch and patted Joy on the head.

“Julie got me a biscuit … and jam.”

“I see she did. You’ve got it on your face, punkin.”

“She didn’t want me to have one, said I wasn’t nice. Julie said I am, too, nice.”

Julie felt her father’s disapproving eyes on her. She knew with certainty that she would be blamed for any confrontation with Birdie. She didn’t look up from the washtub until he went into the kitchen. The low murmur of voices went on long enough for Julie to wash three shirts and Jill’s petticoat. When Jethro came back out onto the porch, Birdie was with him.

“Dear,” she called to Julie. “Would you mind if I add a few little things to the wash? I’ll wash our good things separately.”

Birdie dropped a bundle on the porch. Out of the corner of her eye, Julie saw her father’s steps hesitate as he went to the wheelbarrow.

“I don’t mind at all, Mrs. Stuart. You can leave your wash right there on the porch.”
And it can stay there a hundred years before I’ll wash it.

“Thank you, dear. I’ll put the breakfast dishes in the pan. Is there anything else I can do to help?”

“You can wash the dishes … if you don’t mind?” Julie said, loud enough for her father to hear. Birdie gave her a smug smile and went back into the house.

Julie let Joy play on the porch in her nightdress until after she had hung the first tub of clothes on the line. As they passed through the kitchen to go upstairs, she noticed that the dishes had been cleared from the table and piled unwashed in the dishpan. Before going back to her outside chore, Julie added fuel to the cookstove and put on a pot of turnips and greens for dinner.

When Jethro and Joe came in for the noon meal, Birdie and Elsie were in their room and Julie was washing dishes. Joe’s eyes caught Julie’s as their father washed at the wash bench.

“Need help with the dishes, Sis?”

Thanks, but I’ll just wash enough to get us through the noon meal.”

“I was going to empty the wash water, but I see that you still have clothes to wash.”

“Don’t empty it. Mrs. Stuart hasn’t washed her things yet. You might tell her that dinner is ready, Papa.”

Jethro crossed the hall and, shortly after, Julie heard the door close. She and Joe exchanged glances. They were ready to sit down at the table when Jethro came out.

“Birdie hopes that you will excuse her and Elsie. She said … Elsie didn’t feel very good.” He pulled out his chair and sat down.

“What’s the matter with her?” Julie asked and took her place beside Joy. “She seemed all right earlier.”

“She didn’t say.”

“She don’t like me,” Joy blurted.

Jethro, his hands in his lap, made no attempt to fill his plate. He looked across the table at his eldest daughter.

“You shouldn’t have made Birdie feel bad about opening the jam.”

“I never said a word to her about opening the jam. I had been saving it for Jason’s birthday cake. That’s why it was at the bottom of the pie safe.”

“She didn’t know that.”

“While we’re on the subject of Mrs. Stuart, Papa, did you ask her to teach Jill and Joy some manners?” Julie’s suppressed temper was causing her cheeks to burn.

“She said something about the children lacking social graces and offered to help them. What’s wrong with that? Do you want them to be laughed at because they’re …countrified?”

“Countrified? I never thought it was so bad to be countrified. I suppose she wants to teach Jason manners, too. It’s too late for the rest of us. Is that right?”

“Now, don’t be getting your back up. You should appreciate that Birdie is willing to help instead of bucking her every step of the way.”

Julie didn’t trust herself to answer. Instead she spoke to Joy.

“Eat, honey. Greens are not good after they get cold.”