WILD OATS (10 page)

"A son would be a good thing," Jedwin agreed. "But the way I've seen it, you sure set store by that little gal of yours."

Chuckling, Titus agreed. "That Maybelle, I swear I never dreamed I'd be a father to someone so downright pretty."

Jedwin glanced over at the curly-haired blond child who was unconcernedly running wild through the hallways. "In just a few years, you're going to be beating the boys off with a stick."

At that exact moment, Maybelle slipped on a hundred-year-old carpet runner in the hall. Falling to her knees, the spoiled little beauty gave out a howl that captured the attention of the entire houseful of guests.

Titus was at his daughter's side in a moment. Pulling the little girl into his arms and gently cuddling her, he tried to tempt her from crying with the promise of jellycake.

"That child will grow up unfit for company." Jedwin heard the whispered proclamation behind him. He turned to find Constance Bruder, the reverend's wife, speaking to his mother.

Amelia gave a charming little laugh of agreement. "How right you are. I swear, I was in the store just the other day and witnessed worse myself."

"He just dotes on the child too much," Mrs. Bruder said.

“Fanny tries her best. But when a man is set on ruining the disposition of his own children, why there is just not a thing a mother can do."

Jedwin turned his back to the women, pretending not to listen. His expression, however, was wry. If anyone knew how to get between a father and child, it was Amelia Sparrow.

"It's a fact," Constance Bruder agreed. "It's the same for me and my Tulsa May."

Amelia tutted sympathetically.

"It's sad enough that the girl is so ... well, so ill-favored," Mrs. Bruder said bitterly. "But the reverend seems to go out of his way to fill her head with stories and nonsense. The two of them got their heads together and decided they were going to try to learn to read Greek."

"No!"

"Have you ever heard of such foolishness in your life?"

"Oh, you poor dear," Amelia commiserated.

"If Tulsa May doesn't have her nose in a book then she's got her head in the clouds. That girl can sit and stare out the window for half a day."

"Whatever could she be thinking about?"

Constance Bruder threw up her hands dramatically. "The good Lord only knows! I just don't know what I'm going to do. I've told her straight-out that she's not a bit pretty, and if she's ever going to get a husband she's going to have to be able to clean and cook better than any woman in town."

"What did she say?" Amelia asked.

"Nothing, not one solitary word. She just walked away from me as if I hadn't spoken."

"Mrs. Sparrow?" a voice called from farther behind the women. Jedwin didn't bother to turn to see who had approached, but began making his way to the other side of the room, with no clear destination in mind.

Smiling, talking, a joke here, a question there, Jedwin made his way through the company. From the window he spied a group of men having a smoke on the porch. Although Jedwin disliked tobacco, he thought a change of company and a bit of fresh air would be refreshing.

As he stepped into the hall, from the corner of his eye he caught sight of a bright vision in pink and orange. Nearly blinded, he turned to look. Sitting alone in the corner of Miss Maimie's family parlor was a young girl of about fourteen years. Although she was taller than many grown women, she was dressed in the ribboned fashion of a much younger girl. The bright pink gown was pretty on its own, but truly lost some of its sparkle next to the girl's straight, stiffly coiffed carrot red hair.

She hadn't noticed Jedwin and he could have easily made his way outside without speaking, but he turned and walked toward her.

"Hello there," he called as he stepped into the room.

Her eyes immediately turned to him. They were brown as copper pennies and glowing with depth and intelligence. At the sight of her visitor, the young girl broke into a delighted grin.

"Afternoon, Mr. Sparrow." Her smile was warm and welcoming, but less than attractive. Her straight white teeth were as young and healthy as herself, but the gap between the two front ones was nearly big enough to drive a mule through.

"What are you doing in here all by yourself, Tulsa May?" he asked her. "I suspect all the other midlings are out in the yard playing handkerchiefs."

She shrugged. "I don't feel much like playing. I was just looking at the trees."

Jedwin squatted down next to the chair and gazed out the window as if trying to discover her interest there. The woods at the side of the house were definitely ready for winter. The ground was a carpet of fading leaves and the trees themselves were almost completely bare.

"They look pretty bleak this time of year," Jedwin said.

"I like them that way," Tulsa May said quietly. "Winter is my favorite time of year."

"Winter?"

She grinned in embarrassment. "I know it's foolish. Everyone either loves beautiful springs, warm lazy summers, or the colors of autumn. I like winter best."

"Winter's nice," Jedwin agreed. "Especially if there's snow. A winter snow is very pretty."

"I don't like snow. I like the trees in winter. I like them to be dark and gray with no leaves on them."

Tulsa May twisted her hands in her lap as if she were sorry she'd shared this personal bit of foolishness.

"Why?" Jedwin asked simply.

She looked up at him for a long moment, as if gauging his sincerity. She turned to gaze out of the window as she spoke.

"When you look out most of the year," she began, "you don't see the trees. You see the leaves and the blossoms and the grass growing up around them. In winter you can see the truth. All the glamour and dress of the rest of the year is missing. There is nothing left but the truth."

She raised her eyes nervously to his, as if she expected amusement or scorn.

There was no derision in Jedwin's smile. Quizzically, he looked past her to the truthful trees outside the window. He gazed at them for a long moment before turning his eyes back to the sparkling bright ones of the girl beside him.

"You're right," he whispered.

She sighed with relief and then the two laughed together in a moment of conspiracy.

"Tulsa May, you are a poet," Jedwin said.

Putting a warning finger to her lips, she hushed him with feigned horror. "Don't let my mother find out. She'll have a conniption. The shame of it. A poet right here in Dead Dog."

Jedwin laughed. "Maybe not the only one. I've been writing a verse or two myself lately."

Tulsa May's grin widened. "I won't tell your mama if you won't tell mine."

It was nearly an hour later when Jedwin finally made it to the porch. By that time there was still a small circle of admirers around Miss Maimie, but most folks had already paid their respects and taken their lumps.

Jedwin had just edged up to an animated group when he recognized his mother's voice.

"If our community wants a voice in this new state, we are going to have to make an impression," she said.

Carlisle Bowman, a prosperous wheat fanner, chuckled. "We've already made an impression. What other town would have the guts to call itself Dead Dog?"

Amelia glanced at him haughtily. "I don't believe that
audacity
is the impression that we wish to make."

"Of course it's not," Fanny Penny agreed. "If we want the town to grow, we've got to think about attracting people and business. A county seat could do that."

"Who says that we want to grow?" Bowman asked. "Beulah and I were in Guthrie just last week. Those folks think that being a state capital is going make that town heaven on earth."

"Have you seen that new cable-car system?" Osgold Panek asked excitedly. "If I was to imagine heaven, it'd have cable cars just like them."

"Don't you be blaspheming!" Mrs. Panek warned him with a shaking finger.

"If you ask me," Carlisle said, "I'd say them cable cars are more likely in hell. The darn place looks like New York City!"

"How would you know?" Beulah Bowman challenged. "You haven't ever been east of Joplin."

A burst of laughter erupted from the crowd at Mrs. Bowman's defection. Jedwin chuckled also but used the distraction to edge away from the group. In the last few days, Jedwin had learned much more of his mother's "Briggston" scheme than he cared to know.

A group of men stood under the cotton wood tree several yards from the house. Jedwin thought them only a smokers' quorum until he noticed Reverend Bruder. The good reverend disapproved of tobacco and no man in town dared light up in his presence for fear of having his ears burned with verbal fire and brimstone.

The sound of laughter caught his ears and Jedwin made his way out to the cottonwood, a friendly smile upon his face. A little lighthearted company was definitely in order.

Barely a minute later, Jedwin's smile faded and he would have turned and walked away would it not have been so noticeable. Several of the men nodded to him, but the conversation didn't pause.

Reverend Bruder was clearly outraged. "I can't believe a word of it, but I assure you I will find out what is going on and put a stop to it."

Although the good reverend was the moral leader of the community and a stickler for propriety, his philosophical tendencies prevented him from being a reactionary.

"Now, Preacher," Clyde Avery said, trying to placate him. "There is no law, neither man's nor God's, against repairing and painting a fence."

Jedwin's face paled visibly and he choked on his horrible cup of sour apple punch. Mort Humley graciously pounded him on the back until he could catch his breath.

"We are not talking about the painting of the fence," Jedwin heard Reverend Bruder insist. "We are talking about
why
and by whom that fence got painted."

Murmurs went through the small circle. Jedwin looked at the faces around him. The men were mostly rolling their eyes in delighted speculation. Clearly they found the subject more entertaining than horrifying.

"Perhaps Mrs. Briggs hired someone to repair her fence," Clyde suggested. "Certainly a woman alone shouldn't be expected to do her own carpentry work."

"But where'd she get the money?" Titus Penny asked. "It'd cost plenty to have that done."

Reverend Bruder looked at him curiously. "I thought you always said she had lots of money and paid with cash."

His face flaming, Titus stuttered out an explanation. "I ... She does! I ... she does pay with cash, I don't know where she gets it."

"It is certainly none of our business where she gets her money," Clyde assured them.

"Why, it certainly is!" the preacher said. "Can we let some Jezebel turn our community into Sodom and Gomorrah?"

"I wouldn't bet there was much of a chance of that," Jedwin heard Mort whisper with a sigh.

Several of the other men chuckled.

"Mort Humley." The reverend's voice was firmer now and clearly irritated. "I heard that!"

Feeling a clear responsibility to stop the discussion, Jedwin bravely took on the preacher.

"Reverend Bruder, I believe you are jumping to some irrational conclusions. What possible reason could you have for believing that there is something amiss with the work recently completed on Mrs. Briggs's cottage?"

The reverend raised his chin and took a slow, dramatic perusal of the crowd. Softly, with the attention of all, he turned to Ebner Wyse. "When did you notice the repairs on Mrs. Briggs's cottage, Mr. Wyse?"

The old man coughed slightly and then scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Why, it was Friday morning, Reverend." He hesitated for a moment. "Yep, it was Friday. I spotted it over there, bright as a penny, first thing in the morning when I was taking Old Gray in to be shod."

He glanced over at Kirby Maitland, the farrier. "It
was
Friday when I brought my horse by, weren't it?"

"Yes sir," Kirby agreed. "Ebner brought that old horse to me first thing Friday morning."

Reverend Bruder nodded. "John Auslander, didn't you and Lily come back from visiting your daughter's new baby on Thursday evening?"

"Ya," the man agreed. "You should see my grandson," he said proudly to the crowd. "Four months old and already he tries to stand."

Murmurs of congratulations filtered through the crowed.

"You drove right by Cora Briggs's cottage," the reverend said. "Did you notice any new paint or any repairs on the fence?"

The man screwed up his mouth and shook his head. "No, but I don't remember even taking a look."

"Well, I looked!" Reverend Bruder declared. "I looked straight at her house when I drove by. A woman like that, well, I just never know what might be going on,'' he explained to the crowd. "And that fence was the same ramshackle pile of rotted lumber that it's been for the last two years."

The men were silent.

"So?" Jedwin asked finally.

"So, you say that there is no evidence of anything amiss in Cora Briggs getting her fence fixed." The preacher again surveyed the crowd to assure himself that even the dullest thinkers were following him. “If there was nothing out of the ordinary, then tell me, Mr. Sparrow, why anyone would have a fence painted and repaired in the middle of the night?''