She stepped back, as if she expected him to begin at once. This little gal just doesn't have any quit in her, does she?
"I'll get to it just as soon as I get my plot cleared," he explained as he started back over to his own side of the fence with her pick still in his hand.
"But what about my pick? I can at least do something while you work your own plot."
"You, little lady, will forget about this pick, you hear? If I catch you with this pick in your little hand again, you'll be very sorry." His glance dropped to her backside and he made a swinging motion with his crutch. She blushed at his implication and turned to run back into her house like a scalded cat. He laughed the rest of the afternoon every time he thought of the look of horror on her face.
Throughout the next weeks, he worked steadily on his land, but the progress was slow. Every day, Miss Emma would come out after school and visit with him as he swung the pick. They had come to an easy companionship and chatted amiably about war news, town gossip and the weather, which showed signs of an early yet still illusive spring. She was just itching to start planting, and he had to laugh at her eager anticipation of the backbreaking labor ahead of them. To humor her, he broke up a plot of land on her side of the fence of a size he thought suitable for her to work by herself, with some help from him, of course. He had no intention of breaking up any more land for her, but he neglected to mention that fact. He assumed she would trust his judgment on the matter and not make a fuss once she was able to really start to hoe the rows and plant.
That was why he stopped dead in his tracks, speechless with anger at the spectacle waiting for him when he came home from the garage late one Friday afternoon. There she was, in shorts, of all indecent things, swinging a pick ax into the broken earth. It was easier to continue in the earth he had already started and extend his rows than it had been to start from scratch. She was actually making minute progress and that inflamed his anger all the more.
He walked as quietly up behind her as he could manage and was almost to her before she heard him. He knew he might only get the one shot so he had to make it count. He raised his arm back and bent down to give her a mighty wallop, not on her shorts clad bottom but rather on her bare lower thighs. She yelped and spun around but didn't react fast enough to escape him. He picked her up over his left shoulder and carried her easily to the fence where he could lean, and not need the crutch. He then proceeded to hold her on his shoulder with his left arm around her waist and deliver a hard spanking to her wiggling bottom with his right hand.
His only regret was that he hadn't taken off his belt to use. She was squirming so much, he didn't dare reach down and try to remove it now. So he had to content himself with wallop after thudding wallop with his hard calloused hands. He brought his arm up as hard as he could and didn't forget the flick of the wrist at the last minute that Sherry had always said she hated when he used it on her. That flick should bring out the sting like nothing else, he thought. She sure could yell loud, he noted, as he continued to swat her very nicely shaped rear. He couldn't see it well from this position, but he could feel it with every stroke. He didn't even try to count how many times he brought his hand down on her backside, but he knew he'd gotten through to her when she quit yelling, "You brute" and starting sobbing, "I'm sorry". He kept on spanking for a few more minutes just to make sure.
"This is what happens," he scolded as he started in on her thighs again, "to bad-mannered little school teachers who break into sheds and steal dangerous equipment they've been told to stay away from. Didn't I tell you that you'd be sorry if I ever caught you with that pick again?"
"I'm sorry. I should have asked you first. I'll never do it again, I promise. Just please stop. It hurts. It hurts!" she pleaded, but he wasn't ready to listen just yet.
"Didn't I tell you I would turn all the ground you needed? Didn't I warn you not to go playing with picks too big for you to be hefting? You could have hurt yourself a lot worse than I'm hurting you now," he chided.
"I won't touch the pick again, ever, if you'll just please stop!" she promised. "Please, just stop. Pleeeeeeease, pleeeeeeease, stop!"
"If you'll stop hollering for a minute, and listen to me, I might just think about stopping," he assured her. She immediately fell silent.
"You going to mind me from now on?" he demanded.
"Yes, yes, anything," she promised, hoping for relief from his fiery assault on her rear end.
"I'll hold you to that, Miss Emma," he said as he lowered her to the ground. Still leaning on the fence, he was able to put both arms around her and hold her while she sobbed. When she finally calmed down, he went on gently, "You're a school teacher, sweetheart, not some pioneer woman who has to clear her own land and run her own farm single-handed. Spring will come soon enough and there'll be plenty of work for you to do. Until then, you just have to be patient and trust me, hear? And them shorts better not see the light of day ever again, either. This ain't Hollywood, in case you hadn't noticed."
She nodded as she stepped away from him, rubbing gently at her very tender bottom. He let her go back into the house, then took the offending pick ax back to his shed where he placed it on a high shelf, out of sight. Maybe that would help her resist temptation.
For Emma, the weeks of winter dragged by more slowly that year than they had ever done before. She enjoyed her work at the high school but looked forward even more to daily talks with her handsome next door neighbor. Girlfriends at school had told her about the terrible car accident that took Porter's first wife and his leg. They all agreed that he was a good man and felt sorry that he had kept so much to himself since his tragedy. A quick look in his old school records revealed that he had been a good student and another interesting little tidbit: his birthday was March 11.
That cool March day the sun shone bright and fair. As she marched with her prize through the gate and over to his side of the fence, she thought she caught a faint whiff of a lovely scent she had never smelled before, but while she tried to identify it, the breeze carried it away. He was still in the house, so she knocked on the back door and waited with happy anticipation for him to appear.
Thinking it was his mother, he called out, "Come on in! I'll be right down!"
She had never stepped into his home before. It would not really be proper, but she thought she would just set his present down on the table and go right back outside. Her back was to the hallway, so she didn't see him enter, bare-chested as he changed from his car fixing clothes to his gardening shirt to go with his dungarees. He let out a "huh?" at seeing her and she whirled around to gape at his muscular though roughly scarred chest. She realized on later reflection that he had been more grievously injured in the accident than she had been told. At that moment, however, all she could do was scurry in embarrassment to the door. When she moved away from the table, he saw his present standing proudly upon it. It was a beautiful two-layer cake with caramel frosting. How could she know it was his favorite, he asked himself in delight. And where did she get the sugar, he asked himself a moment later in consternation.
"What is this?" he demanded. His voice was rough but she could tell by the look on his face that he was thrilled.
"It's just a dumb old caramel cake," she explained, trying to make light of her accomplishment.
"But it must have taken you forever to save up that much from your sugar rations. You shouldn't have done it!"
"I'll take that as a 'thank you,' Mr. Reams," she pouted in disappointment and turned to go.
Even with the crutch, he could move quickly in small spaces. He pushed the door to with his free hand and leaned close to her, ready to command her to take the cake back and enjoy it herself. Up this close, however, her scent and nearness chased every thought from his head and he couldn't resist his impulse to lean down yet a bit lower and kiss her lovely lips.
He'd meant it to be just a little kiss at first, just a thank you, brotherly type of kiss, but he held it a moment too long for that. He couldn't seem to pul
l away, but she could. He wanted to reach out and pull her back but the look of confusion on her face made him step away from the door and say instead, "I've got a little coffee saved for a special occasion. This looks like being it. Have a seat."
He stumped away to the stove, but was so flustered that he dropped the coffee pot which he'd stored away on a shelf. She very competently retrieved the coffee pot and started elbowing him out of the way to fill the pot with water and measure the coffee grounds.
"Well, just make yourself to home, why don't you?" he laughed as he went and sat down like a guest at his own kitchen table.
"It's your birthday, so it's you who deserves the break. Just rest there a minute and I'll take care of..."
At that moment the back door opened and in walked the preacher of the small church they both attended. Porter stood so hastily he forgot his crutch and nearly toppled over backwards. This made Emma turn and splash water on the stove. They both looked so flustered and guilty, Brother Simon had to work hard to stifle a laugh.
Emma, as the first to recover her composure, invited him as gracefully as possible, "Come on in, Brother Simon. We were just going to have a piece of Mr. Reams' birthday cake with a little coffee. You'll join us, surely."
"I'll be more than glad to, Miss Emma. Thank you. Seems like I got here just in time." Turning to Porter, he gave the younger man a hard look. "Just in case you forgot it, boy, this here ain't New York or California, either. What are you thinking about, alone in here with this fine young lady?"
"We weren't doing anything wrong," Porter protested.
"Well, I know that, and you know that, but what about the busybodies this town is plumb full of, huh? Do you think they know that?" Brother Simon chided him. He placed the blame squarely on Porter since he knew that Emma was new to the area and might not realize what a breach of decorum her being here represented.
"Oh, well, Preacher, that's okay, then," Emma asserted smoothly. "You might as well be the first one to know, and we'd appreciate you keeping it under your hat for a while yet, but Porter and I are engaged."
In later years, she recalled fighting to keep a straight face as she tried to decide who looked more shocked, Brother Simon or Porter. Good thing the preacher is looking at me and not Porter's face, she thought, or he'd know in an instant what a story I just told.
"Well, that's different, I reckon," smiled the preacher as he accepted a cup of coffee from Emma.
Porter could do no more than sputter, but Brother Simon put it down to his not wanting to let the cat out of the bag just yet. "Don't worry yourself, boy. I'll keep it dark. But you two got to be more careful. No more playing house till you're ready for me to tell your good news. It's about time you found you a good woman, Porter. It's what Sherry would have wanted. And this little lady here looks like a jim dandy, sure enough."
He finished up his cake and walked out of the house with Emma following behind him. She made to head back to her own house, but Porter called to her as soon as the preacher was out of sight.
"Emma Wythe! You get your little self back over here right now! What in this world have you gone and done?"
"Nothing, Porter Reams. I just got us out of an uncomfortable situation. I didn't want the preacher to get the wrong impression. In a few weeks, we can say we decided to call it off, and no one will be the wiser."
"And do you make a habit of telling tall tales like that to get out of trouble?"
"It's been known to happen, I guess." She shrugged and faced him with a "what are you going to do about it" look.
"Well, not around here, it hasn't been known to happen. Leastwise, not if the girl wanted to sit down any time in the next month."
Without thinking, Emma began backing away and covering her behind with her hands. "No, Porter. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lied. I'll make things right in a few weeks. We can say you called it off so you're not the one embarrassed."
"As if anybody'd believe that! No man in his right mind would call off a wedding with you. Folks around here will never take me for such a fool. But they won't take you for such a fool either, to marry the likes of me."
"Now just hold on one minute, Mr. Reams. Nobody will take me for a fool for trying to catch the nicest, most hard-working man in town." Her teasing tone irked him and he realized that maybe he had let this pretty little teacher get under his skin. Time to make her see reason.
"Not to mention the only man in town, Miss Emma. As you told me once, there is a war on. It's not like there's anybody else here for competition. Everyone will know you just feel sorry for me." In the silence following his words, she could have sworn she heard the very air around them freeze up like it was the coldest day of winter.
"If that's what you think of me, Mr. Reams, I guess it's best I find it out now." She turned on her heel and walked on through the gate and out of his life.
He was careful to go inside as soon as he saw her walking up the lane from school each afternoon as spring finally began to tell the redbuds to bloom. Their bright colors along with the forsythia made quite a show up and down the street, but the winter chill that still held his heart wouldn't let him see the beauty around him. Spring seemed to him to be a woman's season, with it's promise of new life, and with no woman around any more, he'd rather skip straight on to summer. But every day, the light gained ground against the darkness of the evening and soon enough he had to admit he needed to keep working even when she was outside.
They said not one word to each other until the Saturday morning he saw her with her hoe, watering can, and several packets of seeds. He watched in disbelief as she showed every sign of preparing the soil for planting. He couldn't just stand by and let her waste all that good seed.
"Too early," he shouted, not looking up from his own hoeing.
She just continued on about her business, paying him no more mind than a crow pays the dog barking underneath it as it flies. He laid down his hoe, paced to the fence, and tried again. "It's too early, Miss Emma. There'll be another frost and kill anything you put in the ground today."
"But the crocuses are all up, and those red trees have already flowered, Mr. Reams, and the yellow bushes are in full flower, too. Surely, nature would not let them freeze. They wouldn't all be blossoming if there were still danger of frost."
"Miss Emma, many's the time I've knocked snow off my blooming forsythia, and seen the ground covered in those redbud blossoms 'cause they bloomed too early. They'll fool you every time. Takes a while for spring to really come here, but it's worth waiting for. Like lots of things, Miss Emma. They take time, but they're the sweeter when they get here."
Like you, she thought. I pushed you, didn't I? I tried to move too fast and I scared you away. You're worth waiting for, too, Mr. Porter Reams. What she said out loud, however, was, "Then how will I know when to plant?"
"Well, for one, I'll tell you when to plant. But for another, you'll smell the spring smell. It's something else around here. 'Specially after a rain, you can't find candy near as sweet as that smell. It's sweeter even than that caramel cake you made. It was good by the way. I never got a chance to thank you properly."
"Oh, that's all right. I hope you had a happy birthday."
"It started out great, but I ended up making a dear little lady mad at me. I sure was sorry about that."
"I'm sure any lady would be happy to forgive a man who offered so sweet an apology," she replied.
They smiled at each other before she returned her watering can and seeds to her little shed. They spent the day hoeing the plots and making the neat straight rows that would receive the seeds when the time was right.
The next morning, they walked to church together and the frost covered grass crunched beneath their Sunday shoes. She slipped on a slight slope and he reached out with his free hand to steady her. By silent agreement, she kept her arm linked through his all the way to church.
The next week saw the sun rise earlier and set later. At last Emma heard Porter speak the words she'd been waiting
for. "I reckon it's about time, Miss Emma," he said, on a lovely Friday afternoon. She grinned and wondered why he looked so solemn. "Come with me."
He led her to his shed and she followed happily. It was hard to keep from skipping. Spring was finally here and they were going to plant. It never entered her head that his words might have any other meaning.
He'd never seen anyone look so happy about getting a spanking. As he entered the shed and went to take a seat on the low bench that ran the length of one wall, he wondered if she would leave with as much spring in her step as she brought with her now. He doubted it very seriously.
"So, what will we start with?" she asked in happy anticipation. "I've been waiting for so long and I'm so excited."
"Well, I don't know. I suppose I'll use my hand at first," he answered her, still unable to grasp why she seemed so happy.
"And then the hoe, I guess. I'll get it down for you," she offered.
"The hoe? No, that'll be too hard on you. I wasn't figuring on using the hoe," he replied.
"But what else can you use?" she questioned.
"Well, there's my belt here and that ruler over there if you really want to know," he told her. He could tell by the look on her face that she did not understand him.
"I don't see how your belt is going to do any good," she said, doubtfully.
"Oh, I imagine you'll see soon enough," he promised. "Now come on over here and let's get this show on the road."
She came to him without a moment's hesitation and he took her hand. "I'm glad you're not trying to run, Miss Emma. We both know if you ran, I could never catch you. I can hold you once you're here, but I have to depend on you to come to me."
She still didn't understand, but she smiled and replied, "Why would I try to run? I want this very much."
"You do? Then you agree you deserve it?" he asked.
Monthly Maintenance: Selected Stories from Blushing Books Authors Page 5