The Edge of Town

by Dorothy Garlock

  “She’s not goin’ to miss a chance, is she?” Grace Birch murmured to Myrtle Taylor.

  “I hope she gets someone soon or poor Ruth will go to the crazy house. Imagine having her in the house day after day. I’d go mad and bite myself.”

  “That woman and Evan Johnson are two of a kind, if ya ask me.”

  “My Oscar thinks he’s a good sort. Thad likes him, too.”

  “Myrtle, he couldn’t be all right and be the son of Walter Johnson. I’m thinkin’ he’s a mite smarter than his pa and don’t let folks see what he is.”

  Julie’s ears were burning and she had to bite her lip to keep from butting into the conversation she was overhearing. She had to tell herself that the Birches had had rough dealings with Walter Johnson and hadn’t taken the trouble to get to know his son. She glanced toward the water cooler, where Evan was handing the dipper to Birdie.

  “It’s a real treat watching you play ball.” Birdie fanned herself with her handkerchief. “I just couldn’t wait another minute for a drink of water.” She drank daintily, then held the dipper for Elsie. After the girl took a sip of the water, she tossed out what water remained and handed the dipper back to Evan.

  “I hope you’ll be hungry after the game. I brought an extra custard pie for you.”

  “I’m sure that I will be.” Evan drank thirstily from the dipper. He was letting it sink back in the crock when Joy ran up and grabbed him around the legs.

  “Whoa, little sweetheart.” He reached down and she grabbed his hand.

  “Can I have a drink?”

  “Sure.” Evan brushed the damp hair back from the child’s smiling face. He brought out a dipper half full of water from the crock and held it for Joy. She gobbled it, letting it run out her mouth and over her chin and onto her dress.

  Elsie made a squeamish noise and wrinkled her nose.

  “Swing me … pl-ease, pretty pl-ease—”

  Evan laughed. “All right. Since you asked me so nicely.”

  He took hold of the small wrists and whirled around several times until Joy’s feet left the ground. The little girl giggled happily and when she was on her feet, she grabbed him around the legs. Her pixie face grinned up at him.

  “I like you.”

  “I’m glad, because I like you, too.”

  “When can I ride in your car?”

  “We’ll figure out a time.”

  “I gotta go tell Sylvie.” She broke away and ran to the children playing on the swing, leaving Evan to wonder if the child ever walked.

  “Poor little thing,” Birdie said, her eyes following the little girl.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’m afraid she’ll have a hard life.”

  “Why so?” Evan frowned.

  “The child’s mother died right after she was born. Julie is the only mother she has ever known and she … she won’t be around much longer. She’s …ah …well …” Birdie lowered her eyes.

  “Go on, Mrs. Stuart. What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before. I’m repeating what’s talked about by the neighbors. I’ve heard that she meets someone in the woods … someone from town that she doesn’t want her father to know about.”

  Evan would have walked away, but he wanted to know just how far the woman would go to damage Julie’s reputation.

  “Everyone around here seems to know a lot about other folks’ business.”

  “She’s probably lonely and it’s exciting to meet someone that’s reckless and …fast. The little girl will be the one to suffer when she leaves.” Birdie had moved a step closer to Evan and lowered her voice to keep Elsie from hearing what she was saying. She looked up at him with round, sorrowful eyes.

  “Are you telling me that Julie Jones is a loose woman? How would you know that, Mrs. Stuart?”

  “I don’t really know. I’m just telling you what appears to be common knowledge among the neighbors here and even the people in town.”

  Evan looked down at the woman, his face closed and tight. He had met her type before. He didn’t believe a thing she had said. She was a conniving bitch. If she thought to win favor with him by slandering Julie Jones, she was barking up the wrong tree.

  “Mrs. Stuart, I have only one thing to say to you. You’d be smart to refrain from making slanderous statements about Julie Jones or any other woman.”

  “They were not slanderous, Mr. Johnson. I’m not saying it’s wrong for a woman to try to better her lot in life. I’m merely telling you what I heard the first week I was here. I feel sorry for the girl.”

  “Excuse me,” he said abruptly.

  Birdie watched Evan walk away. It had irritated her to learn from one of the twins that Evan had brought Julie and the kids home from church. She had decided to plant a seed of doubt in his mind, in case he was interested in the farm girl.

  She wasn’t pleased with his reaction to her news about Julie, but she wasn’t displeased. It would take a while for the facts to sink in and then he would realize that Julie wasn’t a woman he’d want to introduce to his friends over in St. Joseph. Ruth and Wilbur were sure that he was here only to look after his interest in the farm and before fall he would return to the home his grandparents had left him. Birdie intended that she and Elsie would go with him.

  The game ended. The winning team was the one that the Humphrey twins and the Taylor boys were on. Jill and Ruby May, keeping score on a tablet, came in for a lot of teasing.

  “How come my team never wins? Huh? Huh?” Jack asked, belligerently.

  “ ’Cause you’re a rotten player,” Jill answered sassily.

  “I bet ya cheated,” he yelled.

  “I didn’t cheat, Jack. There it is on the tablet. You made four scores and that is all.”

  “I made five scores,” Jack insisted to annoy his sister. “You didn’t count one of my home runs. Were you watching Roy and Thad and missed it? I made five scores, didn’t I, Ruby May?”

  Ruby May, who had a terrible crush on Jack, didn’t know what to say. She nodded numbly.

  “Come on, Ruby May.” Jill stomped her foot in angry frustration. “Next time my smart-aleck of a brother can keep score. Oh … he makes me soooo mad!”

  Ruby May’s heart was thumping wildly because Jack had winked at her.

  Julie asked Joe to bring out to the front porch the big crock she usually used to soak pickles in. Today she had used it to make the lemonade. When he returned, Evan was with him carrying the tub of ice. Evan chipped the ice and dropped large chunks in the crock, leaving the small pieces for the children who stood waiting with their hands out. Julie brought out the sack of tin cups they used when feeding thrashers. Eudora filled them with lemonade and Joe carried them to the table.

  When the food was laid out, Julie noticed that Birdie stood at the table behind her custard pie and dished it out when it was asked for. Her father had already taken a piece and had gone to join the other men, where Pete Birch was talking and gesturing.

  “Booze is pretty easy to get down along the river. Somebody up in the hills is makin’ a powerful white lightnin’ and the marshal is lookin’ the other way.”

  “Anybody had any trouble with Walter Johnson lately?” Oscar Taylor asked.

  “I don’t see much of him, thank God,” Farley Jacobs said. I heard he was down at Well’s Point the other night raising Cain. He got into a fight with that old river rat he hangs out with. I heard both came out with bloody noses. When they sober up, the fools forget that they were ever mad at each other.”

  “Does the new policeman cover Well’s Point?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. He don’t have enough sense to cover anythin’, to my notion. He’s touched in the head. Damn fool runs as if he was bein’ chased but he ain’t goin’ nowhere but up the road and back. Can you beat that?”

  “He was out by our place this mornin’,” Wilbur Humphrey said. “Queerest sight I ever did see.” He snorted. “A grown man running down the road.�
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  “Thad met him in town the other night,” Oscar Taylor remarked. “He said they visited a minute, and he told ’im he liked the town just fine. Thad thought he was all right.”

  “If the man ain’t got nothin’ to do but run up and down a road, I can’t see they need to pay him for that.”

  “He turned around just above our place and headed back to town, runnin’ like he’s just knocked down a hornet’s nest and they was after him.”

  “Might be he’ll throw Walter in jail next time he gets to actin’ up. That’s if they got a jail to throw him in.”

  “They got one. It’s downstairs at the courthouse. They’ve needed a jail. It’s the one good thing the council’s done that I can see.”

  “How long do ya think Evan’s goin’ to hang around?” Wilbur Humphrey asked, looking directly at Jethro.

  “I’ve not heard him say.”

  “He hangs around here a bit, don’t he?”

  “Not much. Joe goes over there some. I don’t understand what brought him back here but figure it’s none of my business. He’s good about helpin’ out a neighbor when he can. He come over and fixed a fender on my car.” Jethro stopped talking as Julie approached with a pitcher of lemonade to refill their cups.

  “There’s plenty of cake and pie left. Better come get second helpings.”

  “Think I’ll do that.” Jethro got to his feet.

  Birdie was alone at the picnic table.

  “Any more of that pie left?”

  “There sure is.” Birdie looked into his eyes and smiled. “I saved a big piece, just for you.”

  “I like hearin’ you say it even if it ain’t so.”

  “How do you know it’s not so, Mr. Smarty Jones?” She let her lower lip protrude as if she were pouting.

  “I just know, that’s all.” Jethro felt like a schoolboy each time he talked to her. She was the prettiest thing he’d seen in a long time. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed a woman’s company until he met her. Jethro managed to croak out the words he was determined to ask before the afternoon was over. “Would, ah … you like to go to the picture show Saturday night?”

  “How sweet of you to ask!” she gushed. “But …I don’t know if I can. Ruth said something …” Birdie let her voice trail. “Can I let you know later? I’ve not been anywhere since I came here except here to the ball games and to the revival meeting. Gracious! That wasn’t any fun. I’d like to go, Jethro, and I will—if I can.”

  Jethro saw the women coming back to the table and murmured, “Let me know.”

  “I will, Jethro. I sure will. It was so sweet of you to think about me.”

  Birdie lowered her head, pretending to be scraping a pan, so that she’d not have to talk to the women as they moved along the table selecting food for the children. She had no intention of hooking up with a man who had six children at home and especially not the father of Julie Jones. Birdie had taken an instant dislike to the girl that Ruth applauded for stepping into her mother’s shoes and taking over the responsibility for her brothers and sisters.

  Julie might know about cleaning, canning and slopping hogs, Birdie thought as she watched her. She can prance around with the pitcher of lemonade, but she doesn’t know squat about attracting a man or making kids mind. If I had that little four-year-old brat and that mouthy Jill for a few weeks, I’d teach them to act like ladies damn quick.

  Birdie continued to watch Julie with a critical eye. The dress she wore was limp as a rag. She’d attempted to brighten it with a white collar, which did nothing but make her face look all the more sun-browned and brought out the freckles on her nose. Didn’t she know that buttermilk would remove them and lighten her skin?

  Now that she thought about it, she didn’t think that Julie was competition for her. A man like Evan who had left this god-forsaken place and seen some of the world wouldn’t, couldn’t, be interested in an ignorant farm girl who didn’t know anything but how to wash clothes, can beans and put up chow-chow.

  Lordy mercy! How long am I going to have to live in that awful house where Ruth lets her kids run wild, where there isn’t an indoor toilet or electric lights and all there is to do all day long is work, work, work?

  Birdie cautioned herself to be careful and keep her options open. If things didn’t work out with Evan Johnson, she might have to settle for Jethro Jones …for a while. She’d have to take it a step at a time.

  Birdie had been trying to save a piece of custard pie for Evan, but when she went to get lemonade for Elsie, one of the Taylor boys reached into the pie pan and took it. Birdie was furious but smart enough not to let it show. She wrapped the empty plates in a towel, put them in Ruth’s picnic basket and went to sit on the porch swing. Evan was on the porch with Joe and Thad Taylor, who was a year older than Joe but not quite as tall.

  Joe asked Thad, “Have you met the new policeman?”

  “Last night. He seems all right. We shot the breeze for a while. Roy and I went to town to see what was goin’ on and to gawk at the girls.”

  “See anythin’ interestin’?”

  “Wanda Landry. She’s the hottest thin’ around …painted face, short skirt, bobbed hair, earrings down to her shoulders. She had red beads twisted around her neck that hung all the way to her knees. Her hair’s red now.”

  “Wow! Did you talk to her?”

  “A minute or two. She’s too fast for me.”

  “The Hollingworths are havin’ a dance when they finish their new barn. Why don’t you ask Wanda to go? Bet she’d jump at the chance.”

  “She’d wear a dress up to her butt and cause a stampede. Hell, if I go to a dance I don’t want to spend my time fightin’ the yokels off her. I want to have some fun. You goin’?”

  “Sure. Ever’body’s invited. How about it, Evan? Want to go to a barn dance?”

  “When?”

  Evan was leaning against the porch post and thinking about moving out into the yard to put some distance between himself and Birdie, who was looking at him each time his eyes passed over her. Elsie, her daughter, was sitting so prim and proper in a chair while the other children were running and playing in the yard. The girl was a miniature of the mother. Pity the man who got the two of them.

  “A week from Saturday night. Will said the barn would be ready by then.”

  “A barn dance?” Birdie leaned forward eagerly and clapped her hands. “How exciting! Oh, I’d love to go.”

  “Have you ever been to a barn dance, Mrs. Stuart?” Thad asked.

  “No, but it sounds like fun!”

  “If you’ve not been to one,” Joe said, “you may not like it. Sometimes they get down and dirty.”

  “Down and dirty? What do you mean?”

  “Ah …” Joe hesitated. “You tell her, Thad. You’ve been to more of them than I have.”

  “I don’t know if I should.”

  “She needs to know, if she plans to go. It’d be a shock to her to get there and find out—”

  “I guess you’re right.” Thad put his foot up on the porch and leaned his forearm on it. “Well, Mrs. Stuart, in this area everyone wears old clothes to a barn dance.”