If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  Herself.

  She jerked at the long weeds with such force she could almost feel the cut of the blades through her heavy gloves.

  She was very angry at herself. Eight years had gone by, eight years to become stronger, smarter, wiser. Eight years and yet, when she'd heard him call out to her, her heart had begun pounding.

  Do you still like turnips?

  Why had she remembered? Why had she asked him to stay? Why, feeling the tingle of his nearness in her veins, had she not sat in the kitchen and allowed him to eat alone.

  Pru knew the answer full well, and she didn't like it one bit. She had wanted to be near him. She had wanted to talk to him. She had wanted, just like Gidry, to forget everything that had gone before.

  She groaned in frustration as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

  Eight years ago she had loved him to distraction, trusted him totally, and handed him her heart freely. He had broken it carelessly, callously, completely.

  Then she had the excuse of being young and foolish. She would not allow herself such foolishness again.

  She would not.

  Her reaction to the nearness of Gidry Chavis had been immediate. And it had been extreme. His dark good looks and handsome smile were certainly capable of turning the head of most women. But there was something more that thrilled her down to her very soul. It was the way he gazed at her as if she mattered, as if her opinions were important to him, as if they were two sides of the same coin.

  They were not, she reminded herself.

  No doubt during the past eight years Gidry Chavis had gazed at women all over Texas. He had set other feminine hearts to pounding and engaged with them in thrills with which prudent Prudence, the Chavistown spinster, was still unfamiliar. She had living evidence of that fact.

  Pru ripped at the crabgrass blinking back angry tears.

  She had loved him. He had loved elsewhere. It should be over, finished, forgotten.

  She had eyed him glancing at her stocking feet; her breath had caught in her throat. It was not an indiscretion, and yet she had felt as if she were exposed. She had tucked her skirts more securely about her to counter the sudden inexplicable desire to jerk them up, to let him see the curve of her knee, the line of her calf, the trimness of her ankles.

  Pru was embarrassed by her own inclinations and angered by the direction of her thoughts. What would people think if they knew? It was pitiful, wretchedly pitiful. If someone were to detect such longings in her, what would they say?

  Gidry Chavis did not want her in the fresh bloom of her youth, the gossips would whisper. Does she expect that he would desire her now?

  The sting to her pride was as painful to her as if the words had actually been spoken. Never. Never would she allow herself such feelings. Her heart had pounded only because she had loved him once, because she had been alone so long, because in her whole life no man had ever looked at her the way he had.

  "I sure wouldn't want to be a weed with you around."

  Pru gave a startled gasp of surprise.

  "Aunt Hen, I didn't hear you approach."

  The older woman nodded. "I suspect your own thoughts were a bit too loud," she replied.

  Pru rose to her feet guiltily.

  "I was just trying to get this crabgrass out of the fence row," Pru answered.

  Aunt Hen eyed her niece curiously and shook her head.

  "Maybe this is something you've read in one of those naturalist pamphlets," she said, "but it's my experience that crabgrass pulls easier in the early morning after a good rain."

  Pru blushed with embarrassment, but had the comfort of knowing that her complexion was already so flushed with effort, her discomposure could surely not be detected.

  "You are undoubtedly right," she assured her aunt. "I'll leave the rest of it for an earlier, damper day."

  The two women stepped into the relative coolness of the shaded garden as Pru peeled off her work gloves and discarded her bonnet.

  "Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?" she asked. "I have turnips on the stove."

  Her aunt shook her head. "I'm not hungry," she replied.

  "You really should eat," Pru insisted. "You are losing weight."

  Aunt Hen chuckled, unconcerned. "Oh, I always seem to manage to keep enough meat on these old bones to scare the buzzards away," she said.

  Pru didn't join in her laughter.

  “Turnips?" she said. “That must have been nice for Gidry. That's his favorite still, I suppose."

  Pru glanced at her aunt startled.

  "Oh, I saw you two eating out on the back step," Aunt Hen said. 'That was probably smart. It wouldn't do your reputation a lot of good to invite him into the house when you are alone."

  "I would never dream of doing such a thing," Pru answered quickly.

  Her aunt raised an eyebrow and gave her a long look. "I don't believe that a woman can be condemned for her dreams," Aunt Hen said.

  "I am not dreaming about Gidry Chavis," Pru assured her.

  "Well, maybe you should be," the older woman suggested. "I don't believe I ever saw such a likely couple as the two of you."

  "That was a very long time ago."

  Aunt Hen was thoughtful. "Eight years is not all that long," she said. "Just about the time required to turn a rebellious boy into a reasonable man or a fanciful girl into a philosophical woman."

  Pru slapped her canvas work gloves against the garden bench with a loud thud, ostensibly to flail the dust out of them.

  "I think you are mistaken," she said. "Eight years has been just enough to solidify my position in this community and convince me that I shall never marry. And I don't believe that you know Gidry as well as you think you do. There are things ... things that have never come to public light."

  Aunt Hen eyed her curiously.

  "Whatever do you mean?"

  Pru just shook her head.

  "I don't think it proper to give details to anyone," she said. "But you must believe me when I tell you that there is more in Gidry's past than people know."

  Aunt Hen seated herself upon the bench.

  "Prudence, there is no such thing as a man without a past," she said. 'They live in a world quite different from our own. A world with influences and temptations that clearly make no sense to a thinking woman. But once a good man, a fine, ordinary man, settles down to marriage and family, most can be counted upon to give up errant ways."

  "Perhaps Gidry Chavis will settle down to marriage and family," Pru told her. "But it will not be with me."

  Aunt Hen was momentarily silent.

  "That's disappointing to hear, Prudence," she said. "Marriage is a wonderful thing."

  Pru looked at her incredulously. "You have never been interested in wedding bells," she pointed out. "You've always valued your independence. And you've always told me that being a happy, fulfilled woman is not synonymous with being some man's wife."

  "That's absolutely true," Aunt Hen agreed. "But neither does being a man's wife, a man that you love, necessarily rule out independence. Being a helpmate, being a mother, those are very independent vocations."

  "Now you sound like Reverend Hathaway," Pru complained, joining her aunt upon the wooden garden bench. "The next thing I know you'll be saying that it is a woman's duty to marry."

  "It is a woman's duty to make of her life the best that she can," Aunt Hen said. "It is her duty to herself. God gives each of us a share of talents and opportunities. When we find a balance between those two, happiness can no longer elude us."

  "Happiness has not eluded me," Pru insisted. "I am very very happy."

  "Well, you needn't shout so about it," Aunt Hen told her. "You'll frighten the neighbors."

  Pru's words had become overly adamant; she moderated her tone.

  "Have you ever had regrets about not marrying?" Pru asked her.

  The older woman was thoughtful.

  "No, I don't believe I have."

  "Me neither. We are very much alike," Pru pointed
out. "Everybody says so."

  "In some things we are," she agreed. "But to me you are always more like your mother, sweet and gentle, good and forgiving."

  Pru's brow furrowed slightly and then with a shake of her head she dismissed the statement entirely.

  "No, I'm not at all like Mama," she assured her aunt. "Mama was fragile, in body and spirit. I'm strong, like you. We look a lot alike, we care for the same things."

  Aunt Hen shrugged.

  "Yes, in ways you are like I was at your age," she said. "But you have to remember that I come from a different time, and I had different choices."

  "You chose not to marry," Pru said.

  "I came of age during the war," Aunt Hen said. "My parents didn't want me to risk widowhood by marrying before the men left to fight. By the time they came back... well not that many of them did come back."

  Aunt Hen hesitated.

  "And those who did come back were changed," she said. "We were changed. The world had changed."

  Pru listened to the strange hollowness in her aunt's voice and reached out to take her hand.

  "Oh, Aunt Hen, did you love someone who died in the war?"

  The older woman looked at her strangely for a moment and then shook her head.

  "No, no," she assured her niece. "Nothing like that. I just wanted you to understand that my choice not to marry was made in a different time from now, under different circumstances. After the war there were so few men available to wed, and I didn't love any of them."

  Aunt Hen squeezed her niece's hand and looked her straight in the eye.

  "But it seems to me," she said to Pru, "that a certain young man is very much available, and that you may still love him very much."

  Pru shook her head adamantly.

  "Oh no," she said. "I've made my choice already, I'll not waste so much as one more thought on marrying that man or anybody."

  Aunt Hen held her silence for a long moment before she spoke.

  "Being a spinster has allowed me to do many things that a wife could not," she told Pru. "I was able to devote myself to my parents every day that they lived. I've been unhindered in my community work and faithful in support of my church. I've had the opportunity to raise my sister's child as if she were my own. And to influence the life of the motherless boy next door. I have lived a lifetime worth of seasons in the most beautiful part of Texas God ever created. And I've had the freedom to cultivate my garden as I saw fit. It may not have been the grandest life in the eyes of others. I have some regrets. But mostly, I would not have wanted it any other way."

  Pru smiled at her, comforted somehow to hear the words.

  Aunt Hen raised an eyebrow and regarded her skeptically. "But then, I never had the good fortune to fall in love with Gidry Chavis."

  Chapter Eleven

  The gin was located on Santa Fe Boulevard, next to the railroad tracks. It was a rambling set of buildings, sided and roofed in corrugated tin that gleamed brightly in the midday sun. Gidry carried the key in his pocket, but it wasn't necessary. The door was only latched closed. He let himself inside, somewhat uneasily. He had never really liked the place. Outside it appeared large and spacious, but inside it was crammed full of machinery. Wheels, pulleys, and belts of enormous size made the interior crowded and close. It was a dangerous place. As a boy he had, at his father's bidding, spent hundreds of hours running errands up and down the narrow stairs between the machine level and the ginning floor. Because of his small size he was often sent scampering around the low hanging lint flues and beneath the churning mechanism for misplaced tools or broken lengths of rawhide.

  Gidry hated that. It made him feel like a mouse amid clockworks. Small and insignificant in comparison to the grand and glorious production of the cotton engine. And the noise, the sheer screaming noise that shook the ground as far away as Main Avenue, kept ringing in his ears for a week after the place shut down for the season.

  Today he walked through the strangely silent building feeling only an odd nostalgia for the boy he had been. He had the sensation of being closed in on all sides. He had agreed to gin the cotton, to take the financial risk, to stand in his father's place. For so long he had grown accustomed to doing as he wished, working where he wanted and leaving when he set his mind to do so.

  There would be no such freedom for him now. He was a Chavis. And in his town his name had meaning that went beyond something merely to answer to.

  Gidry tried on the feeling. It was narrow, restrictive, but in some way it was comforting as well. This was where people knew him, the worst as well as the best. If a man could earn respect among those who knew his failings, he had acquired something precious indeed.

  He was, from that moment, determined. He would do for this town, his town, as his father would do. As Pru had suggested, he would not let them down. He would prove himself to those who doubted. Gidry owed the old man that at the very least.

  The small office above the engine room was little bigger than a kitchen cupboard and had a ceiling so low Gidry had to remove his hat to stand straight without brushing against the ceiling. The place was so cramped with cabinets and furniture that sitting in the high backed desk chair seemed not just the best, but the only course.

  He found the ledger inside the top drawer and opened it to the most recent year's production. Gidry inspected the crisp, neat entries in his father's handwriting. The date was inked in at the top of the page. Each farmer's name was carefully printed at the left. Beside it was listed the grade of their cotton, the number of bales ginned, and the price paid.

  As Gidry leafed through the pages, he did so almost reverently. The plain, functional accounting was as much a history of cotton farming in Chavis County as any that would ever be written. Touching it was akin to touching his father's life, to knowing him as he never had.

  He thought of his father as the man had been the night before. Silent, suffering, and very old. He'd never imagined his father becoming old. He'd always been vital, vigorous. Peer Chavis had been his son's definition of strength. But the reality of life was that the sturdiest rope would eventually wear and fray, the sharpest blade became dull with use. It was a lesson taught daily, because it was so hard to learn.

  "Howdy, mister." The little voice startled Gidry to attention.

  He glanced up to see a barefoot boy standing in the doorway of the office. The child, still sporting a baby toothed grin, looked strangely familiar. Dark hair and eyes, a long limbed arrogant stance reminiscent of portraits Gidry had seen of his father's young cousins. Of course the boy's clothes precluded his being any much distant kin. All his relatives had been prosperous farmers. This ragamuffin was obviously not from such a substantial background. At that juncture Gidry recalled seeing the fellow in the nickelodeon when he'd passed by the previous afternoon. So of course the boy would look familiar.

  "Howdy yourself," he replied to the youngster.

  He pointed down to the boy's bare feet.

  "You should wear shoes inside the gin," Gidry told him. "The spines on the cotton bolls are as sharp as needles."

  The little fellow shrugged. "My feet is tough as hell," he said. "Ain't nothing bothers them."

  Gidry didn't argue the point.

  "What are you doing in here?" he asked. "This is no place for a child to play."

  The child straightened his narrow little shoulders. "I ain't playing," he declared adamantly. "I work here."

  Gidry propped his elbow on the chair arm and gazed at the boy skeptically.

  "You work here?" he asked.

  The child nodded. "I'm the what-cha-man," he said. "Old Mr. Chavis pays me two bits a week to keep an eye on the place. With all the thieving going on in town, it was damned well worth it to him."

  Gidry felt like laughing out loud. The little devil couldn't be much over six years old. Only his empathy for the young fellow kept him from smiling. He deliberately cleared his throat.

  "So, Watchman, what would you do if you caught a thief on the property?" Gidry
asked. 'Truthfully, son, you don't look big enough to bring down a burglar."

  "I ain't your son," the boy told him with a proud tone that belied his youth. "And it don't take no big sheep-bugger to ring the yard bell for help. I do my job around here. Ain't a soul touched this gin nor any property belonging to the Chavis family since I been on the job."

  Gidry found himself admiring the foulmouthed whippersnapper's insolence. He was absolutely right. Night watchmen were more typically older men, no longer strong enough for a full day's work. They wouldn't be expected to overpower an intruder, but rather to deter him by their presence, or call for help if he was not.

  "I done my job," the boy continued. "Ain't nobody so much as touched a damned thing. But I ain't been paid now since the old man popped his cork. Three weeks' wages, I'm owed. Seems to my thinking the Chavises don't need to be running no credit line with me.”

  "No, I would think not," Gidry agreed.

  "So if you ain't going to keep me on," he said, "at least you'd better pay what you owe me."

  "Have a seat," Gidry told him.

  The youngster hopped up on a ledger bench. His feet dangled several inches from the dusty floor.

  Gidry tried to imagine who the little fellow might be. With the community prospering so well the last few years, the boy was obviously not a farmer's son. In fact, his family had to be almost certainly landless for the youngster to be free enough of farm chores to hire himself out to work. Even if his father were a sharecropper, there would be more than enough to do at home.

  "What's your name?" Gidry asked. "I never hire employees whose names I don't know."

  "Kilroy," the boy answered. "Milton Kilroy's my name, but folks mostly call me Sharpy."

  Gidry raised his eyebrows in good humor.

  "I bet they do," he agreed.

  Milton Kilroy. There were a goodly number of Kilroys in town. Gidry couldn't recall one, however, who would be of an age to be this child's father. That is except for the old crazy drunk. His brow furrowed as he tried to remember the man's name. Befuddle. That was what they called him. Befuddle Kilroy. The old ne'er-do-well had burned out his brain with wood alcohol when Gidry was a boy.