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

by Pamela Morsi

  Prudence brought the meeting to order. A hush fell upon the crowd, every eye looking up to her anxiously, questioningly.

  "Ladies of the Chavistown Rose and Garden Society," she began. "Our function as an organization, our reason for existence, is clearly laid out in our Official Charter and Bylaws."

  She held up the small worn set of papers bound together by a pink ribbon sewn into the left margin.

  "If I may quote from Section One, Paragraph One, our stated purpose is 'to promote the civilization and beautification of our community through the care and attention of ornamental gardens.' Anything, I suggest to you ladies, anything that stands in the way of fulfilling our purpose must be somehow overcome," Pru told them. "Anything or anyone."

  An anxious murmur filtered through the crowd.

  "As most of you know, the Commercial Club is planning a major renovation of the residential areas of our town," she continued. “They are doing this for a cause quite altruistic and bearing the total expense of the project themselves. I believe that we can all appreciate their efforts, however wrongheaded we know them to be."

  There was a titter of amusement at the expense of the absent gentlemen.

  "Ladies, the Commercial Club has refused to call another meeting so that we might present our opposition to their proposed project. Fortunately, we are Americans and live in the great state of Texas, where the right of free assembly is guaranteed by the constitution. We do not need the permission of the Chavistown Commercial Club to speak," Prudence announced grandly.

  There was a spattering of applause among the ladies gathered, impressed with Pru's glorious oration, but still many questions were on their minds and in their eyes.

  Good order was momentarily lost as each one turned to confide her thoughts to the woman next to her.

  Pru rapped her spoon against her teacup three more times, bringing about a reluctant silence to the meeting.

  Bertha Mae Corsen raised her neatly gloved hand.

  “The floor recognizes Mrs. Corsen," Pru said, nodding to her.

  "We can gather all we like," Bertha Mae complained. "But until we get the menfolk to attend, it’s a lost cause."

  Once more pandemonium threatened to break loose. Pru controlled it with some difficulty.

  "I have a plan," she told them. "It was Aunt Hen, actually, who set me in the right direction."

  "It's good to hear that she's with us on this," Bertha Mae said snidely. "One wonders that she has any life at all. Mrs. Butts says she never leaves old Chavis' side."

  The subdued hiss of gossip buzzed through the crowd.

  It was on the tip of Pru's tongue to fly to her aunt’s defense and point out that Mrs. Butts, although paid for her time, was quite willing to leave the patient's side at the drop of a hat. But that was what Bertha Mae wanted, she decided. She wanted to cause trouble. Dissension among them would result in failure. And failure was not to be tolerated.

  "Actually Aunt Hen's advice is well known to the ladies of this group and has been proven wise on many occasions."

  She had recaptured their attention.

  "She reminded me that one catches more flies with honey than vinegar,” Pru told them.

  Old Eula Whitstone shook her head. "If you're thinking to sweet these fellows up into letting you have your way, I think you've picked a tough row to hoe."

  "No," Pru answered. "I'm still counting on logic to persuade them. But I am planning an irresistible temptation to get them to listen."

  "So you've taken up my idea of making them sleep in the washhouse," Eula said.

  Alice Ramey giggled.

  Prudence blushed.

  "Not exactly," she replied.

  The rest of the ladies were agog with curiosity.

  "I think we should have a Harvest Moon Dance."

  For one long moment the room was completely quiet. No one said a word. The silence was abruptly broken by squeals of delight, excited laughter, and a general hubbub of discussion.

  "It's a perfect solution. The men have to come."

  “To get them to listen and have fun as well."

  "Ladies have never sponsored their own dance."

  "Maybe it is high time we did."

  "Oh pooh!" Mrs. Fenton whined unhappily. "It is times like this I hate being married to Albert. He is such a terrible dancer!"

  Her words provoked laughter.

  "For those who can't be lured in by dancing," Pru continued, "we will have plenty to eat, horseshoe pitching, the most talented songstresses in town and a historical tableau," Pru announced.

  Her eyes twinkled with delight.

  "How much time do we have?"

  "When is the harvest moon?"

  Prudence referred to an advertising calendar that touted a three-times-a-day regimen—ten, two, and four—for a popular new patent medicine.

  "The fall equinox is the twenty-second," Pru told them. "And the nearest full moon will be the thirtieth."

  "That gives us barely ten days," Alice Mae pointed out.

  "It will be perfect timing. All the ginning should be done by then and the cotton on its way to market. The men will be ready to celebrate."

  "But it doesn't give us much time."

  "If we all work together, we can get it done in ten days," Bertha Mae replied.

  “I’m willing," Mrs. Johnson declared.

  "Count me in as well," Mavis Hathaway said.

  "Wonderful! Wonderful!"

  Pru was thrilled at their enthusiasm.

  "Mrs. Johnson, if you would be in charge of the menu," she said.

  "Consider it done," the elderly woman answered.

  "Mrs. Champion, can you make arrangements for the music?" Pru asked. "Perhaps Mrs. Hathaway can help you. One of you can schedule the ladies' vocal presentations and the other see about the dancing."

  The two ladies nodded agreement.

  "Did you have someone in mind to supervise the historical tableau?" Alice Ramey asked very timidly.

  "Why yes, I did have someone in mind," Pru answered.

  "Oh." The young woman blushed with embarrassment.

  "You are the exact person that I thought would be best able to think of an appropriate piece and present it in the most worthy fashion," Pru told her.

  The young woman fairly gushed with pleasure.

  "Oh, may I help with the costumes?" Leda Peterson asked.

  Pru watched, proud and pleased as the ladies divided up into committees and immediately commenced with enthusiastic planning. She moved from group to group and listened to their plans. She offered an idea or two herself, but mostly she was impressed by the cleverness of the ladies themselves.

  Even Bertha Mae and her close associates, having been volunteered for decorations, came up with a concept both pretty and practical.

  Pru heard noise at the back door and slipped out of the parlor. Her Aunt Hen was home and looking as tired and worn out as Pru had ever seen her.

  "Aunt Hen, you look exhausted," Pru told the older woman.

  "I can't imagine why," her aunt replied. "Peer has been sleeping most of the day. Except for that little time we spent airing his room this morning, I've been sitting doing nothing."

  "Well doing nothing certainly has taken the color out of your complexion," Pru pointed out. "I think you'd better stay home tomorrow; you might well be coming down with something yourself."

  Aunt Hen shrugged and shook her head.

  "I feel better being there," she insisted. "Even if my whole day is doing nothing."

  Pru tutted at her in disapproval.

  "You are having another meeting." Aunt Hen's words were more a statement than a question.

  Pru nodded.

  "We've decided to have a Harvest Moon Dance."

  Aunt Hen raised her eyebrows, clearly impressed.

  "I don't imagine the menfolk will be able to resist that," she said.

  "I don't believe they will either," Pru said. “Isn't it just the best idea possible?"

  Aunt Hen nodded
. "Very good, very good indeed," she said. "I knew that you'd make a fine president."

  "Mrs. Johnson is planning the food. Alice is organizing a tableau. Edith and Mavis are setting up the music. Even Bertha Mae is involved. She's doing the decorations."

  "It all sounds promising," Aunt Hen told her.

  “I’m counting on your help," she said.

  Aunt Hen shook her head. "Don't," she answered simply. "I'll tend Peer, and you tend to the Rose and Garden Club."

  "But he doesn't really need you all the time," Pru assured her. "And he certainly won't that day. Gidry will not come, I'm certain. So while he stays home with his father, you can help me."

  "You haven't needed my help, Prudence, in a very long time," she said.

  "You will come?"

  Aunt Hen shook her head.

  Pru sighed but reluctantly accepted her answer.

  "I think nearly everybody will be there," Pru told her aunt excitedly. "None of the young people will be able to stay away, and I expect even the gentlemen of the Commercial Club will show up, too. Except for Gidry, of course. He seems to be the only one really opposed to us."

  "Is that so?" Aunt Hen commented. "Doesn't really seem like him."

  "It is very much like him, Aunt Hen, I assure you," she said. "He was absolutely rude to me at the Dry Goods store today."

  Her aunt deftly changed the subject.

  "What are you going to do at the dance, Prudence?" she asked. "If other women are taking care of the food, dancing, and entertainment, what is left for you?"

  "I'm going to make our presentation on the dangers of residential street lighting," she said proudly. "For all the fun and excitement, we mustn't lose sight of our purpose here. We will have our forum."

  Agatha Crane stepped into the room just as Pru's last words were spoken. She raised her hand in a defiant salute.

  "And let Gidry Chavis just try to stop us!"

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Gidry had taken the job of Commercial Club scapegoat with the disregard of a man who had never borne the brunt of a community's anger.

  The women of Chavistown would cross the street in order not to pass him. And if perchance an encounter was unavoidable, it was as if they turned deaf and blind. Or rather as if he had become completely invisible.

  And Stanley Honnebuzz had been right. Even the women who never darkened the door of the Rose and Garden Society, the ones who wouldn't know a gardenia from a billy goat, even those women were hopping mad. And they were mad at Gidry Chavis.

  With the men it was little better. Having insisted that the refusal was not their own, but Gidry's, they could not appear openly friendly for fear that word would get back to their wives. It seemed like every human in Chavistown had neither a kind word nor welcome smile for him. The only opportunity he had for talk was at work. And the incessant roar of machinery didn't make discourse a pleasant prospect.

  Being cut was his worst nightmare of returning to his hometown. And it had come true at last. If not for Arthur Sattlemore, the salesman from Big Texas Electric and young Sharpy Kilroy who, now unemployed, seemed to have a good deal of time just to sit around the gin loafing, Gidry would have forgotten what it was like to have conversation.

  Maybe he could have felt good about it, thinking that being shunned was going to ensure the success of the lighting project. But it was clear that the ladies were going to have broad attendance at their Harvest Moon Dance. And they would present some fearful hysteria and make a few converts among the audience. The more people on their side, the weaker the commitment to change. And without change, the community could not prosper.

  In truth, he'd thought that Pru was the only real opposition to the project. Her disfavor with it, Gidry was sure, was partly an attempt to conceal her current unsavory relationship and also because it was his idea. He was certain of that. He had treated her badly, and after all these years she still held a grudge. It had been made plain that day in the garden—she had not forgiven him for breaking her heart so long ago.

  Although it was a puzzle why she should still be upset with him when she was apparently happily involved in an illicit romance with one of his employees.

  Perhaps it was the same sort of jumbled confusion that he felt about her. It was like jealousy. But of course, it could not be jealousy. A man could only be jealous if he were in love. And he did not love Prudence Belmont. Of that he was certain, or relatively certain, or at least he didn't think so.

  Gidry sat in his father's darkened room staring sightlessly out the window into the night. He was reluctant to admit it to himself, but he was watching for her. Waiting for her to meet her lover. Hating for her to meet her lover.

  He no longer made mental lists of the principal suspects. The identity of her lover, Gidry had finally decided, was something he did not want to know. The anger when he thought about that man, that worthless cheating man, touching Prudence Belmont, his Prudence Belmont, was beyond reason. If he found the man out, he would, at the very least, create a scene. What he'd like to do is pick a fight and pound the man senseless.

  He wondered if she loved him. Pru was capable of powerful love. He knew that from experience. Had she turned all her affections to her lover? Had he taught her to love physically as well as emotionally?

  Gidry gritted his teeth miserably as he thought of the postcard. She shouldn't be doing that! She was a fully passionate woman. Awakened gently, she would be a worthy partner in sensual delights. It galled him unreasonably that some other man had done the awakening.

  "I probably should have married her," he said.

  His voice was startlingly loud in the still silence of the night. He glanced toward the bed. He couldn't see a thing in the dimness of the room, but detected no stirring or changes in breathing.

  His father was hardly listening, he was sure. The old man had been so tired this evening, drifting in and out of wakefulness, that he hadn't even been able to listen to a tall tale. But Gidry had become so accustomed to talking to his father about his day, his worries, his concerns, everything that came on his mind, that it hardly mattered that he confess his deepest thoughts. After eight long years fending for himself, making decisions on his own it was a great luxury to be able to discuss things with his father. Even if the old man could not respond.

  "You saw it way back then," he said, "but I could not. She is a bright, hardworking, dependable woman who would have made a devoted wife and loving mother."

  He chuckled humorlessly.

  "Of course a man of twenty-one has scarcely any use for hardworking, dependable, and devoted women," he pointed out. "A man of twenty-one wants only a nicely rounded female stuffed precariously into a bright red dress with spangles."

  Gidry continued to stare out the window and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  "What was her name?" he asked himself. "Mary? Or was it May?"

  He shook his head. It was so long ago and of so little consequence that he could no longer recall.

  He could remember how much he'd wanted her. He had not been wholly unfamiliar with women, but he never wanted one as he'd wanted her. He'd seen her dozens of times. She'd shake her sultry backside at him, and his body would go weak as jelly. Well, perhaps not all of his body.

  He had been thinking her one pretty spring day before he'd left town. At his father's behest he'd taken Pru on a picnic. Pretty little Pru, all fresh scrubbed and wholesome. There was nothing about her that in any way resembled the hot, forbidden charms of a spangle-dressed female.

  The day at the picnic she'd been all sweetness and sincerity. He could picture her in his mind as clearly as if it were yesterday and not years ago.

  The two of them had found a shady spot along Hollering Creek just a short walk from the road. She'd been dressed in dark pansy blue. It was a color that rather suited her. Her broad brimmed straw bonnet boasted a ribbon of the same color, which she tied neatly just below her left ear.

  They had finished a very tasty meal provided by Aunt Hen. Gidry l
ay back with his hand behind his head, lazy and content. His pleasant hazy thoughts of the red-spangled female were abruptly interrupted.

  Pru's familiar voice was unusually quiet and betrayed a slight tremble.

  "I know a woman is not supposed to speak first," she said.

  Gidry opened his eyes and looked up at her. Her cheeks were prettily pink, her eyes adoring.

  "I know a woman is not supposed to speak first, but I cannot hold my feelings inside any longer."

  He held his breath, willing her not to say it, willing her not to say it. To leave it alone for another day. She did not.

  "I... I love you, Gid. I always have," she whispered. "You are the first thing that comes to my mind when I awaken in the morning and the last thought I have at the end of the day."

  "Oh Pru."

  "When I'm not with you I'm dreaming about you. I imagine conversations I want to have and remember the ones that we have had," she told him.

  Her heart was in her eyes. He looked away, not wanting to see it.

  "I love you, Gid Chavis, totally and utterly," she continued. "I want to be with you always. I want to share your name. I want to give you children."

  "For mercy's sake, Pru," he had pleaded with her, almost angrily. "Don't just smother me with it. Don't you have any pride?"

  "Pride?" she answered. "Pride is such a meager emotion when compared to love."

  Gidry sat staring out the darkened window.

  "Pride is such a meager emotion when compared to love," he repeated aloud.

  He heard a sharp intake of breath behind him and realized that his father had awakened.

  Gidry turned toward the bed and stared into the darkness.

  "I'm still here, Papa," he said. "Still just thinking out loud."

  He moved closer and clasped his father's hand in his own. His father's grip seemed to be growing weaker, but there was still much warmth in it.