A Match Made in Dry Creek by Janet Tronstad

for him whatsoever, except possibly the same sort of mild affection she had for his father or for any of the other old men who always seemed to hang around the hardware store in Dry Creek.
    Doris June straightened her shoulders. She didn’t need to make the whole thing seem harder than it was. For all she knew, once she got over the awkwardness of how she and Curt had parted, maybe all that would be left was that sort of mild affection. She needed to remember that she hadn’t spent any time with Curt for years. Most likely the intense feelings she used to have for him were so dried out that they would crumble the first time they had any kind of a disagreement.
    In the meantime, Doris June didn’t plan to sit around and waste the day worrying about Curt.
    â€œAfter breakfast, we should drive out to see your pansies,” Doris June said. “The man from the tourism board won’t be here until later today.”
    â€œI was thinking that, as long as we’re up so early and we’re going out to the farm anyway, we could take breakfast to Ben,” Mrs. Hargrove said. “I heard the poor boy has never had homemade French toast. They just get that frozen kind that you pop up in a toaster. Whoever heard of pop-up French toast?”
    Doris June smiled. Her mother never could resist a hungry child, especially a motherless one. Now thatDoris June had made her decision to get past her awkward feelings with Curt, she decided she might as well start now. “If you think they’re up, we should take breakfast for everyone.”
    â€œOh, they’re up all right. They keep farm hours. They have to eat breakfast early so Ben can do his chores and catch the school bus.” Mrs. Hargrove tucked a cloth napkin in the wicker basket and beamed. “Besides, it’s a beautiful day.”
    The air was cool when Doris June and her mother stepped out of the car at the Nelson farm. It was around six-thirty in the morning and the sky was still rosy from the sunrise. The car had run fitfully all the way out to the farm and Doris June was grateful she was wearing her jeans and an old flannel shirt her mother kept around for gardening. She kept expecting she would have to walk the final miles to the Nelson farm, but her mother’s car kept moving slowly along.
    The air always smelled better when the ground had been plowed recently, Doris June thought as she stepped out of the car and looked at a stretch of farmland that Curt was getting ready to plant. She could almost smell the damp earth.
    The Nelson farmhouse was in a slight hollow that formed a windbreak from the winter blizzards. There were a couple of pine trees that Curt’s mother had planted years ago near the house. Doris June could see the black electrical wires that trailed through thebranches, waiting for December to arrive so the outdoor Christmas lights could be plugged in once again.
    Doris June and her mother had barely stepped from the car when Charley came out of the house.
    â€œI was getting worried,” Charley said as he walked over to them. He had wool mufflers over his ears but no coat on his back. “After you called to say you were coming, I got to thinking about your car not doing so well. It’s low enough in back it could scrape on those deep ruts we’ve got now when you came up the hill. Our road got all messed up in the last big rain and nobody’s come out from the county to fix it yet. I need to call them again.”
    â€œYou know nobody’s going to come grade the road until all of the spring rains are over,” Mrs. Hargrove said as she opened the car trunk and started to lift out the basket. “Here, help me carry this.”
    â€œI’ll get the basket,” Doris June said as she reached over and helped her mother pull it out of the trunk. “Neither one of you should be carrying heavy things around at your age.”
    â€œWe’re not that old,” Charley