Mary Alice,” she said, “how ... nice.”
Seeing my teacher in our front room was eerie. It was a new experience for Miss Butler too. When I showed her to a chair, her eyes roamed the room. She read Grandma’s Souvenir of Starved Rock pillow. She noticed the flat square in the carpet where we’d taken down the stove after winter. Since most of what she’d heard about us Dowdels didn’t make for polite conversation, ours drifted.
Grandma loomed suddenly in the door to the kitchen, in a fresh apron. “Come on in,” she boomed at Miss Butler, “and we’ll tie the feedbag on you.”
Miss Butler quaked.
So did I when I saw the kitchen table. It was set with four places.
Before I could think, Arnold Green stepped up behind us. His horn-rims flashed, and my brain buzzed. Miss Butler was so refined, even prim. And there was talk of running Arnold Green out of town for ruining Maxine Patch. And Grandma had invited him to supper. Oh, Grandma, I thought, what are you up to?
I fumbled over the introductions. “I have heard so much about—I mean, how do you do?” Miss Butler murmured to Mr. Green.
I knew I couldn’t eat a bite. But Grandma bustled around our chairs, loading the table. Fried chicken. Mashed turnips. Hominy with stewed tomatoes and a casserole of canned green beans and fatback. Since nothing was ready in the garden, there was a quivering green Jell-O mold. There were corn muffins and cloverleaf rolls. Two kinds of jelly in cut-glass dishes. A decorative butter pat from Cowgills’ Dairy Farm. You couldn’t see the oilcloth.
“Oh my,” murmured Miss Butler, “how ... much.”
But Arnold Green fell to it. He didn’t feed this well up at The Coffee Pot Cafe, and he was a starving artist.
Grandma presided from her end of the table, gazing at a gizzard and demolishing a thigh. She piled bones, waiting for the silence to force conversation.
At last, Miss Butler chanced a glance across the groaning table at Arnold Green. I was too young to know how much a dangerous man interests a good woman.
His glasses were steamed from the dinner, so it was hard to catch his eye. But she spoke. “I so admire the artistic temperament.”
In silence Grandma loaded a fork with mashed turnip.
Miss Butler had a low, pleasing voice when she wasn’t yelling at us in school. “My only talent is appreciation,” she said. “I sit at the feet of the Bard.”
Arnold Green flickered.
“Indeed, I look up to all men of artistic talent,” Miss Butler said, though she was no shorter than Arnold Green. He looked suddenly across cruets at her.
Their eyes met.
Somehow, Grandma knew. In a town like this, an unmarried man was either going to be packed off or picked off. She’d decided against Maxine Patch. She backed Miss Butler.
For the rest of the month until he went back to New York, most evenings found Arnold Green strolling to the Noah Atterberrys’. Miss Butler roomed there. They sat out on the porch swing in full view. At the time I supposed they discussed art and poetry and Paris. He used Vitalis now, and Kreml for his dandruff. Grandma kept him in clean shirts. Public opinion shifted his way. Maxine Patch was fit to be tied.
And I didn’t mind too much about Royce. He was friendly enough, but either he was keeping his distance, or I was keeping mine. We’d both been strangers in their midst here, but was that enough? I guessed not and didn’t mind too much. Really, not at all, hardly.
Gone with the Wind
S uddenly school was almost out and summer upon us. And I didn’t know what to think about that.
We had a stretch of perfect weather, here in the healthiest climate in Illinois. Little red blushes showed down in Grandma’s strawberry plants. The hollyhocks were every color. Trees leafed out overnight, and the streets were like tunnels with bright countryside at either end. One magic morning the whole town was scented with lilac.
Spring didn’t come to Chicago like this. I went around with a lump
Seeing my teacher in our front room was eerie. It was a new experience for Miss Butler too. When I showed her to a chair, her eyes roamed the room. She read Grandma’s Souvenir of Starved Rock pillow. She noticed the flat square in the carpet where we’d taken down the stove after winter. Since most of what she’d heard about us Dowdels didn’t make for polite conversation, ours drifted.
Grandma loomed suddenly in the door to the kitchen, in a fresh apron. “Come on in,” she boomed at Miss Butler, “and we’ll tie the feedbag on you.”
Miss Butler quaked.
So did I when I saw the kitchen table. It was set with four places.
Before I could think, Arnold Green stepped up behind us. His horn-rims flashed, and my brain buzzed. Miss Butler was so refined, even prim. And there was talk of running Arnold Green out of town for ruining Maxine Patch. And Grandma had invited him to supper. Oh, Grandma, I thought, what are you up to?
I fumbled over the introductions. “I have heard so much about—I mean, how do you do?” Miss Butler murmured to Mr. Green.
I knew I couldn’t eat a bite. But Grandma bustled around our chairs, loading the table. Fried chicken. Mashed turnips. Hominy with stewed tomatoes and a casserole of canned green beans and fatback. Since nothing was ready in the garden, there was a quivering green Jell-O mold. There were corn muffins and cloverleaf rolls. Two kinds of jelly in cut-glass dishes. A decorative butter pat from Cowgills’ Dairy Farm. You couldn’t see the oilcloth.
“Oh my,” murmured Miss Butler, “how ... much.”
But Arnold Green fell to it. He didn’t feed this well up at The Coffee Pot Cafe, and he was a starving artist.
Grandma presided from her end of the table, gazing at a gizzard and demolishing a thigh. She piled bones, waiting for the silence to force conversation.
At last, Miss Butler chanced a glance across the groaning table at Arnold Green. I was too young to know how much a dangerous man interests a good woman.
His glasses were steamed from the dinner, so it was hard to catch his eye. But she spoke. “I so admire the artistic temperament.”
In silence Grandma loaded a fork with mashed turnip.
Miss Butler had a low, pleasing voice when she wasn’t yelling at us in school. “My only talent is appreciation,” she said. “I sit at the feet of the Bard.”
Arnold Green flickered.
“Indeed, I look up to all men of artistic talent,” Miss Butler said, though she was no shorter than Arnold Green. He looked suddenly across cruets at her.
Their eyes met.
Somehow, Grandma knew. In a town like this, an unmarried man was either going to be packed off or picked off. She’d decided against Maxine Patch. She backed Miss Butler.
For the rest of the month until he went back to New York, most evenings found Arnold Green strolling to the Noah Atterberrys’. Miss Butler roomed there. They sat out on the porch swing in full view. At the time I supposed they discussed art and poetry and Paris. He used Vitalis now, and Kreml for his dandruff. Grandma kept him in clean shirts. Public opinion shifted his way. Maxine Patch was fit to be tied.
And I didn’t mind too much about Royce. He was friendly enough, but either he was keeping his distance, or I was keeping mine. We’d both been strangers in their midst here, but was that enough? I guessed not and didn’t mind too much. Really, not at all, hardly.
Gone with the Wind
S uddenly school was almost out and summer upon us. And I didn’t know what to think about that.
We had a stretch of perfect weather, here in the healthiest climate in Illinois. Little red blushes showed down in Grandma’s strawberry plants. The hollyhocks were every color. Trees leafed out overnight, and the streets were like tunnels with bright countryside at either end. One magic morning the whole town was scented with lilac.
Spring didn’t come to Chicago like this. I went around with a lump
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