Belle Prater's Boy by Ruth White Page B

was right!”
    So that was it! As a young girl Aunt Belle had embarrassed her in front of her boyfriend. And Mrs.
Cooper had carried that anger with her all these years, so that now it was a bitter acid she was spraying on Woodrow in retaliation.
    Woodrow came back shortly with a trayful of tall, frosted glasses of Peach Ice and resumed his duties as if nothing had happened. I saw him lean over and whisper to one of the pretty debutantes where she sat on a pink blanket. She giggled and I was thinking, Well, what do you know about that. Woodrow is learning to flirt.
    Then I got busy—real busy. In fact, I couldn’t keep up. Every time I surfaced for air, somebody needed something else. I made about a hundred trips to Granny’s kitchen, where Grandpa was doing all he could to help without actually going amongst the “hens,” as he called them. It didn’t occur to me to be insulted. The women did put you in mind of a whole lot of hens.
    I noticed Woodrow was trotting pretty regular to Mama’s kitchen, where the ice was stored in the freezer and the Peach Ice filled up the Frigidaire. It was so hot everybody was drinking a lot of it. I saw him offer Mrs. Cooper some and then whisper something to her. Mrs. Cooper clapped one hand over her mouth to stifle a sputter and reached for the glass with the other.
    One thing was sure: Woodrow would not be flirting with Mrs. Cooper! So what was going on? As I stood
there puzzling over it, Granny whispered to me, “Mrs. Osborne is trying to eat and smoke and talk about Buzz all at the same time, and she is dribbling. Can you fetch her a napkin?” So I got busy again.
    As the sun moved across the sky, the women clucked louder and got happier, especially Mrs. Cooper. She slipped into a fine mood. She was laughing and complimenting people, talking about how much she liked first this one, then that one; which was not a bit like Mrs. Cooper to go on like that. Why, she was as pleasant as Mrs. Santa Claus. But the thing that beat all was the way she and Woodrow buddied up. Every time he would bring her a fresh glass of Peach Ice—and she really was putting it away—she would giggle like a girl. She even started reminiscing out loud.
    â€œMe and my sister, Audrey—she’s a nurse in Roanoke, you know—used to wade up the creek on a hot day like this and gather tiger lilies. We had the best times.”
    â€œThat sounds like fun, Mrs. Cooper,” Woodrow said.
    â€œI wish I could wade in the creek again,” she went on wistfully.
    â€œI wisht you could, too,” Woodrow said sweetly, and patted her on the shoulder.
    In light of that conversation I shouldn’t have been
surprised a little while later to hear Mrs. Cooper’s voice down by the creek near the tree house, but I was.
    â€œCome on in! It’s wunnerful!”
    I eased my way through the powdered and perfumed ladies on the creek bank, and there I saw Mrs. Cooper with her dress tail pulled up to her thighs. This was the same Mrs. Cooper who, in the past, lay awake nights thinking up ways to put a stop to folks’ fun.
    â€œCome on in, girls! Don’t be proud!”
    And she giggled.
    The other women stood on the bank, uncertain, not knowing if they should be embarrassed for Mrs. Cooper or laugh, jump in with her, or what. You could almost hear the whirling in their very proper heads. There was nothing in the etiquette books about creek wading at an elegant garden party.
    â€œI’ll declare, Gypsy,” Granny whispered to me for the second time that day. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s drunk!”
    Drunk! Of course! The bottle of rum in our kitchen! That’s why Woodrow kept running in there. He had gone and got Mrs. Cooper drunk!
    â€œOh no, Granny,” I said in the most scandalized voice I could find. “Mrs. Cooper doesn’t drink!”
    Suddenly one of the debutantes kicked off her white