Courting Miss Hattie by Pamela Morsi

a cutup," he said.
    "A 'cutup'? Oh, I enjoy a bit of fun, just like everyone else, I guess."
    Ancil seemed to approve of that answer and began to lean in her direction. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "I guess we all just enjoy a bit of fun." Transferring the reins to his left hand, he adjusted his hat with his right, and then, his gesture overly casual, brought his arm down to rest on the seat behind her.
    Hattie eased forward, away from his arm. She hoped he would recognize her disapproval of his initiative and make a polite and hasty retreat. Ancil , however, seeming unconcerned with her opposition, matched each inch of her withdrawal with an inch of advance.
    "How are your children?" she asked as she again shifted away from him.
    "Children? Oh, they're all right, I suppose." He smiled quickly as if a new idea had just proposed itself. "Lula really did the raising of the children, you know," he said gravely. His voice was amazingly close, and she skittered another inch away. "I'm a fair hand at teaching the boys what they need to know—plowing and working and such. But them girls, they sure do need a woman's hand, and that's for sure, Miss Hattie."
    "They seem like lovely girls," she said, trying to maintain the facade of simple communication. "I was especially taken with Cyl and little Ada . Such a lively twosome."
    "To lively," Ancil said, shaking his head. "Mary Nell tries to keep them straight, but I swear every time you look up, they're off somewheres a'playing ."
    "But they are children. They're supposed to play."
    He nodded. "Once the day's work is finished and their chores done, I've nothing against it."
    Hattie continued to lean away, but was interested in his views on childrearing. "I understand Ada has a collection of paper dolls," she said.
    He frowned at her, seeming surprised. "Don't know where she got them," he said with a shrug. "She had an old cornhusk doll someplace, but I think Buddy was sick on it or something, and Mary Nell threw it in the fireplace last winter."
    Ancil scooted the last quarter inch possible, and his thigh sat squarely against Hattie's.
    "Did Mary Nell make her a new doll?" she asked, determined to ignore his shocking behavior.
    He shook his head, chuckling. "Now Mary Nell is a good girl, but she don't waste her time on anything but the necessities. She'd no more make a doll than she'd take up crochet. There's a good bit of work for a woman on the farm—not much time for foolishness."
    Hattie meant to tell him that a child's doll was not foolishness, but he set his hand that held the reins on his thigh next to hers and slipped his arm off the back of the buggy seat so that it touched her.
    Leaning forward and to her right, Hattie found her position was so precarious, she grabbed the hinges on the buggy top and positioned her feet carefully to maintain her balance. As if on cue, Ancil hit a rut, and it was only his grasp of her waist that kept her from a headlong plunge onto the road.
    "Whoa there, Miss Hattie." He pulled her snugly to his side. "You best stay here right close where I can keep you safe."
    "Thank you," she said, shaken by her near calamity. Realizing that Ancil had not released her but kept his arm proprietarily around her, she sat up straight and spoke with a hint of hauteur. "I am perfectly all right, Mr. Drayton. You may release me now."
    His grin was wide, his chuckle lazy. "Now, Miss Hattie, once a fellow's got his gal in a snuggle , you don't expect him to just let her go that quick, do you?" He punctuated his remark with a rather too friendly squeeze.
    Her face paling, then suffusing with color, Hattie was not sure quite what to do.
    "Do you recollect when we was younguns ?" he asked her.
    She stiffened more, if that were possible, appreciating memories of her childhood even less than his arm around her.
    "We sure done some wild things in them days," he continued, chuckling at his own memories. "'Course, you didn't do much too wild, but we sure was into teasing you."
    She