Murder & Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction by Amy Metz Page A

no . . . thanks, I’m doing fine.”
    “ I used to play in that house as a boy. My mama was friends with Lou’s mama and she’d go over thar for coffee and take me along. It’s some house.”
    “ I hear you’ve lived here all your life, and your family’s been here for how long?”
    “ Ya know, I don’t rightly know exactly when my kin first came here, but I know they at least go back to my great great-grandparents.”
    “ This is certainly an interesting town.”
    Junebug came over with the coffee and iced tea and set them on the table. She pointed out the window. “There goes Peekal, bless his heart. He dudn’t have the sense ta get outta the rain. My stars and garters, he couldn’t find his rear with his hands in his back pockets.”
    It was still pouring down rain, but Pickle didn’t seem to be in a hurry; he was sauntering down the sidewalk, hands in his front pockets, rain pelting his red baseball cap. Junebug shook her head. “That boy’s just like his daddy. Neither one of ‘em have the good sense God gave ‘em.”
    “ That kid’s a good’un, Junie, you know that,” Buck said, watching Pickle.
    “ Yeah, you’re right. Food’ll be out in a New York minute.” Junebug walked back toward the kitchen.
    “ All right. Back to the subject at hand,” Buck said. “Your house.”
    “ What about it?”
    “ I used to love to play down in the basement. And the backyard. Man alive, you’ve got a great backyard. Of course, I never could bring myself to play on the back porch. In the eighties they glassed it in and made it the pretty sun room that it is today, but back when I was a boy, there were so many wild stories floatin’ ‘round, I was convinced there were ghosts back there.”
    “ Ghosts?”
    “ Oh yeah, if those walls could talk. Mmm, mmm. That house has seen some tragedy.”
    “ Oh. I had no idea.”
    “ Well, I reckon you should know, it bein’ part of the history of your house, and you bein’ Lou’s employee and all. She dudn’t like ta talk ‘bout her family much, but . . . her grandmama was murdered on that back porch, only two short years after her daddy had been murdered . . . “

All Hat And No Cattle
     
    mill : noun \mil\ meal
    Enjoy your mill.
     
     
    [  1935  ]
     
    Maye Hobb called up the stairs, “Samuel! Johnny! Y’all stay out of that bedroom and away from the wallpaper mess. I don’t want that wallpaper glue traipsed all through the house or in your hair or on your clothes!”
    Hearing her husband John’s low, patient voice upstairs talking to their sons, she felt confident he would keep the boys away from their bedroom. She went back to fixing dinner.
    John came downstairs a short while later looking worried and preoccupied. He’d been busy up there for a while, first in the bedroom, then up in the attic. Maye asked him what he’d been doing, and he said, “Maye, I need to tell you somethin’. You know the big trunk up in the attic . . . “
    She put her hand up to momentarily silence John, listening toward the stairs. “I mean it boys!” she hollered. “You stay away from that wallpaper mess!”
    She stirred the spaghetti sauce and said, “You look worried, John. What's the matter?”
    John took a deep breath. “Maye . . . “
    She glanced at the wall clock. “Oh, will you look at the time. We’ve got to eat supper and get to church.” Going to the bottom of the steps, she called up, “C’mon boys! Ima Jean! Louetta! Supper’s ready!”
     
    * * *
     
    The wallpaper stuff was tempting. Johnny and Sam had been playing around it almost all day. Their fingers were itching to get at that paste. They were playing in the hallway outside their parents’ bedroom door, tantalizingly close to wet, gooey fun.
    Sam “accidentally’ sent a toy car flying into the room their mother had just warned them away from. Johnny chased after it. The car bounced off the bottom of the Victorian dresser, and rolled backward, striking his shoe before careening into