Summer in the South by Cathy Holton Page B

throwing Fanny forward so that she caught her knee on the edge of the iron tub, splitting the skin down to the bone.
    They built a fort under Papa’s bed, rolling around on the dusty floor, careful not to disturb the four legs standing in their little lids of kerosene, set out to discourage the bedbugs. It was dark under the massive bed, and Sissy lit a series of matches so they could see. Papa’s dusty bottles of moonshine gleamed in the darkness against the far wall. His “snakebite medicine,” he used to tell Mother teasingly. When Fanny was bitten by a chicken snake out by the stable, Sissy carried one of the bottles down to the garden and dosed Fanny so liberally she couldn’t stand.
    And when Papa sold the horses and carriage and came driving up in a gleaming new ReVere Touring Car, they “fed” Papa’s new “pet” with sand and rocks stuffed into the gas tank. Not long after that, their cousin Humphrey came visiting from Nashville, pulling up the drive in a Fleetwood Phaeton with a convertible top. He and Papa went into the library to talk, and Sissy decided the convertible top looked an awful lot like the trampoline they had seen used by the trapeze lady at the circus. So while Humphrey and Papa were inside talking business, Fanny and Sissy were jumping up and down on the landau top until their feet went through and they were stuck and pinned like flies on cheesecloth.
    Later that night, when she was putting them to bed without supper, Martha said to Fanny, “Lord, child, why do you always have to do what your sister tells you to do? Why do you let her torment you so?”
    But Fanny just smiled and sucked her thumb sleepily because she knew something that Martha didn’t know, something that only she and Papa knew.
    Pain was part of love.
    After that the family had a meeting to decide what to do about Fanny and Josephine. They drove to the house in a caravan to meet with Papa, following him into his library with solemn faces, while Fanny and Josephine crouched on the verandah outside the window, listening.
    Papa needed a new wife, they told him. Those girls needed a stepmother or a governess. They were growing up wild and untamed as spring colts. They needed a firm female presence in their lives. If they continued on the same path they were on, they were sure to bring shame and disgrace to the family. Papa listened and thanked them quietly, then sent them on their way. He never said a word to Fanny and Josephine but several weeks later a new governess arrived.
    She was a French woman from New Orleans; her name was Madame Arcenaux. She called Josephine and Fanny “cherie” or “ma petite,” when Papa was around, and when he wasn’t, she called them “Hey, you, girl.” If she heard Papa’s voice in the house, she would hurry them through their lessons and go downstairs to smile and lay her hand coquettishly upon Papa’s arm.
    Fanny liked her well enough, but Josephine had no intention of allowing a stepmother into their lives, much less a French one. She set about figuring out a way to get rid of Madame Arcenaux.
    The woman had a fear of dark enclosed spaces. Josephine overheard her telling Martha about this, complaining that the room she occupied at the top of the stairs was “dark and airless as a wardrobe,” insisting that she be moved to the back bedroom downstairs (closer to Papa’s room). A few days later, in the middle of a history reading, Josephine let it drop that Papa had had all of Mother’s things moved to the attic, where they were stored in large trunks, boxes and boxes of hats, shoes, and lovely dresses.
    Fanny watched in horrified amazement as Sissy spun her lies.
    “Don’t be ridiculous!” Madame Arcenaux cried. “Why would your papa put all of your mother’s things in the attic?”
    “He thought the jewels would be safer there,” Josephine said.
    “Jewels?” Madame Arcenaux said.
    The next morning was market day. They stood at the window watching as Martha, dressed in a