The Ozark trilogy by Suzette Haden Elgin Page B

was something the Guthries already knew— but , since the poor thing had ruined herself for life scrabbling around on foot through the underbrush and whatnot and getting lost over and over to bring information that she had thought would prove the Purdy loyalty to the Guthries, and since she claimed to have been assaulted by a farmer in a ditch along the way (which the farmer denied, but the Granny was of the opinion he was at least bending the truth, if not breaking it), it made it a debt of honor for Castle Guthrie to avenge when the fool woman fell into a well and drowned herself—
    That did it. That did it! To think that these were three of the Kingdoms staunchly claiming that they should be left to manage their own affairs! It beat all, and some left over!
    “Wait!” I shouted. “Just stop! ”
    They all put down their silverware and stared at me, and the Granny clucked her tongue.
    “You interrupted, child,” she said. “Ill-bred of you. Ill- bred!”
    I whistled long and low, and pushed my plate away from me.
    “What was that?” I asked. “The roast, I mean.”
    “Stibble,” said James John Guthrie, whose absence was now well explained. He would be very busy indeed with all this going on.
    “Stibble?”
    “Something like a pig and something like an Old Earth rabbit.”
    “I don’t believe it.”
    “Nevertheless. Granny there named it for us.”
    “How big?”
    He made a measure in the air. Two feet, roughly, and about so high.
    “Did you like it?” he asked.
    “Yes, I did,” I said. “I just wanted a name for it.”
    “It’s new,” said James John. “Our Ecologist developed it ... oh, about a year and a half ago. A little bit of this, a little bit of that.”
    “And made no mention of it?”
    He raised his eyebrows and speared another bite of stibble roast.
    “You folks going hungry on Brightwater?” he asked me innocently. “Famine on Marktwain, is there? Starving populations on Oklahomah?”
    He knew very well that the law said we all shared. If the Guthrie Geologist had found a reliable new foodsource, the announcement—and all details—was supposed to go out to all the Twelve Castles, share and share alike. But I let it pass.
    “There is no way,” I said, “that I can remember all of this hoohah about you Outlines and Parsons and Purdys.”
    “Poor things,” said Granny Stillmeadow. “The Purdys, I mean.”
    “And no reason why you should remember,” said Myrrh of Guthrie like a scythe falling. “I don’t recall asking you for help. I don’t recall sending any dispatches demanding rescue, and we can handle it ourselves, thank you very much. If you’ll just stay home.”
    “The wickedness of those Parsons,” bellowed James John Guthrie, “and the ineptitude , I might say the stupidity, of those Purdys, defies belief, and brings a decent man to—”
    “Talk too much,” pronounced Granny Stillmeadow. “Shut your face, James John Guthrie, the young woman’s been told it’s not her concern.”
    Well! So she could granny when it was needful after all! I patted her knee.
    “Granny Stillmeadow,” he said doggedly, “you have not heard what those people did today. I am here to tell you—”
    Granny Stillmeadow, and Myrrh of Guthrie, and I myself fixed him with chilly stares, and Michael Stepforth cleared his throat ominously, and both the sons looked down at their plates, and the man gave it up, his voice trailing off while the servingmaids came forward and took away all evidence of the stibble roast, and the two vegetables, and the bread and butter and gravy and salt and coffee.
    “No dessert,” said Myrrh of Guthrie, “because of the Reception and the Dance.”
    One of the young women looked up at that and offered that there was a bread pudding ready in the Castle kitchen if her lady wanted it, and no trouble atall, but Myrrh waved her away.
    “You do see ,” she said to me, “why I told you we hadn’t time right now to play games with you?”
    No, as a