corrected.
âI mean just exactly what I said. That man has still got a three-year-old child walking around inside him. Donât knowa single man that doesnât.â Mary lowered her head so as to get Everettâs wife fixed inside the proper lens of her trifocals. âThatâs the only thing that makes most men worth living with, fact that theyâve got a little bit of the little boy inside them. Keep that little boy laughing and youâve got a happy man on your hands.â
Lou Ann took that and told it all over town. And everybody she talked to shook their heads and smiled and said something like, yes sir, thatâs just like Mary, isnât it? Thatâs one of the finest women God ever set on this earth.
Then somebody else would nod like they were thinking it for the very first time and say, yes sir, a real beautiful woman. And no one would dispute it. Of course, they werenât talking about any beauty that you could see. Sometimes somebody would talk about how sheâd been a real beauty when she was younger, but it was all hearsay. There was nobody alive anymore who had known Mary as a young girl, except some people as old and doddery as Mary, and they had more sense in their heads than to talk about something that didnât mean two shakes to anybody anymore.
Whatever it was, that beauty kept people stopping by. Friends of her children and their wives and sometimes even their children would stop and say something like, I was over in the neighborhood and I thought maybe Iâd just drop in and say hello. It was all just pure silliness, what they said, because Mary didnât live in the neighborhood of anybody except a couple of tobacco farms and the townâs dairy. But like most people, they were embarrassed to say what was on their mindsâor even admit it to themselves.
And these visiting women would prop up their children on their laps and hope that the young ones would behave, because for some reason that they couldnât explain, what Mary thought about their children was very important. And Mary would smile a little smile that barely turned up the edges of her mouth but brought such warmth to her eyes that even the most rambunctious of children would quiet down andsmile back. And she would reach out one shaky bent hand and run a finger down the side of the young oneâs face and then say something like, I believe thereâs some homemade butterscotch in that jar in the kitchen by the window. Can you be a big boy and lift off that top real careful? And the child might not even know what homemade butterscotch tasted like, but there was something about Mary that made them pretty doggone sure that whatever it was, it was good. So theyâd make round moon-eyes and nod solemnly, and if they were real polite they might even answer with the best yes, maâam. Then Mary would run her finger down their cheek one more time, as though she was trying to draw a little of their beauty and joy out and hold it in her own hand. Go on then, sheâd say. And when you go back outside, mind you stay off the grape arbor.
The mothers would have some question theyâd probably thought up on the way out there, like, I just had to have your recipe for homemade peach jam. Or maybe it was, I canât seem to get my lemon chess pies to set up right. Or their husbands would stop by because they thought maybe Mary could use a couple of their extra geraniums, and the wives would just come along for the ride. But sooner or later, the real reason for their visit would come out.
Maybe it was a sick child. Maybe a husband couldnât seem to hold down a steady job. Or perhaps it was some real deep marital problems. There was trouble with loved ones and ones that werenât loved at all, with jobs and houses and money and people. There were worries and fears and doubts and terrors that woke them up in the middle of the night, leaving them teary-eyed and heart-sore and
âI mean just exactly what I said. That man has still got a three-year-old child walking around inside him. Donât knowa single man that doesnât.â Mary lowered her head so as to get Everettâs wife fixed inside the proper lens of her trifocals. âThatâs the only thing that makes most men worth living with, fact that theyâve got a little bit of the little boy inside them. Keep that little boy laughing and youâve got a happy man on your hands.â
Lou Ann took that and told it all over town. And everybody she talked to shook their heads and smiled and said something like, yes sir, thatâs just like Mary, isnât it? Thatâs one of the finest women God ever set on this earth.
Then somebody else would nod like they were thinking it for the very first time and say, yes sir, a real beautiful woman. And no one would dispute it. Of course, they werenât talking about any beauty that you could see. Sometimes somebody would talk about how sheâd been a real beauty when she was younger, but it was all hearsay. There was nobody alive anymore who had known Mary as a young girl, except some people as old and doddery as Mary, and they had more sense in their heads than to talk about something that didnât mean two shakes to anybody anymore.
Whatever it was, that beauty kept people stopping by. Friends of her children and their wives and sometimes even their children would stop and say something like, I was over in the neighborhood and I thought maybe Iâd just drop in and say hello. It was all just pure silliness, what they said, because Mary didnât live in the neighborhood of anybody except a couple of tobacco farms and the townâs dairy. But like most people, they were embarrassed to say what was on their mindsâor even admit it to themselves.
And these visiting women would prop up their children on their laps and hope that the young ones would behave, because for some reason that they couldnât explain, what Mary thought about their children was very important. And Mary would smile a little smile that barely turned up the edges of her mouth but brought such warmth to her eyes that even the most rambunctious of children would quiet down andsmile back. And she would reach out one shaky bent hand and run a finger down the side of the young oneâs face and then say something like, I believe thereâs some homemade butterscotch in that jar in the kitchen by the window. Can you be a big boy and lift off that top real careful? And the child might not even know what homemade butterscotch tasted like, but there was something about Mary that made them pretty doggone sure that whatever it was, it was good. So theyâd make round moon-eyes and nod solemnly, and if they were real polite they might even answer with the best yes, maâam. Then Mary would run her finger down their cheek one more time, as though she was trying to draw a little of their beauty and joy out and hold it in her own hand. Go on then, sheâd say. And when you go back outside, mind you stay off the grape arbor.
The mothers would have some question theyâd probably thought up on the way out there, like, I just had to have your recipe for homemade peach jam. Or maybe it was, I canât seem to get my lemon chess pies to set up right. Or their husbands would stop by because they thought maybe Mary could use a couple of their extra geraniums, and the wives would just come along for the ride. But sooner or later, the real reason for their visit would come out.
Maybe it was a sick child. Maybe a husband couldnât seem to hold down a steady job. Or perhaps it was some real deep marital problems. There was trouble with loved ones and ones that werenât loved at all, with jobs and houses and money and people. There were worries and fears and doubts and terrors that woke them up in the middle of the night, leaving them teary-eyed and heart-sore and
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