A Hog a Day 12

Church was a trial for me. Daddy marched us into third pew from the front on the right side of church. He’d stomped out any hope of back- row giggling long before. I did look longingly at the lucky, wicked girls happily ensconced there, but had learned not to even ask to sit with a friend. We always filed in and took our seats in the same order. Daddy was first with Billy sandwiched between him and Mother. Mother held a baby on her lap. I was in easy reach next to Mother, with Phyllis and Connie, a toddler next to me. Sometimes during the service, Mother and Phyllis exchanged charges.

Phyllis, an adolescent, was the model of propriety, the darling of Sunday School teachers and choir directors. She’d have crawled to church on her hands and knees and sung a solo every Sunday if they’d let her. I compared poorly. Every Sunday I offered up excuses to avoid church. “My stomach hurts. I have an earache. I can’t find my shoes.” That last one was probably true! Billy and I could be depended upon to misbehave if allowed to sit together.

In preparation for the Sunday show, Mother spent endless hours sewing, starching, and ironing frilly dresses for us to show off at church. To ensure total misery, on Saturday night, she clamped me between her knees and twisted my fine hair into tight pin curls as I whined and wiggled. Invariably, she expressed the hope the some day I’d have fifteen girls with straight hair. Ironically, I have one daughter with curls. As final punishment, Mother wrapped my head in a scarf, and made me sleep on those damnable pins. Come morning, I was transformed into a kinky-headed mess in a Shirley Temple nightmare of a dress. I hated it.

The enforced quiet of church sermons was endless. In the days before ADD, I was BAD. My parents didn’t believe in providing distractions for restless children during church, offering up pre-sermon threats and terrifying looks, instead. I completely understood what was waiting at home if I messed up, so I passed the time manufacturing silent distractions.

Mr. Rose and Miss Bessie sat on the pew directly in front of us. He wore ancient gabardine suits with wide ties. He drifted off to sleep as soon as the preaching and his gastric system relaxed. Soon he regaled the congregation with a symphony of flabby farts. Poor Miss Bessie elbowed him to keep him awake and silent, but was no match for his system. It was a fascinating show, made all the more thrilling, since I was supposed to ignore it. How can you not notice farting in church?

 

A Hog a Day Part 11

---

One of Daddy’s coworkers also indulged in the hunt. I loved hearing the stories they told.
Slim was a God-gifted liar, so well-known for his lying, that anyone who repeated one of his tales had to buy coffee for the group. One day, Slim came rushing by several of the fellows standing around at work and one of them called out, “Slim, stop and tell us a lie.”
“I ain’t got time.” He called over his shoulder. “Martin Bishop just fell in Smokestack 19 and I’m on the way to call an ambulance.” He rushed on as the other men took off in the opposite direction to check out the accident at Smokestack 19. They were breathless upon getting there and found Martin hard at work, totally unaware that he’d just been tragically killed. I guess they all had to buy their own coffee.
Slim and his wife, Ida Ruth, had a large family. Like many men of the time, his work was done once he left the job. One blazing August afternoon he came home to find a workman, a man of his acquaintance, digging a ditch that ran along the right of way in front of his place. The man was stripped down to his undershirt in the sweltering heat with sweat pouring off him. Slim stopped to talk and sent one of the kids for a glass of ice water. “Man, it’s too hot for you to be shoveling in this heat. Git on out of that ditch and let Ida Ruth finish it!” I don’t guess Ida Ruth heard about it, because there was no murder.
Mike Parsons had been raised in Arkansas and considered himself an authority on all things Arkansas. No one could mention Arkansas without getting an earful of his knowledge, experience, or connections. He must have had a hundred sisters, since he had a brother-in-law in every town. It was getting a little tiresome and Ray Marshall decided to set him up. “I’m going to come in to work tomorrow telling a wild tale about a town in Arkansas I made up. Y’all follow along and see what ol’ Mike has to say.”
The next morning at work when they stopped for coffee, Ray started his story, “Any of y’all ever heard of a little town up in the Arkansas called Catscratch? I was driving through there one time and………”
Mike Parsons jumped in. “Sure, I been there several times. My sister married an old boy from there. He raises them big pink tomaters just outside Catscratch. They got a real nice little place.”

A Hog a Day Part 9

Daddy took pride in being strict.  “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”  He was certainly never accused of spoiling the child.  Many times I heard him say there wasn’t a kid or an animal he couldn’t conquer.  During his hog-hunting days he acquired a hog-dog he was incredibly proud of.  Sutter was a black lab/Catahoula Cur mix.  When sicced on a herd of hogs, Sutter plunged in and fearlessly latched onto the hog’s ear not to be dislodged until the hunter dispatched the hog.  The poor hog couldn’t slash Sutter as long as he hung on to the ear.  The dog was in the greatest danger of being bitten as he rushed the hog.   Hog-hunting was dangerous for men and dogs.  I’ve seen Daddy stitch his cut dogs a few times.  He  required stitches a time or two, but splurged on a doctor for himself.

Sutter worked cows with Daddy. One day, he chased a calf and pinned it to the ground where he held it by a mangled ear.  Expecting a kill, he wouldn’t release it.  Daddy pulled him off the calf, tied him off to a small sapling, and pulled off his belt to strap to him.  He got a couple of licks in before Sutter changed his belief system.  The enlarged dog ran Daddy up the sapling where he clung just out of the dog’s reach.   At six-foot three and two hundred forty pounds, Daddy was imposing on the tree.  It dipped from one side to the other as Daddy bounced side-to-side just beyond the snarling dog’s jaws.  I wondered if somebody would have to shoot Daddy if Sutter latched onto his ear. After a few minutes, Sutter’s temper cooled and he wagged his tail when Daddy spoke to him.  Daddy climbed down when Sutter seemed to have forgiven him.

Sitter was a very valuable dog.  Instead of shooting him as I expected, Daddy took the reasonable attitude that he’d handled things badly.  He and Sutter worked it out and the dog concentrated on hogs from that time forward.

Maybe I should have run Daddy up a tree.

A Hog a Day Part 8

Taking his cue from Mr. Grady Rose, Daddy decided he needed to go into the hog business. In theory, all he had to do was harvest wild hogs and watch the money roll in. Mother reluctantly agreed.  In fact, he did accrue a few expenses to get a few starter sows and a boar or two, timber to build trap pens, and corn to bait the traps.  Of course, he had to have a gun and knife for protection, and mud tires to negotiate the deep woods and oh yes, a hog dog for the hunt, expenditures that severely stressed an already overburdened budget.  Daddy brought home about a hundred dollars a week.  Groceries took twelve dollars of that.

Daddy took to hog hunting enthusiastically.  It became  a sport rather than a money-making venture.  I don’t recall eating a lot of pork or having to help count the extra money it brought in. The boars were very aggressive to men and dogs.  Daddy stitching his dogs up after they were slashed by hogs.

Daddy’s hunting buddy, Jimmy, was amazing.  He’d lost a leg as an infant, but had compensated so well, he seemed not to miss it at all.  When an angry boar charged a group of hunters aggressively, the other men scattered into nearby trees while Jimmy agiley jumped on top of his crutch and balanced as the hog ran beneath him.  He used his crutch to vault over fences rather than hunting for a gate. When my brother Billy was little, Mother had learned to dread what he might say to people.  Early one morning as she stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes, she saw Jimmy headed for the front door.  She rushed to get to the open front door greet him before Billy got a chance open his big mouth and ask about the missing leg. She was too slow.  As she rushed in, Billy announced, “Mama, a skeeter bit his leg off!”

Daddy made an interesting acquisition from one of his hunting buddies.  For a nominal amount, he became the proud owner of the Hog Wagon.  It was a school bus on a cut down frame with a cage on back for transporting hogs and sometimes children.  This amalgamation was unlicensed, of course, since it had no windshield or doors.  A battered bench seat covered with burlap bags replaced the bus seat.  The V8 flathead engine made it very powerful when run in first gear, an invaluable feature for a vehicle used in swampy areas.  We hung on for dear life when we were fortunate enough to get a ride on this beauty.  Daddy also employed this powerful machine to pull up stumps when clearing pasture.

We were seriously the envy of neighborhood kids.

 

 

 

A Hog a Day Part 7

Mr. Grady Rose traded hogs and raised watermelons, a brilliant plan. During that period, Bossier Parish, Louisiana,  had open range laws.  That meant livestock was free to roam, decreasing the responsibility of the farmer and making driving after dark a challenge.  Motorists were responsible for damages, should they be careless enough to hit one.  Black livestock presented a real challenge at night since they were cloaked in invisibility.  Passengers, as well as the driver, watched for livestock.  The ever present threat of livestock certainly cut down on speeding.  Contrary to what you might expect, accidents were rare.

The point of this story is that Mr. Grady was deeply involved in the hog business, a vocation that required a great deal of work, but little cash outlay.  Since he had captive labor in his four boys, it was an ideal career choice.  The hogs ran wild in the woods, feeding on acorns and other vegetation.   In the spring he baited catch pens in the woods with corn and caught the sows with his mark in their ears when their litter was young.  He cut his mark in the piglets ears, castrated the males, and turned them loose to grow. It was a grave offense to tamper with animals with another man’s mark.  Marks were well-known by other hog farmers in the community, so word was passed on to neighbors what part of the woods a man’s hogs had recently occupied, making it easier to track them.  Of course, one couldn’t expect to harvest all the hogs bearing his mark, but it was a good crop.  No man wanted word to get around that his mark was found on young pigs following a sow with another man’s mark.  Men have been shot for that!

A few months later, the pens were baited again to catch the unneeded sows,  castrated males for slaughter or personal use, or take to market.  Uncastrated adult males, or boars were not good eating, due to their hormone load. Catching the hogs was dangerous business.  Adult males had sharp, curved tusks and fought fiercely, especially when penned up.  They’d also attack in the woods.  Hog hunting was considered fine sport by many.  Once captured, Mr. Rose penned hogs up in pens at his farm to fatten.  That’s where the melons came in.  They were a cheap, abundant crop, easily harvested.  The hungry hogs gorged on the fat melons that burst as they hit the ground.  It looked for all the world like a bloody battle as they squealed, grunted, and gobbled their way aggressively through the heap.  I never got enough of watching.

Mother usually bought melons from peddlers who drove through the neighborhood selling from the back of their truck.  One kid would flag while the others ran around like mad trying to find enough change to purchase a melon which commonly sold for a dollar, but if the peddler came at the end of the day and wanted to unload, we might get two for a dollar.  I never got satisfied on melon and would eat as close into the rind as possible, trying to get every sweet taste.  I was stunned to see Mr. Grady split a fine melon, pass the heart to one of the watching kids, and toss the rest to the hogs. I’d never experienced such luxury.

A Hog a Day Part 6

We were sitting around the fire one Saturday night in Mr. Grady Rose’s sitting room.  The only light came from the fire.  All the little kids lounged on the floor in front of the fire, pleasantly tired from an afternoon of play with full bellies. Mr. Grady looked like a gray-haired bear in overalls, not so tall, as burly and powerful. I loved hearing him talk about raising his boys. “I had to kill a hog a day to feed them boys. I told ‘em lot’s of times, ‘Them that don’t work, don’t eat.’ I always go to bed real early and am up by four. That’s the way I was raised. I can’t sleep past four, even in the dead of winter even if I ain’t got a bunch of cows to milk. I used to be out milking while Bessie cooked breakfast. Now I just sit and watch her. Anyhow, one morning up in January, them boys decided they wadn’t getting up. Bessie called ‘em once and they didn’t make a peep. I give ‘em just a little bit and hollered for ‘em to get up. Then I headed out to milk, ‘spectin’ to be right behind me when I noticed, they ain” got up yet.

I hollered up the stairs for ’em. One of ‘em got smart and hollered back ‘We ain’t getting up yet.  Ain’t no use in gittin’up at four just to sit around waitin’ for daylight.’

That got me hot.  I ain’t raising no slackers.  I went straight out to the barn and come back with the plow lines.  I brung ’em back in there and gave one or two licks over them boy’s quilts and they come flying out of that bed just a hollerin’.  All four of ’em was fightin’ and pullin’ each other back trying to git outta my way.   I didn’t have no way of knowing then on account of all the racket, but the deputy sheriff had just raised his hand to knock on the door.  Them four boys busted that front door down and gave him a good stompin’, trying to git away.

He grabbed up his hat, took off runnin’ the other way, jumped in the car and took off.  Turns out he was comin’ out to give me a summons for jury duty.  He went back to town and told the sheriff he wadn’t goin’ back.  Them folks was crazy out there.”

 

 

A Hog a Day Part 5

“Hurry up and get your shoes on.  We’re going to Mr. Grady’s house.  You can play with his grandkids.”  Daddy called behind him as he headed for the truck. “I ain’t waiting for you!”

I was near frantic as I tore through the house looking for the shoes I’d kicked off the last time I’d been made to wear them.  Shoes were for school and going places.  I’d never have worn them voluntarily.  “I gotta find my shoes so I can go with Daddy.  He ain’t waiting!”

Mother didn’t show proper concern.  “You’re supposed to put them under your bed.  Did you look there?”

I don’t know why she said stuff like that.  I never put things away!  This time, I was saved.  They were tucked neatly under my bed where Mother had put them when she swept. “I found ‘em.  Bye!”

”Don’t kick ‘em off and leave them somewhere.  That’s your only pair.  Are you listening?”

”I won’t!  Bye!”  Daddy was waiting in the truck with the engine running with Billy next to him.  “I thought maybe I was gonna have to leave you.”

Mr. Grady and two identical-looking boys greeted us at the gate.  “This here is my grandboys, Big Boy and Little Boy.  Now, all you younguns go play while  we go git a cup of coffee.  Boys, I’ll skin you alive if I catch you chasing the calf again.”  The four of us took off.  I liked these kids, already.

“You want to see the armadillos?”  one of them inquired.

”Okay.”  I’d seen plenty of armadillos, mostly flat on the roadside, but never had the opportunity to get to know one personally.  We trooped to a fenced in area back of the house where a herd of armadillos of all sizes rushed us.

”They think we  gonna feed ‘em, “ one of the boys explained. “Pap’s always got a mess of armadillos shut up back here.  We gonna fool ‘em today, though.  We gonna eat one for dinner today.  Want to help us catch one.”

The race was on.  We chased those fast little rascals all over that pen but never caught one.  Eventually, we gave it up for wheelbarrow rides.  Two kids pushed the barrow while the rider claimed the privilege of riding till dumped over.  I could have done that all day. Eventually, Daddy concluded his visit and we headed home.  I was very disappointed to miss the armadillo dinner, but Daddy said we had to be moving on.  Though I spent hours with them, I never did learn which was Big Boy or Little Boy.

When we got home, the first words out of Mother’s mouth were, “Where are your shoes?  You’ve got to go to Bible School tomorrow.”

I wore sixty-nine cent flip flops for the rest of the summer.

 

 

 

 

A Hog a Day Part 3

Miss Becky cleared away breakfast and remarked, “Well, setting here drinking coffee ain’t gittin my permanent put in.  If you’re still a’mind to do it, we better git started.”  Pouring a kettle of hot water over the dishes, she set another big pot on the stove to heat.  They got their water from a well, not a faucet, so I followed her out to refill the water bucket.  The well fascinated me, enclosed in a covered timber structure.  A bucket hung on a rope suspended from a pulley.  Miss Bessie turned the cover back and allowed the bucket to drop.  After a few minutes, a heard a splash.

“Can I look?” I asked.

“No, it’s too dangerous.  There’s a boogerman in the well!”  She warned.

At five, of course I knew there wasn’t a boogerman in the well, but also had learned long ago not to sass. Mother had foolishly assured me earlier there was no boogerman, a serious error on her part.  I’d have  probably been a lot better kid had she invoked  him periodically.  Maybe Daddy would hold me up and let me look down the well when he got back.  That wasn’t the kind of thing I’d even bother to ask Mother.  She was always trying to prevent any kind of fun.  I gave some thought to trying to look on my own, but feared falling in and somehow being rescued.  Daddy would warm my britches, good.  What I really wanted to do was get in the bucket and let myself down by working the rope hand over hand.  I’d seen a well dug and that’s how the men had gotten up and down, of course, that was before the water seeped in.  I’d have to think some about how this could be managed without discovery.

I thought about this as I followed Miss Bessie back to the kitchen with her bucket of water sloshing out on either side as she walked.  Mother had the home permanent ready to go by the time we got back in.  Home permanents were the hairstyle of choice for budget-conscious women of the fifties who were brave and not too fussy.    Women frequently cut and permed each other’s hair.   Mother was not a talented amateur.  She hated fooling with hair, but Daddy had volunteered her for the job.  He was good at that.  Her time and energy belonged to him and made him look good.  Miss Bessie wrapped a towel around her shoulders and settled in a straight back chair on the porch.

Mother got straight to work, cutting and perming as she went.  Dividing Miss Bessie’s hair into sections, she measured it, wet it with a comb dipped in water, wrapped it in a little folded-up square of white paper,  measured it against a mark, and snipped off every thing sticking out past the end of the curling paper.  Afterward, she twisted the paper-wrapped hair around a hard plastic spiky permanent curler, and twisted it tightly to the scalp.  I’d been subjected to this misery a few times, so was glad to escape outdoors.  I wanted no part of the home permanent process.  It was painful, smelled horrible, and made me look like a Brillo Pad.

Billy and I played in the cool, white sand under the high porch.  The dogs had thoughtfully dug  large holes to make the landscape more interesting where we marked out roads with chips of wood.  We stood up small branches to serve as trees.  Rocks made fine pretend houses.  From time to time a lazy hound pushed its way into one of the holes as we played around him.  Billy stretched out and took a nap across one of the hounds.  Bored with Billy sleeping, the conversation from the porch above caught my attention.

“Miss Bessie, how many kids do you have?”  Mother asked.  I couldn’t make sense of that.  In my mind, once people got grown, they had no parents.  Miss Bessie was as old as my Grandma.  Mother claimed Grandma was her mother, but it didn’t make sense to me. If Grandma was her mother, how come I’d never seen her spank Mother? Besides, if Grandma was her mama, why didn’t she live with her?  Why didn’t she sit on her lap?  I just let it go.

“I had them five big ol’ boys right off.”  Miss Bessie said.  “Seems like every time Grady hung his britches on the bedpost another one come along. It plumb wore me out.  If his mama had’na been staying with us I don’t know how I’d made it.  I had to help Grady in the field.  She couldn’t see well enough to do much, but she could rock young’uns and string beans.  All three of my oldest squalled till the next’un was born.  I thought I was done, then ten years later two little gals come along ten months apart.  Ruth Ann done fine, but I lost Susie early on.   She nursed good but never keep nothing down.  Grady got a goat but she never did put on no weight.  It ‘bout killed Grady to lose her.  I thought I might lose him.

I pricked up my ears at this.  Miss Bessie lost her little girl!  She must have been mighty careless. I wondered if I might be able to find her.  Maybe she hadn’t gotten too far.  Old people ought not to be having babies.  Miss Bessie looked like she moved way too slow to keep up with a little kid.  I thought I’d just look around a little.  I crawled out from under the porch and dusted off my knees.

”Don’t you run off and get lost,”. Mother bossed. “I’m fixing to put the stuff on Miss Bessie’s hair and I don’t want to have to go looking for you and burn her hair up.  Where’s Billy”

”He’s sleeping on the dog.” I informed her.

At that, she had to go check.  “Well, you stay right here where I can see you.  Don’t go messing around that well.”

”Yes, Ma’am.  I’m just going to look for Miss Bessie’s baby.”

”What?” Mother said.  She seemed to have totally forgotten about that lost baby.  Miss Bessie didn’t look too worried either.

 

The Girls Part One

“I’m worried.  Mama’s getting worse. She got turned around in the grocery store last week and panicked when she couldn’t find me.  She told the manager her little girl was lost.  I heard them paging me and hurried to the front and she was crying like a baby. ” Louanne’s eyes filled with tears as she fidgeted in the high bistro chair. Her spoon clattered as she stirred sugar in her coffee. The sun streaming through the cafe windows highlighted her blue-veined fair skin. “Mama’s been trading there forty years! We’re going to have to do something.  She can’t stay by herself.  I’d take her home with me but I just can’t. I was ashamed to tell you, with y’all both doing so well,  but me and  Robert had to get his mama to go in with us on the house or we couldn’t have ever gotten it.  Then he up and died.  It was taking both our paychecks and Mama M’s check to make the note.  Me and the baby are sleeping in my room, the boys in another, and Mama M in the third. When we got down to just mine and Mama M’s checks we couldn’t make it without me going on night shift. She’s having to watch the kids at night now because I can’t pay a babysitter. It’s more than she bargained for and she is not happy about it. We’re stuck together, like it or not.  The house is half hers and you know her and Mama don’t get along.   I can check on Mama on my days off, but I’ve about got all I can handle. I’d give anything if Mama had kept her house so me and the kids could’ve just moved in with her.” Tears spilled down Louanne’s pale cheeks. “I’m sorry to dump all this on y’all but I’m about at the end of my rope.”

Betty Murrell’s three daughters had gotten together at Bonnie’s Bistro to discuss what to do about Mama who was showing some confusion lately. Louanne, the youngest, lived just a few miles from their mother Betty. At twenty-nine, she’d always had a hard row to hoe. She’d gotten pregnant her senior year, and married Robert Martin just weeks before the baby was born.  Robert was a good fellow, but had a hard time hanging on to a job.  He’d finally gotten on as a long-haul trucker just before their third was born.  Delighted their future looked secure, they finally got enough pulled enough together to buy a house once his mama agreed to sell her house and throw in with them. With his truck-driving pay, Louanne’s job as a dispatcher on the police force, and Mama’s social security check, they were squeaking by.  Mama M made the down payment with proceeds from the sale of her little house.  They managed pretty well till the company Robert worked for went under. Desperate, he started a yard service, working from dawn till dark six days a week.  They could no longer afford the luxury of health insurance with his job loss. Having  lost his health benefits, he didn’t see his doctor or check his sugar like he should’ve and stroked before long.  Of course, he had no life insurance.  Neither Louanne nor Mama M would have chosen to live together without him, but neither could afford to buy the other out.  Louanne had to take a night shift for the higher pay, and Mama M grudgingly watched the kids from seven in the evening till Louanne got off in the morning.  Louanne took all the extra shifts she could, but it was still rough, especially with Robert’s medical bills hanging over her. Every month, she worried the lights would be cut off.  It was a miserable situation.  She felt guilty living with Robert’s mama when she needed to make a place for her own, but it wasn’t her choice. Mama M. had as much claim to the house as she did. Louanne’s nerves were strung tight and she was always on the verge of tears.

Barbara, the worried-looking middle daughter, squeezed Louanne’s hand and spoke. “I’ve been thinking Mama isn’t just right for a while. Seems like she’s done some odd stuff the last year or so.  I couldn’t believe it when she just up and sold the house and moved into that dinky apartment.  I never saw that coming, the way she loved working in her flowers and yard. Remember the way she painted the house inside and out, every two years. Then she just quit her job on a whim after being a nursing supervisor for years.  That story about being sick of it just didn’t hold water.  She never missed a day! Mama’s not but fifty-eight. She always planned to work till she was sixty-five. And remember last Thanksgiving when she put dinner on the table, then sat down to eat without calling any of us to come to the table! That was really weird.”

Barbara had recently moved over sixty miles away to Middlesex where she was a high-school principal.  She was divorced with a fifteen-year-old daughter.  She hadn’t told  her family that when she and Alan split, they were so deep in debt from his gambling, they’d had to file bankruptcy.  Barb and Betsy had moved into a two-bedroom apartment, a real stepdown from the house with a pool in a gated community they’d lost.  She’d only learned the extent of Alan’s gambling when it was too late to salvage anything. Betsy was making Barb pay for the move, blaming the available parent for having to leave her friends and school. Alan had always indulged Betsy and was letting Barbara bear the blame for their breakup.

As she collected her thoughts, Barbara shifted in her chair and dug in her purse for her lip balm. She sighed. “I guess I could try to figure out a way to move Mama in, but it’ll take me a little while to find a bigger place.  I just signed a new lease, so I am stuck for five more months. Mama keeps asking me about Alan.  She forgets why I left him and goes on and on about how much she thought of him. That’s pretty hard to listen to.  Vanessa, if you could meet me me halfway in Brewster on Fridays and Sundays, I could take her on weekends. Maybe Mama has enough stuck back to hire some help till I can move, but I’ll still be at school all day, after that.  I have ten more years till retirement and I can’t afford to take an hour off work.  Betsy is doing all she can to make things harder. I couldn’t depend on her to help with Mama. Vanessa, you don’t work and have an extra bedroom.   I don’t guess you could take her during the week, could you?”

Vanessa spoke up quickly.  “Oh, no.  You know how bad Mama and Joe fight.  It would never work.  I can try to get Jessie Ruth, Joe’s sister to stay with her.  Joe’s been having to help Jessie Ruth anyway since she lost her sitting  job with Mrs. Barker.  She can’t make it just on social security.  It’s about to break us.”  Vanessa, the elder sister was very active in her church, and better off financially than either of her sisters.  She knew a lot about what was best for other folks, a habit that ruffled feathers.  She was exceedingly proud that her husband,Joe, owned a construction company, though not as proud as he.  Joe was known to be a difficult man, at home and in business.

Barbara jumped back in before Vanessa got off too deep into her Jessie Ruth plan.  “That won’t work.  Mama can’t stand Jessie Ruth.  That woman’s always preaching at her and wanting to drag her off to that weird church of hers. Mama’s always gone to Cypress Baptist and doesn’t need another church.  She will not want Jessie Ruth in her business!”

Louanne backed her up.  “Look, Vanessa, the last thing Mama needs is Jessie Ruth! Did you ever think there might be a good reason she lost that job? That woman’s a mess.  Jenny Barker said she robbed her mama blind when she was staying with her.  Robbie Murphy down at Kroger said when she was checking out her groceries that Jessie Ruth had filled Mrs. Barker’s cart up with pork chops, chips, ice cream, and soda, stuff that Mrs. Barker didn’t eat.  The whole time Mrs. Barker kept fussing and Jessie Ruth kept right on piling it on the counter.  Jenny said her mama’s grocery bill just about doubled when Jessie Ruth was taking care of her.  Robbie tipped Jenny off and they got rid of her.”

”Now, I know that’s not true.  Jessie Ruth’s a fine Christian woman.  She wouldn’t steal!”  Vanessa bristled at this accusation against her husband’s sister.  “You better not be saying stuff like that to Joe!”

“I don’t intend to talk to Joe about that or anything else. You know we don’t gee-haw!” Louanne spouted. Vanessa and Joe had tried to tell her how run her business after Robert died. She still didn’t have a lot to do with him.

Barbara tried to smooth things over.  “Look, we’re all worried.  Let’s just wait and hear what Mama’s doctor says.  Maybe there’s something he can give her.”

Vanessa irritably summoned the server. “You need to take the pie off my check, Hon. I told you I wanted vanilla ice cream, not whipped cream.” The dismayed server looked at the half-eaten pie, knowing it would come out of her pay.

“That’s okay. I got this.”Louanne said empathetically as she scooped up Vanessa’s ticket, though she really couldn’t afford her own portion.0

“No, you don’t!” said Barbara. “My treat.”  She wasn’t about to worry Louanne with her own troubles.

Louanne gave her a quick hug. “Thanks, Sissy.”

“You ought not to pay for an order that girl messed up,” Vanessa grumped.

“