Page 28 of The Giver of Stars
William sighed. ‘We ain’t doing too good. We’re living off what we got saved and what our mama left. But it ain’t much.’
‘William!’ Sophia scolded him.
‘Well, it’s the truth. We know Miss Margery. She knows us.’
‘So you want me to go get my head busted working in a white folks’ library?’
‘I won’t let that happen,’ said Margery, calmly.
It was the first time Sophia did not answer. There were few advantages to being the offspring of Frank O’Hare, but people who had known him understood that if Margery promised something would happen, then in all likelihood, it would. If you had survived a childhood with Frank O’Hare, not much else was going to stand in your way.
‘Oh, and it’s twenty-eight dollars a month,’ said Margery. ‘Same wage as the rest of us.’
Sophia looked at her brother, then down at her lap. Finally she lifted her head.
‘We’ll have to think about it.’
‘Okay.’
Sophia pursed her lips. ‘You still as messy as you was?’
‘Probably a little worse.’
Sophia stood and straightened her skirt. ‘Like I said. We’ll think about it.’
William saw her out. He insisted, raising himself laboriously from his chair while Sophia handed him his crutch. He winced with the effort of shuffling to the door, and Margerytried not to let on that she saw it. They stood at the door and looked out at the relative peace of the creek.
‘You know they’re fixing to take a chunk out of the north side of the ridge?’
‘What?’
‘Big Cole told me. They’re going to blow six holes straight through it. They reckon there’s rich seams in there.’
‘But that part of the mountain is occupied. There’s fourteen, fifteen families just down by the north side alone.’
‘We know that and they know that. But you think that’s gonna stop them once they sniff paper money?’
‘But – what’ll happen to the families?’
‘Same thing that happens every time.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘Kentucky, huh? Most beautiful place on earth, and the most brutal. Sometimes I think God wanted to show us all His ways at once.’
William leaned against the doorframe, adjusting his wooden crutch under his armpit while Margery digested this.
‘It’s good to see you, Miss Margery. You take care now.’
‘You too, William. And tell your sister to come work at our library.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Huh! She’s like you. No man going to tell her what to do.’
She could hear him chuckling as he closed the screen door behind him.
6
My mother didn’t hold with twenty-four-hour-old pies, except mince. She would get up an hour earlier in order to bake a pie before breakfast but she would not bake any kind of custard or fruit pie, even pumpkin, the day before it was to be used, and if she had my father wouldn’t have eaten it.
Della T. Lutes,Farm Journal
In the first months after she had moved to Baileyville, Alice had almost enjoyed the weekly church dinners. Having a fourth or fifth person at their table seemed to lift the atmosphere in the sombre house, and the food was mostly a cut above Annie’s usual greasy fare. Mr Van Cleve tended to be on his best behaviour, and Pastor McIntosh, their most frequent visitor, was essentially a kind man, if a little repetitive. The most enjoyable element of Kentucky society, she observed, was the endless stories: the misfortunes of families, gossip about neighbours – every anecdote served up beautifully formed and with a punch-line that would leave the table rocking with laughter. If there was more than one raconteur at the table it would swiftly become a competitive sport. But, more importantly, those animated tall tales left Alice to eat her food largely unobserved and unbothered.
