Angel at Troublesome Creek by Mignon F. Ballard

Author:Mignon F. Ballard [Ballard, Mignon F.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 1999-10-29T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It’s always hot in Troublesome Creek on the Fourth of July.

Today was no exception. Petunias growing in a tangle beside Miss Fronie’s narrow walk hung their pink and purple heads and shriveled in the sun. Heat rose in shimmering waves from the sidewalk. I wore the nearest thing to nothing I could find—shorts and a baggy, sleeveless shirt. A wide-brimmed straw hat kept the sun from my face as Kent and I walked the few blocks to Nathan P. Treadway Park where the festivities were to take place. Nathan P. Treadway has been dead for at least fifty years. He donated the land for the park to the city, fought in the First World War, and made a lot of money in the insurance business—although not in that order. A pudgy statue of him stands at the corner of the park next to the Civil War cannon. Aunt Caroline said he’s supposed to be thinking, but he looks like he’s picking his nose to me.

I had spent the morning cutting crusts from pimento cheese sandwiches just the way my aunt had taught me. I had a selection of fruits … well, okay … two different kinds of grapes and a couple of apples, and Augusta had baked nut-filled brownies. She’d eaten almost half of them, but there were still enough for my date and me to share.

Kent Coffey, cooler in hand, had turned up on my doorstep at a quarter till four, just as he’d said he would, and neither of us mentioned the awkwardness of the night before. Now we threaded our way through sweaty, red-faced bodies, hands almost touching on the handle of the wicker basket. A crowd had gathered around the old cannon, which was jammed with wads of newspaper and gunpowder and fired every July Fourth, causing elderly ladies to scream and jump, and dogs to run howling under porches. Last year the blast had cracked the plate glass window of The Troublesome Creek Banner, our weekly newspaper. Today, the editor, a Yankee who had come here from what Delia refers to as “up the road a piece,” stood out front waving a white flag on a stick.

Delia Sims hollered to me from a bunting-draped booth where she sold cookbooks for the Culpeper County Humane Society. I know she expected me to drag Kent over so she could scan him with her built-in suspicious-person detector, but I pretended to be in a hurry. Actually I was. One spot remained in the shade of the tulip poplar on the other side of the park, and we claimed it seconds before a family arrived with purposeful intent from the opposite direction.

It wasn’t until we were almost eye to eye that I recognized Bonita Moody.

“Mary George Murphy,” I said, feeling a little sheepish about grabbing the only shade. I extended my hand and waited for her to introduce her family. She didn’t. “Look,” I said, glancing at the few inches of unclaimed space, “maybe we can all squeeze In … .

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