Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

Author:Olive Ann Burns [Burns, Olive Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780899193090
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2012-06-01T08:37:41+00:00

"Shet up, Miss Love!" Grandpa demanded again.

"I know what you gettin'," Mrs. Predmore retorted. "You savin' yourself from goin' single file all your life and havin' Miss on your tombstone. But bein' a wife in name only, and not even usin' the name.... Well, you really still just a old maid, ain't you?"

"He has deeded me the house," said Miss Love.

It took a few seconds for that to soak in. Mrs. Predmore put one foot out the door and said, "Well, call you Miz Greedy! First you grab Miss Mattie Lou's husband, then you grab property that should rightly be Loma's and Mary Willis's!"

Miss Love didn't answer as Mrs. P. marched out.

I need to say that for a long time Miss Love never answered those who called her Miz Blakeslee. Some folks who hadn't planned on speaking to her at all started saying, for meanness, "G'mornin', Miz Blakeslee!" But the only ones she spoke back to were the few who called her Miss Love or—for meanness—Miss Simpson.

Pink Predmore told me that what really burned his mother up was the way Mr. Blakeslee got to laughing. She heard him say, "Doggit, Miss Love, I'd shore hate for you to git mad at me. Wouldn't you, Hoyt?" Grandpa didn't give Papa time to answer before he added, "In case Thelma don't pass the word around, Miss Love, maybe you better git up at the next ladies' missionary society meetin' and say it agin. Or take out a personal advertisement in the Cold Sassy Weekly."

"The word will get around," Miss Love said, bitter.

After Pink's mother left the store, she went across the street to Clark's to get her mail, and was just coming out when Miss Love swept from the store with the last of her boxes and climbed into the buggy. As Mrs. Predmore put it, "She clucked at that silly mule like he was a horse, and drove off like that old buggy was a gold coach."

Miss Effie Belle was in her yard hanging out clothes when Miss Love got home. She told it around, with great satisfaction, that "That Woman was just a-cryin' all the time she unloaded the buggy. And late that night I seen Rucker pacin' the brick walk in Mattie Lou's rose garden. The lamp in Miss Love's room went off around midnight, but Rucker was still out there in that garden, walkin' back and forth, forth and back. I could see him by the moon. Pore Rucker, I reckon he was so upset after Mattie Lou died, he didn't hardly know what he was doin', marryin' That Woman. So I can forgive him. But not her. She could a-had the decency to refuse his proposition. Instead, she latched aholt. A grievin' man just ain't no match for a schemin' woman. Specially a pretty one."

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