Tattler's Branch by Jan Watson

Author:Jan Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Christian / Historical
ISBN: 9781414388694
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2013-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Tillie Tippen’s house was only a short distance farther on, once Lilly walked the quarter of a mile into town. Truthfully, she’d been glad for the excuse of collecting the laundry to get away from the hubbub in her kitchen, where Armina fussed with broom and mop, Mazy primped, Chanis’s sister heated curling irons, and Kip mourned the one that got away.

At the clinic, smoke billowed from charcoal pots of heated brimstone placed strategically all along the foundation. Mr. Tippen’s wagon was gone. Lilly supposed he wanted to fumigate the walls before he put up the new window. Hopefully he wouldn’t fumigate himself.

The Tippens’ white two-story house was grand considering the leaning shotgun houses of their neighbors. The wide front porch was painted gray and sported two white rocking chairs and a matching swing, suspended by chains from a beam. A banty hen and six half-grown chicks scoured the bountiful flower garden beside the steps for errant ladybugs or hapless wiggle worms. In the side yard, drying laundry fluttered lazily in the sparse hot breeze of the day.

Lilly was too early. She should have waited until evening. She knocked lightly.

“Well, look who’s here,” Tillie Tippen boomed when she opened the door to Lilly. “Come in and set yourself down. You’re looking a little wilted from this heat.”

Lilly was surprised anew each time she heard Tillie’s loud, gruff voice. She was short, less than five feet, and portly—built like a rain barrel. Half of her had to be lung. Lilly wondered how she managed the high clotheslines. Maybe Mr. Tippen hung the wash and took it in.

Before Lilly could say, “I came to collect the laundry,” she was seated in the parlor, a glass of sweet tea in her hand and a dessert plate of Tillie’s town-renowned yellow cake with coconut icing resting on her knee. As her eyes adjusted from the glare of the sun to the dim interior of the room, she noticed she wasn’t the only visitor. Anne perched on the horsehair sofa directly across from her. Lilly raised her eyebrows in question.

“As I was just telling Tillie, it’s good to have a husband like Cletus, who don’t mind me taking a minute for myself,” Anne said.

“Anne helps me on wash days—but generally Amy comes along. You should have brung her. You know that child’s the best part of Monday for me.”

“Maybe next week,” Anne said, standing. “I’ll just go out and take Doc’s linens off the line. They’re more than dry by now. Do you want the sheets and pillowcases sprinkled?”

“No, she don’t like the bedclothes ironed,” Tillie said as if Lilly were a lamp or a chair. “You can put them and the towels and kitchen things, everything that don’t get ironed, in that white wicker basket.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt your work,” Lilly said.

“I love me a bit of company whatever time of day it comes,” Tillie said, taking Anne’s place on the sofa. “Turnip said somebody broke your window.”

“Yes, he’s repairing it now. I closed the office for the afternoon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.