Grab Bag: A Collection of Stories by Charlotte MacLeod

Author:Charlotte MacLeod [MacLeod, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453277379
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-10-04T19:51:00+00:00

Clean Slate

MY FRIEND BETTY’S FATHER used to race trotting horses around the county fairs. He picked up some interesting local lore, and told one story that inspired me to write this. Jud Hale of Yankee magazine, no mean Yankee yarnspinner himself, published it in their November 1965 issue.

The only bright thing Henry Giles ever did in his life was to marry Sue Kilmer. Whether or not she took him solely to get Mrs. on her tombstone as some of her acquaintances alleged is beside the point. Granted, Sue was pushing forty by then and had never been a beauty. Nevertheless, it was a lucky day for Henry when he led her to the altar, or rather to the parlor of the Methodist parsonage. Sue wasn’t one to waste good money on a fancy wedding.

She was a crisp little body, straight as a ramrod. The cotton print dresses and long white aprons she wore summer and winter were starched so stiff they rattled. After they’d been married awhile, Sue even managed to put a little starch in Henry’s backbone.

Henry had bumbled along for almost fifty years before he got around to tying the knot. He’d skinned through grade school somehow, then gone to work full time in his father’s general store. Twenty years later the old man was dead and the store was Henry’s. He’d proved to be no great shakes about carrying on alone. Gradually Giles’s Store had got seedier and seedier. The windows had filmed over with dust, not thick enough to hide the litter of broken cartons and rusty cans inside. Folks had taken to driving over to The Corners for their groceries and dry goods.

The day after the wedding, though, things changed. At eight o’clock sharp, Henry was out on the sidewalk washing the windows. Sue was inside, clearing away flyspecked posters announcing long-past bean suppers, scrubbing the long oak counter, sprucing up the shelves with fresh merchandise.

Little by little, Giles’s Store perked up. Down came the dusty flypapers that had hung from the rafters since nobody could remember when. Out went the old sawdust box that had always stood beside the potbellied stove. In came a shiny new brass cuspidor. What was more, Henry kept it shined. He even black-ironed the stove regularly once a week.

Old Tige the store cat could no longer be found snoozing in the cracker barrel on a rainy afternoon. Sue kept him on the payroll because Tige earned his keep, but she made sure he took his catnaps in seemly dignity on a cushion behind the counter.

Ladies who’d shied away from dragging their flounces over Henry’s splintery, tobacco-juicy floorboards could find no fault with Sue’s well-varnished oilcloth runners. Dropping in at Giles’s to look over the new calicos and muslins got to be a popular afternoon’s entertainment. It was a real treat to be waited on by a scrubbed and smiling Henry all togged out in a gray alpaca shop coat and a new straw boater with a red ribbon around it.

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