Mr. Samuel's Penny by Treva Hall Melvin

Author:Treva Hall Melvin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, Inc.
Published: 2014-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

“Okay everybody let’s get packing. I told Grandma that you two would be spending some time with them this week. Give me a break from running after you, Lizbeth.”

“Me?” My face crunched at that statement.

So away we went to spend a few summer days in early July at my grandmother’s sweet little house. The same place Aunt Ode lived—whenever she stumbled in, that is.

It was a simple Cape Cod type of home with a fairly sized porch. Ode hadn’t had a job since that summer of the beating, aside from picking a little tobacco for payment in-kind. Thus, as the matriarch of the family, my grandmother took her into the family home. They were all born there. All ten of ten kids. Eight were long since dead. My grandma and Ode were the oldest and the strongest, I suppose.

I’d imagined that they’d survived this long to school me and Lena. Love doesn’t know when it is time to quit.

I remembered what my grandma told me that all the boys within a mile of her home were related to me by blood, making it quite clear that I wasn’t to get to know any of the boys in town, in any way, other than by a handshake. That didn’t help me much, since the town was less than five miles long from one end to the other.

I loved being outside, even in New York. My parents had to call me in at dusk for fear I’d sleep outside on the park bench, waiting for next on the handball court. Girls were always allowed to play with boys, since where I came from, we were just as talented and just as tough! I had assumed that the country girls may have been tougher, but they couldn’t be smarter. I was wrong on both counts.

Yep, they had tough, calloused feet and hands. They didn’t mind getting up at the crack of dawn to do some chores before school, and even during summer vacation! But not city tough. Fist to fist, if a stick or brick wasn’t within arm’s reach. Greasing-up your face and taking off your pierced earrings was a requirement if you didn’t want to have scratches on your face or the holes in your ear make a rip in two.

This wasn’t the first time I visited my grandma, mind you. I could hardly stay away from my cousins, Tommy and Terry. They lived right next door, a quarter of an acre away. I loved playing with them, especially basketball. They were tough on me, but no more than necessary to keep up. My other cousins, Chin-Chin, Red, and Boyd were great comrades too. Problem was they lived a mile away. Thus, upon every visit, I knew we would be playing basketball. No socks, tee-shirts that at one-time had sleeves, scraped knees, and smelly boy bodies. God, it was fun.

So when all of my cousins begged me to play in the summer basketball tournament, be the only girl on the team and

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