Free Leaving Cold Sassy (9780547527291) by Olive Ann Burns

told her, ‘I reckon you heard how teachers don’t last more’n a year in that town.’ Just teasin’, you know, but Miss Sanna thought I meant they git fired. I told her, ‘No’m, they git marrit.’ She cain’t blush, Mr. Tweedy, on account of she’s got that dark complexion. But she looked mighty flustered, sayin’ marriage was the fartherest thang from her mind. I said, ‘Yes’m, but everybody knows a town’s got to keep gittin’ in good new bloodlines if it’s go’n keep a-growin’—just like me with my dairy herd.’”
    We were on the little wagon road that led up to his farmhouse, and Mr. Charlie turned to give me a wide grin and a wink. “Are you a single man, Mr. Tweedy?”
    â€œLook out, sir!” I shouted. A big white hen, frantic and squawking, was back-and-forthing across the road not knowing which way to go. But when she decided the only way to go was up, she nearly hit the windshield in a panic of squawks and flailing wings.
    Mr. Charlie stuck his head out the window and shouted back at her, “You dang dummy!” Then he turned to me and grumped, “That one’s ready for the pot. Too old to lay aiggs, but she’s Miss Emma’s pet.”
    I saw the herd, copied Mr. Charlie’s figures, helped him and Miss Emma eat a big dinner, and asked her if she’d give me the recipe for her whipped cream and chocolate pie for my mama—“that is, if you don’t keep it secret.”
    Driving back through Mitchellville, Mr. Charlie went down a side street and slowed almost to a stop in front of a large white frame house. “That’s where little Miss Sanna Klein growed up,” he explained. “Come here when she was a little girl to live with the Henry Jolleys. Miss Maggie is her older sister. Mr. Henry’s mayor of Mitchellville and has got his hands in just about every business around here. Owns the bank and sawmill and a little factory makin’ shuttles out of dogwood for textile mills, and a furniture factory. That one’s turnin’ out rifle butts now for the U.S. Army. The mayor owns considerable land, too. Buys it cheap on the courthouse square whenever his bank forecloses on somebody. They’s some that faults him, with good reason, but he shore done right by little Sanna, sendin’ her th’ew four year at college like she was his blood kin. Well, you got a train to ketch.”
    Going on through town, Mr. Charlie waved towards a building and said that was Mayor Jolley’s bank.
    â€œThe mayor is sump’m to see. Must weigh four hundret pounds. Everthin’ bout him is big, cept he ain’t tall. His whole face and head is fat—fat ears, fat lips, and his eyelids so swole up with fat you cain’t hardly see his eyes. His face is always red, mainly cause he’s bad to drank. That’s his main fault. He thinks bootleggers are man’s best friend. They say he told the sheriff to let them stills alone long as the boys don’t hurt nobody. They pay him back in free moonshine.
    â€œNow, Mitchellville ain’t a place to think well of folks drankin’ licker, but he’s so friendly-like and heps so many folks, they just keep a-votin’ for him. Course it heps a politician if he’s got plenty of money and spreads it around. Like on Sarady mornin’...well, ever Friday night he and his drinkin’ cronies play cards in Miss Maggie’s parlor, which she don’t like, but on Sarady mornin’ he goes uptown, after a little nip to cure his hangover, full of jokes and generosity. He’s really funny when he’s had a little to drank. The deadbeats lay in wait for him. Always got hard-luck stories, and he’s always ready for ’em with a pocketful of bills. I mean, he’s ready for them and they ready for him.
    â€œHe’s always had a soft heart for young folks. But it ain’t just Miss