Free Prayers the Devil Answers by Sharyn McCrumb Page B

that needed doing, I still didn’t do it. I told myself I was too busy tending to my husband to bother about civilities, and partly that was true, but mostly I was shy about talking to strangers.
    I knew I ought to tell them, though, because Albert was sheriff. And he was dying.
    Albert was better at talking to strangers than I’ll ever be. Maybe he got used to dealing with people when he was younger, working summers at those logging camps. Then we moved to town and he took the railroad job, which gave him even more chances to become accustomed to new people. After a while, he became good at it. Whether Albert took to somebody or not, he could smile at them, find something pleasant to talk about, and look at ease, which generally made the other fellow cotton to him. He did it so well that most people didn’t realize that they never got any closer to Albert than they were on the day they met him. He’d pass the time of day with anybody, acting just as friendly as a hungry pup, but he never let people see what he thought or felt. Albert seemed so sociable, though,that hardly anyone ever noticed how little of himself he gave away in conversation.
    I asked him once if he thought he was acting false, being sociable to people he was indifferent to, but Albert said that was just the way you had to act if you lived in a town among strangers.
    â€œPeople don’t trust you if you’re standoffish, Ellie. They think you have something to hide.”
    â€œWhat you call friendly I call brown-nosing.”
    He laughed. “Stubborn, ain’t you? You’d better get used to town ways, hon, or else you’ll get downright lonely here. Well, considering which branch of the McCourry clan you come from I don’t reckon you ever would get lonely, but since you decided to live here in town, you’re obliged to get used to talking to people. Someday you may need a favor. From a friend you might get one, but there are mighty few strangers who will put themselves out for you. They have no reason to.”
    â€œCharity?” He knew I hated the very idea. “I’d never ask anybody for a favor, Albert.”
    â€œI know you wouldn’t want to, Ellendor, but someday you may have to.”
    Well, Albert was right. It looked like that day had come, and I wasn’t prepared for it. There hadn’t been time for me to get used to social ways—although maybe a lifetime wouldn’t have been long enough for me. I did try, but it came easier to Albert than it did to me.
    I could see that he was right about friends being useful, though, because when he needed a favor, he got one. As much as his fine rec­ord as a deputy, Albert’s genial gift of seeming with strangers had got him elected sheriff when the job came open.
    Maybe townspeople found it strange that I kept to myself, but the people where we came from know that I came by it naturally.
    In the little settlement I grew up in, our branch of the McCourry family was called the Solitary McCourrys, as opposed to the Preaching McCourrys or the Fiddling McCourrys. Last names weren’t much use where Albert and I came from. Every family up there was descended from the few pioneer families who had settled the mountains around the time of the revolution. For the first couple of generations every pioneer family had raised about a dozen children apiece, so, as Albert used to joke about it, “Sooner or later one of us married one of them, so we may be just fourth or fifth cousins, but we’re all family.” He reckoned that if you went back six or seven generations, you could find a common ancestor with just about everybody you knew, and many surnames were shared by people who considered one another no kin at all. With few last names for so many present-day families, the settlers’ descendants had to think up other ways to tell who was from which branch of the family.
    My kinfolk, the Solitary McCourrys, are known for keeping to