Free A Woman so Bold by L.S. Young

closest neighbors.
    Ida’s folks were upstarts who took advantage of the upheaval of Reconstruction, buying acres of land on which the wealthy could hunt quail amongst the longleaf pines and wiregrass in which they thrived. In my teens, I often tried to convince Daddy to do this with some of our unplanted acres of longleaf pine, but he was stubborn. He informed me I knew nothing of money or making it.
    When we were children, our parents got together as often as they could, in spite of the social and economic differences, so oft referenced in my mother’s journals, which stood between them. The source of the Mondays’ money before they arrived in our neck of the woods was an object of some speculation, as was the fact of how they had met. Apparently there was some idle talk that Mr. Monday had found his wife in a brothel at the age of seventeen.
    As girls just out of babyhood, Ida and I were generally kept at home to learn women’s work, while our brothers ran rampant, but sometimes we escaped.
    On such a day when I was five or six, I managed to tag along with Eric and Henry as they were traipsing through the extensive deer woods on the Monday estate. They paused in a clearing to let loose a special birdcall that was reserved for Ida’s brother, Clyde. He appeared moments later with Ida in his wake. Eric and Henry set up an outcry against this, which he firmly quelled when he shouted, “Yore dang sister’s here too! What was I to do? She give her nanny the slip. Sly little thang.”
    “Send ‘er back, Mondee,” said Henry. “She’ll ruin that silk frock she’s got on.”
    “She’ll scream fit to wake the dead if I do, and Mama’s got one of her headaches on.”
    Eric groaned. “All right, come on, but both you girls better keep up.”
    I did as I was bid and trotted right along behind them, catching frogs, grasshoppers, and fat green hornworms to store in a mason jar or picking flowers as they plotted imaginary treks across the game-laden woods to the fish pond. Ida, on the other hand, was hot and miserable in her silk pinafore, and she whined about every little mishap. When she set to shrieking over a dragonfly landing on her shoulder, Eric and Henry were fed up.
    “She’s gotta go back,” said Eric in his most persuasive tone. “Every quail round here for miles is gonna get scared off.”
    “ You’re not gonna kill a quail,” I said pointedly. Eric was nearsighted. “You’re a heap more likely to get mistaken for one.” The boom of rifle fire had accompanied us throughout our travels.
    “Hush!” snapped Eric, reddening.
    “I’ve had enough,” said Henry. “If y’all don’t send these gals home, I will. Ya don’t see me draggin’ my sister along.”
    “Your sister is two and still on the tit!”
    Ida stamped her foot, the red ribbons in her honey-hued hair bobbing. “Don’t tell my brother what to do!” she shrieked at Henry. “Landra and I never get to play with you all. You oughta let us come along.”
    “Don’t see a need for sendin’ Landra back,” said Eric, coming to my defense. “Least when a little ole bug of some kind lands on her, she don’t scream like she’s been kilt. She’s right handy goin’ fishin’, even puts the worms on the hooks.” I beamed at him.
    Clyde, choosing to side with his friends, gave Ida a push. “Go home, Ida. You ain’t wanted here.”
    Ida crossed her arms, and yelled at the top of her voice, “I WILL NOT!”
    Clyde drew his hand back and slapped her across the face. It wasn’t an especially hard slap, but Eric and I never struck one another, and I gasped, horrified. Ida sat down in the grass and began to cry. Henry groaned impatiently.
    “All you boys are mean as snakes,” I said, using one of Granny Muriel’s favorite euphemisms. “Come on, Ida. I’ll take you home.” I offered her my hand.
    She took it, and we set off in the direction we’d come. When we reached the great house, we were given a tongue lashing by her nanny, a