Free Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith Page B

Brown writes them down in his notebook and then I feel like whatever I have said isnt mine any more, its a funny feeling.
    I thoght that Mister and Mrs. Brown have come here to live and run our school, and this is true, but they is considerable more to it than that I think. Mister Brown is a reglar card as Granny wuld say and a mistery to me. I have never seed the beat of Mister Brown.
    I will tell you one thing he done for an instance, now this was yesterday, he come out on the porch where me and Molly was stringing beans for Mrs. Brown and he brung the Bible too, I thoght, Oh no now he will preach, but insted he read out loud to Mrs. Brown like he was an acter.
    Mister Brown read, now this is outen the Bible mind you, Rise up my love my fair one and come away, for lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers apear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heerd in the land. I toled Molly, A turtle aint got no voice, for this is so. And we got to giggling and laghing so bad but we was trying not to, now it was hard. For Mister Brown was all wild and waving the Bible around. His forehead is big and white and peaky, it has lumps, you can tell he is so smart. He is real real thin.
    Then Mister Brown says, Thy lips Oh my spouse drop as the honeycomb, honey and milk are under thy tonge, and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. He is reading all this outen the Bible!
    Oh honnestly David, says Mrs. Brown. Do stop, you are embarassing the girls.
    But Mister Brown read that she is a garden inclosed and a spring shut up. You cant hardly tell if hes funning her or not.
    My word David, says Mrs. Brown. Oh my mercyful soul.
    You are a fountain sealed, he hollers, and with that she puts down the pan of beans and stands up and smooths out her skirt. Mrs. Browns cheek is as red as fire and little dark curls of hair springs up everwhere around her face. David, come inside for a minute, she says, and the way her face looks, you cant tell iffen she is real happy or real mad. Sometimes she just dont know what to do with him, this is clear. Sometimes Mister Brown actes like he is plum tetched in the head he is so crazy about her, but other times he gives her a lecture like she is still in school.
    He is considerable oldern Mrs. Brown. Molly says that Mister Brown was her teacher, this is how come them to meet in the first place, Mrs. Brown says he swep her offen her feet. Well this may be so, but sometimes now I think he will talk her to death. It is a funny thing to see Mrs. Brown in the schoolhouse and note how she keeps even them big boys like Claude Presnell and Monk Lester in line, and dont put up with no sass, and everbody dotes on her, and then to note how she actes at home with Mister Brown, how she is just like a little girl agin, it dont make no sense to me. She actes jolly and laghing and happy as a child, and does for him all the time. Why Mister Brown dont have to lift a finger, not even to chop up the wood for the cookstove. Green Pattersons boy comes and does it for them, now what do you all think of that?
    But they is other times too, and I will tell you one of them wich I seed with my own eyes, even iffen I wasnt supposed to. It was real early morning and I was up and listening to all the birds, Molly and me sleeps on pallets up ther in the loft it is like your plum up in the trees. They is a little winder what looks out on leaves and at nigt you look out into stars. So I wake up afore Molly ever day, and ever day the firstest thing I think is, now I have to go and milk old Bess, and then I rember wher I am and I dont. I lay ther and think of you All and of lots of things.
    But so this one morning I was just laying ther and I heerd Mister Brown in the kitchen going on and on, now it was too early in the morning for one of them lectures of hisn and anybody with any sense culd of told him so. But I heerd him going on and on, and on and on, and then