Free The Secret of the Dark by Barbara Steiner

if it pleased me.” Granny had heard Neal.
    Neal winked at me and I felt glad for the day, this time with him. There was a small pond in front of By Golly’s house. Ducks swam on it. Some kind of flower bloomed nearby and the air smelled sweet, buzzing with insects. A bird warbled overhead.
    â€œThat’s my old mockingbird over here,” Granny observed.
    â€œAnnie!” An old man, so tall and skinny I had to look way up to him, answered the door. He had a white fringe of hair round his head and his chin was covered with a white stubble of unshaved beard. He wore Oshkosh bib overalls and a plaid shirt. “By golly, Annie, yore a sight for sore eyes. “Bout time you came to visit me.” His blue eyes twinkled as he greeted Granny, hardly looking at Neal or me.
    â€œI misdoubt you missed me.” If Granny had any enthusiasm for seeing Mr. Talley again, she hid it.
    â€œAnnie like to broke my heart, by golly. I asked her to marry me over and over and all she said was she’d think on it”
    â€œI thought on it and decided you was an old fool, Hillard Talley. I’d rather live by myself. Now you hush up about it.”
    I covered my mouth to hide a smile although no one paid me any attention.
    â€œBy golly, ain’t she some woman? How are you, Neal?” Mr. Talley finally acknowledged that someone else was there besides Granny. “And who is this pretty child?”
    I was used to being called a child by now, even though I didn’t want Neal thinking of me that way.
    â€œThis is Granny’s friend from New York, Mr. Talley. LaRue’s stepdaughter, Valerie.”
    Mr. Talley shook tobacco from a tiny cloth bag onto a thin paper and rolled himself a cigarette. He lit it and smoked a few puffs before he said anything else. “Yeah. I heard LaRue got hitched up again. LaRue’s some woman, by golly. Takes after Annie, she does.”
    I started to see how Mr. Talley got his nickname. Then I laughed at a thought. What if Granny’s visitor had been Mr. Talley asking her to marry him? She might not want to tell me.
    â€œI brought your prescription, Mr. Talley,” Neal said. “We’d be pleased if you had time to play and sing for us, though. Valerie has never heard a jaw harp played.”
    I hoped By Golly wouldn’t be so high collared that he would say no. I smiled at my thought “I’d love to hear you play, Mr. Talley.”
    â€œWell, I reckon I could find a tune for two pretty girls. By golly, Annie, you’re prettier than ever. You sure you wouldn’t like to get hitched? Together we’d own the whole mountain, too. I betcha you still make the best cornbread in Arkansas.”
    â€œYou old fool.” Granny sat in a tall-backed rocker on By Golly’s porch while he kept teasing her. She just kept rocking. It was funny to think of the two getting married.
    By Golly threw away his cigarette and got out a small instrument from his front overall pocket. He held one end in his mouth. Twang, twang, twang . It gave off a noise not too far from a stretched-tight rubber band. Then he sang a song called “The Turkey Shivaree.” It had a lot of verses about some sailor sinking a ship by drilling holes in the bottom. Granny started humming before he finished but she didn’t join in the singing.
    Neal watched By Golly for a while, who’d play the jaw harp between each verse. Then Neal started looking at me till I had trouble paying attention to the music.
    â€œSing ‘Liddy Margaret,’ Hillard,” Granny suggested, ignoring By Golly’s nickname.
    â€œBy golly, you always did like that ’un, Annie.” He started off again and this time Granny joined in. It was about a woman with yaller hair who died and when her lover died he was buried beside her. Out of her grave grew a rose bush and out of his a briar.
    â€œThey grew to the top of the old church tower,
    Till they could not grow any