Free Whisper Town by Patricia Hickman Page B

worked, even though she rolled her eyes. “Let’s take it out back.”
    Angel yelled from the parlor, “Mrs. Bernard just pulled up.”
    Jeb led Fern out back past the clothesline with its colony of white flapping linens and over into a clearing. He showed Fern
     a tree he had used for target practice. “Hold your right arm straight and look down this sight with one eye. Then squeeze
     the trigger.”
    Fern lifted the pistol and aimed. When the gun fired, it caused the children to pour out onto the back porch while Florence
     Bernard shouted, “My lands!”
    Jeb stepped out the distance between Fern and the tree and then studied the fresh notch he found. “Wrong tree, but you did
     hit one.”
    “I might be a little rusty. Hand guns are different than rifles.”
    “It’s like picking off possums in a tree hole, Miss Coulter,” said Willie.
    “Jeb’s let me shoot it a few times, Miss Coulter. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the Dillingers and you handle the driving,”
     said Angel.
    “That’d be a sight to see,” said Willie.
    Angel watched through the car window as Jeb and Fern said their good-byes. Jeb kept moving a tendril of hair away from Fern’s
     eyes, and then hugging her. Jeb finally walked Fern around to the side of their house, out of sight of all of them and, most
     likely, away from Florence Bernard’s prying eyes.
    “It seems that our minister’s finally gained ground with the schoolteacher,” said Florence. She already had her knitting out
     and worked on it from her cramped space in the rear of Fern’s car. “Has he said anything about marriage, or can you say?”
    “I can’t say,” said Angel.
    Florence laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they hauled off and got married soon.”
    “Miss Coulter hasn’t said one way or another. Jeb don’t tell me anything. When he’s not with her, he’s got his head in a book.”
    “Reverend sure seems to be enamored of her. Here they come,” said Florence.
    Jeb walked Fern to her side of the automobile. He opened her door and helped her to get situated. “Angel, you take care with
     that pistol,” he told her.
    “It’s hidden under my seat and the safety’s on. I’m sure we won’t need it,” said Angel.
    “God forbid.” Florence never looked up from her knitting.
    Fern and Jeb made a couple of sappy comments, in Angel’s estimation, and then he closed her door.
    Fern watched him walk all the way back to the front porch. “I miss him already,” she said.
    “We got tuna fish for lunch. I’ve never been to Oklahoma,” said Angel.
    “Is it pretty this time of year where your folks live?” asked Florence.
    “Ardmore’s a lot like here, only in the summer it’s far more hot. This time of year, I’d say it’s chilly of a morning and
     nice in the afternoon.”
    Angel watched the parsonage disappear into the woods. She worried for Myrtle and then for Willie and Ida May. But she worried
     more for Jeb, who seemed lost without the help of a woman.
    Jeb drove Willie and Ida May to school. They missed the early bell, but promised they’d make up the time with their teachers.
     Before Ida May disappeared into the school building with her brother, Jeb noticed she wore bright red socks. He had seen Angel
     wearing them to bed on cold nights but never with her school dresses. Ida May must have dug them out of her sister’s things
     after she drove away. It was too late to make her change now, and to worry after a girl’s fashions was not on his list of
     things to manage.
    Myrtle slept quietly in her basket on the truck seat. With the addition of the big laundry basket in the cab, Willie and Ida
     May were forced to ride to school in the truck bed. They most likely would not complain over that arrangement until winter
     had come full-blown. By then, Jeb prayed that the mother of this baby would show herself or at least that someone would ask
     after her.
    Wednesday night would be the second time he brought Myrtle to prayer