"Thank goodness, he's outta sight. Come on in, Ned. I'd better measure up your oil. Now, where'd I set that can?"

"Here 'tis, Mister Jodie."

I fell asleep, or something, for the next I heard was Papa yelling at some man and a big blamming racket that sounded like chairs falling over.

"You're a fool for thinking up such a notion! A plain fool! I ain't gonna let you have money to set up no whiskey still! I don't care who you threaten!"

I raised up to see who Papa was calling a fool.

It was Mister Ward!

"G.o.d d.a.m.n! It wouldn't take no heap to get me my copper cooker! Folks'd never suspicion nothin' neither, you bein' a church-goin' man-Miss Nannie's husband, to boot. Ever'-body knows she's purt nigh a walkin' saint!"

"Ward Lawson, don't call my wife's name when you're talking whiskey, cussing every breath!"

"You tryin' to tell me how to talk? You goody-goody church deacon!"

"You'd better go on home, Ward, and-"

"'Fore Chris'mas I could pay you back! Whiskey sells quick!

Good money in it! Why, I'd pay up what's done charged on your store books! Think o' that!"

"I told you no, Ward! I mean it!"

Mister Ward hauled off and hit Papa so quick it knocked him down! He straightened up and gave him back a big wallop!

"This ain't nothing to fight over, Ward!"

"I ain't gonna fight. I'm just gonna knock h.e.l.l outta you!"

Next minute they were down in the middle of the floor, fighting like all get out, rolling over and over! Both of them jumped up! Down on the floor they sprawled again-but just for a second. Mister Ward leaped behind the heater, but Papa went at him and started banging him to pieces! Mister Ward grabbed Papa's arms and threw him against the wall. His head hit the side of the phone, and he slid to the floor, blood running out of his nose!

Mister Ward jumped on Papa! More blood came streaking across his face from a gash by his ear!

I had to do something!

I thought of the time Mama dashed cold water on some fighting dogs to make them quit, so I ran for the water bucket. The thing was slam empty! Then I saw the coal oil drum. I s.n.a.t.c.hed the measuring can off its hook and dipped up all the oil it would hold!

By the time I could get to Papa and Mister Ward, Papa was just lying on the floor doing nothing! And Mister Ward was astraddle of him, beating his head with both fists!

Mister Ward hadn't seen me, so I ran up close and splashed the oil on him! I didn't mean for it to go in his eyes and ears, but that's where it all landed. He screamed and grabbed at his face!

"G.o.d A'mighty! You little devil! Tryin' to blind me?"

He jumped up. Before I could run around the heater, he yanked up a chair and threw it at me. I ducked. The chair crashed against the stovepipe and it fell tumbling from the ceiling. Two joints. .h.i.t right across Mister Ward's shoulders; the other rolled toward Papa. Soot flew everywhere. But not on me! I was already under the candy counter.

Papa was coming to. He caught hold of the piece goods counter and dragged himself to his feet. But quick as Mister Ward could kick the stovepipe out of his way, he rammed his head at Papa's stomach and tried to knock him down again.

Papa jumped to one side and whirled back around. He leaped at Mister Ward, giving him a shove that sent him skidding through the front door and out onto the porch!

"Get out, you drunken wretch!"

Mister Ward scrambled to his knees, then up to his feet, and staggered back toward us. To keep from falling he had to grab hold of the door facing.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n you, Mister Jodie! You'll pay for this! I'll get both y'all! Ain't no little bowlegged witch gonna put my eyes out and get away with it!"

I was afraid he was coming right back inside, but he didn't.

He sort of shook himself and stumbled out to his horse. He had a hard time climbing into the saddle, but, when he finally made it, he turned round and shouted at Papa: "You gonna rue the day your little witch was born!"

Chapter 3

When Protracted Meeting time came, it was like Preaching Sunday every day, morning and night. G.o.d willing, it would go on two full weeks, Brother Milligan said.

Getting to put on my frilly, thin dresses and my best bloomers and two starched underskirts and new white ribbed stockings was fun. But having to squeeze my feet into shoes and then sit still on a church bench two times a day was awful.

Everybody in Drake Eye Springs dressed up in Sunday clothes and came to the meeting; that is, everybody except the Baileys and the Lawsons. Mama said Mister Wes Bailey and Miss Lida Belle were sure making a mistake, not bringing Addie Mae and their three boys. Everybody had known beforehand that Ward Lawson wouldn't darken the church door or hitch up a wagon so Miss Ophelia, their young'uns, and Miss d.i.n.k could attend services.

During the second week of the meeting, we were late getting off to church one night because, while Mama and Papa were getting dressed, they whispered so long about Mister Ward. Papa was real bothered about something Mister Ward might do. And Mama kept saying, "Jodie, please don't you do anything drastic! You'd just make bad matters a heap worse."

Papa slipped on his good shirt and told her, "What gets my goat is that he's started telling all over the settlement that I didn't fight him fair and square. Says I yelled for the baby to pour that coal oil on him. That makes me so mad I could kill him!

To hear him tell it, I started the fight. He's h.e.l.l-bent on getting revenge!"

"Shh, Jodie, don't forget who's sitting right behind you, b.u.t.toning up her shoes."

That was me. And I was having a hard time with my shoes.

"Mama, can I go barefooted tonight? Just one time?"

"Not to Protracted Meeting!"

So I wore my squeezing shoes again.

Mama said I could get a lot out of the meeting if I'd only listen to what was going on. I tried listening, but I didn't get a thing. I found out, though, that at the night services, when Brother Milligan finally got through preaching and stepped down in front of the pulpit and said, "The doors of this church are now open," it didn't mean we could all walk out the door and go home! It meant the time had come for the bad sinners to go to the mourners' bench with their heads hanging down. Everybody else would stand up and sing the song about "Poor sinner, harden not your heart ... and close thine eyes against the Light." We'd sing it over and over for them-four or five times.

Some nights half a dozen would go up the aisle and shake the preacher's hand. He'd ask them if they believed in Jesus and wanted to be baptized and join the church, and each one would nod his head. They would then sit down on the bench, and everybody except me would be glad and happy.

While we sang another song, the grownups who already belonged to the church would line up and shake hands with the sinners.

That, the preacher said, was "giving the right hand of Christian fellowship."

Other nights n.o.body would even look toward the mourners'

bench, no matter how loud the preacher called them to come or how long we sang. Those nights we got to go home early, and that made me glad and happy.

Every night I got sleepy. The last night of meeting, I tried to get Mama to let me go lie down on the quilts where all the babies were sleeping, but she said I was much too big to be sprawled out on the floor by the side of the pulpit.

Yet, the very next minute, when I told her I wanted to go sit on the mourners' bench so I could get baptized in the swimming hole down at Rocky Head Creek, she said I was too little for that.

I decided I'd never be the right size at the right time.

Summer dragged on and on. One morning in late August, a very good thing happened to me. Grandma Ming made a new flour-sack Dolly Dimple for me. She was pretty-the grandest doll ever stuffed with cotton, Grandpa Thad told me.

When I ran home to show her to Mama, I thought she would meet me out on the front porch and say, "Ah, Bandershanks, what's your new dolly's name?" Then, I was going to say, "Sookie Sue!"