Clover (17 page)

It's a good thing Sara Kate is helping her out until Uncle Jim Ed gets back. He doesn't seem in a rush to get better. I think he enjoys going over to the Bells and watching all the baseball games on cable TV. The Bells have a satellite dish in their front yard that's bigger than their house.

“If you can drive a stick shift, you can drive a tractor, Miss Sara Kate,” said Gideon. He reached her a tractor key and showed her the gears. Sara Kate made only one mistake. She took the tractor out of gear when she stopped. Gideon stopped it from rolling into a gully.

I could have shown Sara Kate how to drive the tractor. Daniel could have, too. Nobody asked us, though.

Gideon has really put a fooling on Sara Kate. He has
fooled her into paying him some money every day he's worked. “I just need a little piece of money to tide me over until tomorrow, Miss Sara Kate,” he'd beg. Every day for a while, Gideon would complain that he didn't have a lick of bread, lard, fatback, or something in his house. When Sara Kate gave him money, the next day he couldn't come to work. Or, if he did, he couldn't pick peaches.

I knew there was trouble the morning he staggered up, tipped his cap to a stack of peach baskets, and said, “Good morning. How are you feeling this fine morning?” Gideon was hitting the bottle too hard to pick peaches.

Jim Ed knew better than to let him have money every day. He would just let him push his mouth into that ugly, juicy spout he always made, and get as mad as he wanted to. Sara Kate didn't know to do that.

Poor, poor Gideon. I guess he can't help himself. I will never forget when he was in that detox place, and Daniel and I didn't see Trixie, his little dog, anywhere. We knew Gideon would die if he came home and found out his dog was gone. So we went everywhere, calling “here Trixie, here Trixie.” We searched even in the dark. Trixie was nowhere to be found.

“We looked everywhere for Trixie,” we told Gideon when he came home, “but we couldn't find her. She must have run away.” “Dogs will run off sometimes,” was all Gideon said.

Later we found out that Gideon had sold Trixie for twenty dollars. He never said a word to us about what happened to his dog. One thing is for sure, he will never fool me again.

The swelling around Jim Ed's eyes is going down. You can finally see a little of his eyes peeping out through slits, like half-opened pea pods. One good thing, he can still see. Aunt Everleen took down the “Pick Your Own” sign. She is still burning up mad that it was some customer picking in the orchard who dumped the peaches on the ground where Jim Ed got stung. It was an awful thing for a person to do just because they happened upon a tree with bigger peaches. They had no right to pour out the ones they had. It made the act even worse when they happened to pick a tree that had yellow jacket nests under it.

I believe Everleen and Sara Kate are going to become friends. Everleen has started bragging about her a little bit. My sister-in-law did such and such, she'll say. Sara Kate takes up for her. Like with the golf thing. One day, Everleen sort of over-talked herself and led a fine lawyer to think she knew golf inside and out. Trapped, she was ashamed to admit she didn't play. She doesn't even know which end of a golf club to hit the ball with. So when the handsome lawyer asked her what her handicap was, she
had no idea what he was talking about. She sort of crossed her eyes and cast her what-on-earth-are-you-talking-about look. She looked down, and said real soft like, “I guess my handicap is my old arthritic left knee.” Everybody except Everleen started to laugh, but when Sara Kate hurriedly said, “Everleen has a great sense of humor, and such a sharp, keen wit,” then Everleen laughed, too.

After Jim Ed came back to the peach shed, Gideon straightened up and has been in the peach orchard every morning. Even things at home are going good. People are starting to drop by. People other than Jim Ed and Everleen. After the yellow jacket thing, they walk over almost every evening after we close the peach shed. They sit out under the big oaks in the front yard and talk until dark.

Gaten's hammock is still stretched between two of the trees. Sometimes Jim Ed will rest there until it's time to go home. It's almost like old times.

Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

© 1990 by Dori Sanders. All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-56512-716-6