Lovey Mary
Copyright© 2024 by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Chapter 9: Labor Day
“And cloudy the day, or stormy the night,
The sky of her heart was always bright.”
“It wouldn’t s’prise me none if we had cyclones an’ tornadoes by evenin’, it looks so thundery outdoors.”
It was inconsiderate of Miss Hazy to make the above observation in the very face of the most elaborate preparations for a picnic, but Miss Hazy’s evil predictions were too frequent to be effective.
“I’ll scurry round an’ git another loaf of bread,” said Mrs. Wiggs, briskly, as she put a tin pail into the corner of the basket. “Lovey Mary, you put in the eggs an’ git them cookies outen the stove. I promised them boys a picnic on Labor Day, an’ we are goin’ if it snows.”
“Awful dangerous in the woods when it storms,” continued Miss Hazy. “I heared of a man oncet that would go to a picnic in the rain, and he got struck so bad it burned his shoes plump off.”
“Must have been the same man that got drownded, when he was little, fer goin’ in swimmin’ on Sunday,” answered Mrs. Wiggs, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Mebbe ‘t was,” said Miss Hazy.
Lovey Mary vibrated between the door and the window, alternating between hope and despair. She had set her heart on the picnic with the same intensity of desire that had characterized her yearning for goodness and affection and curly hair.
“I believe there is a tiny speck more blue,” she said, scanning the heavens for the hundredth time.
“Course there is!” cried Mrs. Wiggs, “an’ even if there ain’t, we’ll have the picnic anyway. I b’lieve in havin’ a good time when you start out to have it. If you git knocked out of one plan, you want to git yerself another right quick, before yer sperrits has a chance to fall. Here comes Jake an’ Chris with their baskets. Suppose you rench off yer hands an’ go gether up the rest of the childern. I ‘spect Billy’s done hitched up by this time.”
At the last moment Miss Hazy was still trying to make up her mind whether or not she would go. “Them wheels don’t look none too stiddy fer sich a big load,” she said cautiously.
“Them wheels is a heap sight stiddier than your legs,” declared Mrs.
Wiggs.
“An’ there ain’t a meeker hoss in Kentucky than Cuby. He looks like he might ‘a’ belonged to a preacher ‘stid of bein’ a broken-down engine- hoss.”
An unforeseen delay was occasioned by a heated controversy between
Lovey Mary and Tommy concerning the advisability of taking Cusmoodle.
“There ain’t more than room enough to squeeze you in, Tommy,” she said, “let alone that fat old duck.”
“‘T ain’t a fat old duck.”
“‘T is, too! He sha’n’t go. You’ll have to stay at home yourself if you can’t be good.”
“I feel like I was doin’ to det limber,” threatened Tommy.
Mrs. Wiggs recognized a real danger. She also knew that discretion was the better part of valor. “Here’s a nice little place up here by me, jes big enough fer you an’ Cusmoodle. You kin set on the basket; it won’t mash nothin’. If we’re packed in good an’ tight, can’t none of us fall out.”
When the last basket was stored away, the party started off in glee, leaving Miss Hazy still irresolute in the doorway, declaring that “she almost wisht she had ‘a’ went.”
The destination had not been decided upon, so it was discussed as the wagon jolted along over the cobblestones.
“Let’s go out past Miss Viny’s,” suggested Jake; “there’s a bully woods out there.”
“Aw, no! Let’s go to Tick Creek an’ go in wadin’.”
Mrs. Wiggs, seated high above the party and slapping the reins on Cuba’s back, allowed the lively debate to continue until trouble threatened, then she interfered:
“I think it would be nice to go over to the cemetery. We’d have to cross the city, but when you git out there there’s plenty of grass an’ trees, an’ it runs right ‘longside the river.”
The proximity of the river decided the matter.
“I won’t hardly take a swim!” said Jake, going through the motions, to the discomfort of the two little girls who were hanging their feet from the back of the wagon.
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