A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck Page A

you say so.” The sheriff and his posse were in retreat now. But he had to cover himself. “Mrs. Dowdel,” he said, pulling a long face, “they’s things I can overlook. But it seems to me you’re runnin’ a soup kitchen without a license from the Board of Health. I have an idea there’s a law against that on the books.”
    “Go look it up, O.B.,” Grandma said. “See if there’s a law against feeding the hungry. But I have to tell you, you’ve talked so long, the evidence is all ate up.”
    And of course it was. The drifters had wolfed down the last morsel. With a small finger, Mary Alice pointed out the bare platters. Only a faint scent of fried catfish lingered on the night air. The empty beer bottles went without saying.
    The drifters were moving off down the track, and thedeputies were heading back into town. O. B. Dickerson spit in the gravel, swung around, and followed them, his big boots grinding gravel.
    We stacked the platters and rounded up the beer bottles for Grandma’s next batch. I collapsed the legs on the card table. There wasn’t a lot of music in Grandma, but she was humming as we worked, and I thought I recognized the tune:
    The night that Paddy Murphy died
    I never shall forget. . . .
    Then after our quiet day in the country, we carried everything back across the road, under a silver-dollar moon.

The Day of Judgment

    1932
    “I don’t think Grandma’s a very good influence on us,” Mary Alice said. It had taken her a while to come to that conclusion, and I had to agree. It reconciled us some to our trips to visit her. Mary Alice was ten now. I believe this was the first year she didn’t bring her jump rope with her. And she no longer pitched a fit because she couldn’t take her best friends, Beverly and Audrey, to meet Grandma. “They wouldn’t understand,” Mary Alice said.
    We weren’t so sure Mother and Dad would either. Since we still dragged our heels about going, they didn’t notice we looked forward to the trip.
    The gooseberries were ripe when we got there that August. And come to find out, Grandma was famous for her gooseberry pies. Mary Alice and I were stemmingberries at the kitchen table that first morning. Grandma was supervising a pan of them on the stove. The gooseberries popped softly as they burst open in boiling water.
    Then somebody knocked on the front door. Grandma ran an arm across her forehead and started through the house. We’d have followed, but she said, “Keep at it.”
    When she came back, Mrs. L. J. Weidenbach, the banker’s wife, was right behind her. If she’d thought she was going to be asked to sit down, she had another think coming. Grandma returned to the stove, leaving Mrs. Weidenbach beached by the kitchen table, where she overlooked Mary Alice and me.
    She was big on top, though nowhere near as big as Grandma. But she had tiny feet, teetering in high-heeled shoes. The heat of the kitchen staggered her, but then people from Death Valley would have keeled over in Grandma’s kitchen.
    “Mrs. Dowdel, I am here on a mission,” she said, “and I’ll come right to the point.”
    “Do that,” Grandma said.
    “As you know, this is county fair week,” Mrs. Weidenbach said, “the annual opportunity for our small community to make its mark.”
    Grandma said nothing.
    “As you recall,” Mrs. Weidenbach said, “my bread-and-butter pickles have taken the blue ribbon every year since the fair recommenced after the Great War.”
    If Grandma recalled this, she showed no sign.
    “But my cucumbers this year haven’t been up to snuff, not worth the brine for pickling. How were yours?”
    “Didn’t put any in,” Grandma said.
    “Ah well, you were wise.” Mrs. Weidenbach’s forehead began to look slick. It wasn’t just the heat. “Mrs. Dowdel, I’ll come clean. I don’t think I better enter my bread-and-butter pickles this year, and I’m going to tell you why. The depression is upon us. Times are hard.”
    “They was never easy