Maud's Line by Margaret Verble Page B

Little hogs, though. Not big-hog season.” He said that with a tone of regret.
    â€œWell, they got even,” Lovely said.
    â€œHow’s that?”
    â€œKilled a dog and threw it on the kitchen table.”
    Mustard pursed his lips and trimmed the ash off the end of his cigarette. “Is that it?”
    â€œIt was pretty bad, Dad. Shot it in the head and slit its throat. Blood was everywhere. Ruined the tablecloth and Maud had to soak steel wool in vinegar and use it on a spot on the table where the blood leaked through.”
    Maud moved a plate. “Didn’t get it all. I think it’s gonna have to be sanded.”
    Mustard extended his hand and fingered the spot. “I can take care of that.”
    Lovely reached for the honey pot, dipped a spoon into it, and let the honey drip onto a biscuit. Watching the honey’s slow move, Maud recognized that she’d been expecting storming and threatening. Maybe her father figured one dog against four hogs and thought he’d gotten the better of the Mounts? She didn’t want to encourage more retaliation, so she said, “Thanks, Daddy. It wasn’t really all that bad. Was it, Lovely?”
    Lovely was as practiced as Maud at settling Mustard’s temper, and he hopped back into the conversation with “Naw. We used the tablecloth to lug him to the garden and buried him there. He’ll grow fat onions next season.”
    Mustard lowered his eyebrows and winced. Then he took a long drag and stumped his butt out in the tray. “The Mounts generally go up in their meanness, not down. Keep yer eyes wide fer something sneaky. One dog fer four hogs ain’t exactly enough.”

2
    Maud often found her uncle Ryde as difficult as a cow with a twitchy hind foot. But she conceded that he was the best square-dance caller around. Her job on the way to the dance was to protect his fiddle from his children. She rode in the back of his buckboard on a quilt with her cousins, Morgan, Renee, Sanders, and Andy, holding the instrument in her arms as if it were a baby. The sun was still shining on the potato plants and Maud’s back was against the west planks of the wagon bed where she was trying to stay squeezed into a little patch of shade. When they arrived at the schoolhouse rubble, Ryde stopped his horses in the middle of the line. He said fire was still burning under the ash and the only thing salvaged from the building was a book that had been locked in the safe because it was dirty.
    â€œWhat was its name?” Maud asked.
    â€œDon’t know. It’s about a bunch of people walking to church, telling each other tales. Some of ’em stories will scald you bald.”
    When the wagon started rolling again, Maud’s mind stayed on the dirty book. It tickled her to think about people telling naughty tales on the way to church, and she decided that if she saw Booker, which was her primary wish, she’d ask him if he was familiar with the book. As the wagon rolled along, the combination of naughtiness, literature, and Booker focused Maud’s attention like pollen focuses bees. She clutched the fiddle so tightly that it made creases on her arms.
    When Ryde pulled up at the dance corner, Maud was relieved to turn the instrument over and eager to walk the streets with Nan and her children. The town’s two drugstores, two cafés, and the Golden Rule Grocery excited her, but her favorite place of all was Taylor’s General Store. And that was where she, Nan, and her brood headed to first. Once they got there, Morgan ran off to play with other boys, and Renee was charged with minding Andy and Sanders out on the front porch. Maud and Nan went inside and marveled, fingered, and yearned so much that Maud temporarily forgot about looking for Booker. It wasn’t until they reemerged into long afternoon shadows that her mind once again veered to her main mission. By that time, the streets were filled with wagons, horses,