them lay on your tongue and they just melt away into nothingness. What all this does is let you get a feel for what your food really tastes like. Sometimes itâs a treat for your tastebuds, making them come alive and tingle. Sometimes itâs not. Like these tastes today, although the food looks good, it turns out to be nothing special to the tastebuds. But thatâs just the chance you have to take in chewing on your food real good, like me taking a chance on coming down to Nathan. And I wonder whether Iâll come alive and tingle or if Iâll just melt away into nothingness.
âIâm from Blacksburg, just a few miles down the road,â Mrs. Krieger says, making polite conversation, the kind Idonât like because it stops dead end with me. I like talk that goes somewhere, the kind Caldwell and I do when I go over to his house next door. Caldwell and me, we talk about everything under the sun and on top of it, too, and although we donât even agree on most things, at least weâll hear each other out.
Iâm going to miss Caldwell more than I miss anyone, besides Aunt Lona. Caldwell keeps getting more and more feeble even though heâs no older than I am, and sits in a wheelchair all day because he got polio when he was a child. He says itâs the Lordâs will that he got struck down like this. I say itâs because his mama didnât get him a polio shot. Then he just squirms around in his chair and says in his long, drawn-out talk, âWell-1-1, you know, now, that was the Lordâs will, too, you know.â I like Caldwell an awful lot, even if he does blame everything on the Lord. He just got that honest, from his parents, like everybody else in Littleton.
Before Iâm even halfway finished eating, everyone else is already through and beginning to drift out when I look around and see what must be âthe Jewel.â Lord, sheâs something to behold, with that dark complexion, that kind of skin just like Mama is always looking long and hard at, âadmiring,â she says, and thereâre her brown-black eyes big and round as a heiferâs, and her crowning gloryâa long, sleek, brown ponytail swishing back and forth, the shiny mane just brushing the top of her rump. Her golden earrings, littleround circles clamped on her ears, look like they came with her when she was born.
The Jewel doesnât look at anyone or anything as she saunters, carrying her tray over to the food wagon. She walks as if sheâs been trained how to step, just like cattle at a judging show at the county fair. Just like maybe her mother raised her using one of those long sticks with a nail in the end of it, punching at her feet when she veered out of step. She looks as unconcerned as the cattle, too, like thereâs no one around here except her and sheâs enough. I wonder if she ever earned any blue ribbons for her mama.
Blue-ribbon girl. That was my trademark growing up, I won so many blue ribbons for Mama, mostly on dresses at the county fair, dresses she made from scratch drawing up her own patterns. And if modeling at the fair was not enough, I had to practice prissing around in front of Daddy, too.
âTurn around, Lizabeth, and let your daddy see you in the back,â sheâd say. And that was okay up until I was about ten, but when I got to be twelve or thirteen and was still turning around in front of Daddy, I couldnât help it, my shoulders curled around, my bottom squeezed together, my legs turned stiff.
I think even Daddy got to feeling uncomfortable too, taking on over me, or the dress, or Mama, whatever it was heâs supposed to be taking on over. So he got to where hedidnât say much of anything, just kind of nodded his head and mumbled, âUm-huh, pretty.â
âWell! Who needs your approval to get a blue ribbon, anyway?â Mama would sass, never once coming anywhere near thinking that maybe Daddy was as embarrassed
âIâm from Blacksburg, just a few miles down the road,â Mrs. Krieger says, making polite conversation, the kind Idonât like because it stops dead end with me. I like talk that goes somewhere, the kind Caldwell and I do when I go over to his house next door. Caldwell and me, we talk about everything under the sun and on top of it, too, and although we donât even agree on most things, at least weâll hear each other out.
Iâm going to miss Caldwell more than I miss anyone, besides Aunt Lona. Caldwell keeps getting more and more feeble even though heâs no older than I am, and sits in a wheelchair all day because he got polio when he was a child. He says itâs the Lordâs will that he got struck down like this. I say itâs because his mama didnât get him a polio shot. Then he just squirms around in his chair and says in his long, drawn-out talk, âWell-1-1, you know, now, that was the Lordâs will, too, you know.â I like Caldwell an awful lot, even if he does blame everything on the Lord. He just got that honest, from his parents, like everybody else in Littleton.
Before Iâm even halfway finished eating, everyone else is already through and beginning to drift out when I look around and see what must be âthe Jewel.â Lord, sheâs something to behold, with that dark complexion, that kind of skin just like Mama is always looking long and hard at, âadmiring,â she says, and thereâre her brown-black eyes big and round as a heiferâs, and her crowning gloryâa long, sleek, brown ponytail swishing back and forth, the shiny mane just brushing the top of her rump. Her golden earrings, littleround circles clamped on her ears, look like they came with her when she was born.
The Jewel doesnât look at anyone or anything as she saunters, carrying her tray over to the food wagon. She walks as if sheâs been trained how to step, just like cattle at a judging show at the county fair. Just like maybe her mother raised her using one of those long sticks with a nail in the end of it, punching at her feet when she veered out of step. She looks as unconcerned as the cattle, too, like thereâs no one around here except her and sheâs enough. I wonder if she ever earned any blue ribbons for her mama.
Blue-ribbon girl. That was my trademark growing up, I won so many blue ribbons for Mama, mostly on dresses at the county fair, dresses she made from scratch drawing up her own patterns. And if modeling at the fair was not enough, I had to practice prissing around in front of Daddy, too.
âTurn around, Lizabeth, and let your daddy see you in the back,â sheâd say. And that was okay up until I was about ten, but when I got to be twelve or thirteen and was still turning around in front of Daddy, I couldnât help it, my shoulders curled around, my bottom squeezed together, my legs turned stiff.
I think even Daddy got to feeling uncomfortable too, taking on over me, or the dress, or Mama, whatever it was heâs supposed to be taking on over. So he got to where hedidnât say much of anything, just kind of nodded his head and mumbled, âUm-huh, pretty.â
âWell! Who needs your approval to get a blue ribbon, anyway?â Mama would sass, never once coming anywhere near thinking that maybe Daddy was as embarrassed
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