Small Town Girl by Ann H. Gabhart

around except for the kitchen. “Mr. Preston never spent no time in the kitchen. He won’t notice I put up new curtains. It’s plumb amazing what some red checked curtains will do for a room.”
    Some Rosey Corner people thought it wasn’t exactly proper, Aunt Hattie living in one of the biggest houses in the little town. They thought she ought to have given it over to Kate’s family, who were squeezed up in a house half its size. All four sisters had to sleep in the same bedroom with barely enough room to get around the two beds to pull the covers straight. But Kate was relieved that Grandfather Merritt hadn’t told them to live in the house. She couldn’t imagine getting up in the morning here and singing Lorena’s name song. Or reading romantic stories or writing poems about the sunshine streaking down through the trees in Lindell Woods. Sometimes the Lord blessed a person by letting her keep what she had.
    That didn’t mean a person always got what she wanted. She heard Mike laughing out on the porch. She loved hislaugh. She loved the way he was always saying the Lord meant for his children to have a good time. That the Bible advised Christians to have a merry heart. She liked the way he listened to old Mr. Johnson with fresh attention, even though he’d heard his stories a hundred times. She loved the way he didn’t condemn her father or Graham when they didn’t show up at church every Sunday but simply said a man could worship on the outside of a church the same as the inside. She admired the way he was so close to the Lord that sometimes when she was reading about King David in the Bible she was seeing Mike’s face. He was a man after the Lord’s own heart. He’d already won hers.
    And Evie’s. From the first Sunday he preached at Rosey Corner Baptist Church. Naturally, Evie had won out. Evie always won out. She had the looks. Kate had the backbone, but guys went for looks, not backbone. Even guys like Mike. Maybe especially guys like Mike who deserved the best.
    She certainly didn’t deserve the best. Somebody who would yearn after her sister’s beau. Kate tightened her mouth and bent down to wipe a glob of icing up off the floor. She was going to block all thoughts like that of Mike out of her mind. Forever. He was Evie’s husband now. Her brother by marriage and by Christian love. That was how she would think of him from this moment on—as a brother. That was all. She had the backbone. She could do whatever she set her mind to do. And she was going to set her mind to be very happy for Evie and for Mike.
    “I think everybody has cake now, Kate,” Mrs. Patterson said after Kate stood back up from cleaning the floor. “You go on out and join the young people. Us old ladies will clean up in here.” She smiled and gave Kate a knowing look. “That Carl has peered in the door a dozen times and we know who he’s looking for, don’t we?” She picked up the remains of the cake and laughed as she started toward the kitchen. “No needin letting a few dirty dishes stand in the way of romance. No need at all.”
    Kate wanted to tell her she’d rather wash a cabinet full of dishes than entertain romantic thoughts about Carl, but she bit back the words. Carl was Mrs. Patterson’s great-nephew. In her eyes, he was a prize catch. She thought Kate was lucky to have a boy like Carl making goggle eyes at her. Maybe she was. Kate sighed as she grabbed a napkin to wipe off her hands. Maybe Carl was the best she could hope for here in Rosey Corner.
    She turned toward the door and spotted Grandfather Merritt’s hat again and thought of him way out in Oregon. Miles and miles from Rosey Corner. A little thrill went through Kate as she imagined the world beyond Rosey Corner. She could be like her grandfather and go somewhere, explore places she’d only read about in books. She could go on to school. Not some business school that taught shorthand and typing like the one Evie had gone to. But to college where the