The Heart Remembers by Peggy Gaddis

comp’ny with you, Jim. I’m real pleased to meet you, Miss Kimbrough.”
    Her warm friendliness was as enveloping as a bright wrap on a cold day, and Shelley reacted to it with a little glow.
    â€œThank you, Mrs.—”
    Aunt Hettie laughed richly, warmly.
    â€œNot Mrs., honey. Miss Jenkins. I never found myself a man, somehow,” she chuckled. And then she glared at Bud, who squirmed a little. “And now that I’ve had time to look over some of the specimens other women found, I see how lucky I am.”
    â€œAnd you’ll help Miss Kimbrough out, Aunt Hettie?” Jim was plainly anxious to be gone.
    â€œWell, now, Jim, did you ever know me to fail a neighbor? Certainly I’ll help her out. I’ll be plumb glad to. Get out, child, and let Jim get on with taking old No-Good to jail, where he belongs,” said Aunt Hettie briskly. “You and me can go back to town in my old Lizzie.”
    Bud was obviously deeply relieved when Jim turned the station wagon, headed back toward the road and said over his shoulder to Shelley, “I’ll pick you up at the shop about six.”
    As the station wagon rattled away, Aunt Hettie sighed and shook her head.
    â€œI declare, it would be a right nice world if there wasn’t so many Bud Livelys in it! Folks in these parts was plum overjoyed when the Army caught him and sent him off to a camp up North. Annie and theyoung ’uns got a check from the government every blessed month and had everything they needed and it was plumb nice to watch ’em. But the Army didn’t keep him more’n six or seven months and sent him right back with his discharge papers. Even they wouldn’t be bothered with him, bad as they needed soldiers.”
    â€œFrom what I saw of the service, men like Bud Lively were a liability, where assets were badly needed,” Shelley admitted.
    â€œMen like Bud Lively are liabilities anywhere, any time, anyhow,” said Aunt Hettie grimly, as she whipped off her apron. She went on in a different tone, “I’ll be ready in a minute, child. You’ll be wanting to get to work.”
    And five minutes later, Shelley was gazing in honest awe at an ancient wreck of a car that Aunt Hettie was proudly piloting out of the barn. It was a 1929 Ford, its two front fenders fastened to the body with baling wire. It shook and shivered and protested loudly in every joint. Its tires were solid, so that every bump on the by no means smooth road was felt to an excruciating degree.
    Aunt Hettie sat bolt upright to drive, her hands gripping the wheel tightly, and drove with a concentrated attention that did not detract in the least from her feeling of delighted importance.
    â€œLizzie ain’t much for looks,” she confessed. “But she gets me where I want to go and back again, and that’s what’s important to me.”
    Shelley couldn’t answer for a moment, because just then they ran over a small log at the edge of the road and Shelley went up in the air and banged her head painfully on the top of the car, biting her tongue. But Aunt Hettie was not a bit disconcerted and chattered gaily.
    â€œKinda funny. Harbour Pines having a newspaper again,” she was saying cheerfully as they reached thelittle house and went up the walk. “I remember when the old paper shut down. Folks that run it was mighty nice. I always liked Mis’ Newton real well, and you coulda knocked me over with a feather when they carted Mr. Newton off to jail. Folks around here was mighty hard to convince that he was a thief, but I reckon them folks at the courthouse had so much evidence they just had to believe it. Always thought myself, though, that there was a heap back of the whole business that never did come out during the trial, ner afterwards.”
    Shelley lowered her head, and pretended to be estimating the work to be done, so that she could conceal the little wave of sick emotion that swept