Way Down Deep by Ruth White Page B

had said, while the irises were a very light blue.
    â€œ!!—” Cedar started to swear at sight of the lady, but instead clamped both hands over his mouth, and held them there.
    Granny Butler seemed not to notice.
    â€œRuby June!” she said, grinning all over. “I knew you were coming!”
    â€œHow did you know, Granny Butler?”
    â€œAristotle told me last night when I was trying to go to sleep. He told me that somebody’s coming to see me tomorrow. Then he said, ‘Guess whoo? Whoo?’
    â€œAnd I said to him, ‘I can’t imagine. Whoo? Whoo?’
    â€œAnd he said back to me, “Rooo-beee Jooo-oon.’ ”
    â€œBut I didn’t know myself until this morning,” Ruby said.
    â€œWell, what can I say? Aristotle is the wisest of the wise.”
    â€œWho’s Aristotle?” Cedar wanted to know.
    â€œHe’s a smart old white owl,” Ruby said.
    Granny Butler adjusted her glasses and squinted at the boys. “Who you got there with you?”
    Ruby introduced Peter and Cedar to Granny Butler, and she motioned for the three of them to follow her around to the back of the cabin, toward the springhouse, where she kept her honey cool.
    A narrow path snaked through tall tufts of broom straw and dropped out of sight over the edge of the hill. Ruby, Peter, and Cedar followed Granny Butler single file.
    â€œAnd where y’all from?” she called over her shoulder to Peter and Cedar.
    â€œYonder Mountain in Virginia,” Peter replied. “We just moved to Way Down Deep yesterday.”
    â€œOh, I reckon it was your daddy who tried to rob the bank?”
    Ruby could see Peter’s ears turning red.
    â€œHe wadn’t serious or nothing,” Cedar explained. “He had a toy gun.”
    â€œI know it,” Granny Butler said. “Ripple the red fox told me all about it. He was stealing eggs from Mayor Chambers’s henhouse when he overheard the mayor and his wife through the open kitchen window, talking. Ripple got so excited, he streaked away and forgot the eggs. So he came to me begging for supper that night.”
    â€œA **!! fox told you?” Cedar cried out with disbelief. “Owls telling you stuff. Foxes talking to you. That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard!”
    Granny Butler came to an abrupt standstill, causing the threesome to tumble all over each other. The old woman swung her body around to face Cedar. For a long moment she gazed at him, and Cedar seemed to wilt like a morning glory at high noon.
    â€œYoung man, you are going to meet somebody,” Granny Butler said to him, “who will set you straight about your bad mouth. And you will be wise to listen.”
    Then she went on as if nothing had happened. Cedar followed with his chin on his chest.
    Granny Butler’s springhouse was located down in a small hollow under a cluster of trees. When she opened the door, a whiff of cold air rose up from inside, laden with the odor of wet earth and toadstools. She carefully descended three broken steps and tiptoed around the edge of the spring inside.
    â€œHow much you want today?” she said to Ruby.
    â€œEight pints,” Ruby said.
    â€œI’ll reach them up to you,” Granny Butler said, “so you won’t have to come down in here.”
    She took a pint of honey from a shelf in the wall and handed it up the steps.
    â€œThe bees send their greetings. They made this special for Ruby June. And lucky for you, I’m running a sale this week—buy one, get one free.”
    â€œThat’s good news,” Ruby said as she removed an empty jar from Peter’s rucksack and replaced it with the full one. “A quarter a pint, right?”
    â€œOh, no,” Granny replied, as she peeped around the doorframe, holding the second jar. “I had to go up to fifty cents a pint. That’s the only way I can afford to run a buy-one-get-one-free sale.”
    As Granny