Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

sister left for Kentucky, Alexander came courting Eula, if courting was the right word. There had been no long buggy rides in the country, nor any chaperoned picnics under the elms with Alex. He sat with her one time at the church social and the next she knew, Old Ben told her that a McNaughton had asked for her hand. She really didn’t need her mother’s constant reminders of how lucky she was to have escaped spinsterhood, especially since her twenty-second birthday was just six months away. Eula needed no prodding. She knew she was fortunate that a good-looking man had wanted her. Though the McNaughtons were just a notch above piss-poor, Alexander was more mannerable than her brothers. Better still, she had quickly understood the rules of their marriage from the outset.
    Her husband had needed a good manager for his farm, and she had provided that and more. It took her no time to anticipate his every need before the thought came into his head. Even when she knew his decisions were wrong-headed, like the time he bought a lame racehorse with most of their year’s tobacco money only to have to destroy the animal four months later, Eula held her tongue and stretched the two months’ worth of winter supplies into four. Since she never talked back to Alex, nor disobeyed his orders, he had never raised a hand against her like Eula was sure Ben Roy had done to Fedora. She would love Alexander McNaughton forever, no matter what might come between them, because he had shown her his tender side when he held her in his arms all night after their baby girl had been born dead.
    If there had been any problems between herself and Alexander, Eula would never discuss them with Fedora, though Ben Roy’s wife was the closest in age and sibling order to herself. Even though Fedora always did act more Thornton than the blood Thorntons, and commanded the other females to confide in her, Eula never dared chance that discussion. She admired her sister-in-law for many things, but she never liked to confront her on anything because the outspoken woman always had to have the last say.
    “Eula, how ’bout those peaches?” Jenny, a cousin on Eula’s father’s side, asked as she took two dried Mason jars from Eula’s young niece. “Tillie, get over there and check on your aunt and them peaches.”
    “Hey, Jenny,” Fedora’s sharp voice snapped through the kitchen. “You ought to know by now that Eula is the best cook in the Thornton family. Because she don’t have a hired girl, she’s got more practice than the rest of us put together.” Fedora kept her eyes on the apple in her hand. “Them peaches will be ready when Eula says they are. If you want to get yo’self out of here before the chickens go to roost, we’d all better stick to our own jobs.”
    In some ways Fedora had the kind of manner that Eula envied. Her older brother’s wife said what she thought when she thought it, and she never bothered to put a sugar coating on it. Eula remembered how pleased her father had been when Ben Roy announced, proud as a fightin’ cock, that Fedora had agreed to marry him. The bride-elect had been fair-to-middling pretty with her straight, dark brown hair and eyes that slanted just a bit like an Indian’s. Fedora was low to the ground, though you would never know it by the way she bossed every Thornton woman, and half the Thornton men. Ben Roy bragged on catching Fedora, but Eula always thought it should have been the other way around. Her brother, by himself, inherited half of their father’s six hundred and forty acres.
    “Tillie, take these apples on over to your aunt.” Belle Thornton, wife of Eula’s younger brother, Jessie Roy, commanded her niece.
    Eula dipped the spoon back into the low-simmering pot of peaches for a second sampling. She held out the spoon to offer Tillie a taste only to see her niece’s eyes grow wide and the recent bride’s face blanch white. Grabbing at her stomach, Tillie turned and ran through the kitchen and disappeared beyond the dining room door.
    “If you asked me,” Belle slid the rubber seal around the necks of the Mason jars as they came at her in assembly-line fashion, “I’d say she’s in a family way. Wasn’t that wedding in June?”
    Eula buried her gasp in the steaming pot of cubed apples. Cora cleared her throat. It didn’t take long for Fedora to pounce.
    “Are you counting the months since my girl’s wedding, Belle Thornton?” Fedora’s eyes flamed.
    “I ain’t