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Show 96 "Lord, lord," Aunt Grace threw her hands in the air, "you should have seen us! There we were, a tearin' down the Old Walland Road, me snapping the reins and yee-hawing at the top of my lungs . . ." Miss Mary made a sharp cracking sound with her hands. "That's just how it was!" Aunt Grace laughed. "Brownie made it onto the bridge, but the cart didn't. Over it went and out we went." "Were you hurt?" Dyna asked. "We had to get the doctor for Miss Mary-" the words brought Aunt Grace back to the present and her face grew sober. "I remember how I felt afterwards. About the way you do tonight, Dyna." Miss Mary signed to Dyna that most of their mischief was instigated by Grace. "Not always," Aunt Grace picked up her needle again. "The time we skipped Baptist circle and went down to watch them throwing chickens out of Proffitt's Department Store windows. You suggested that." This story Dyna hadn't heard. In spite of herself, she leaned forward, eager to hear about Miss Mary's devilment. "Teh, we were grown then," Miss Mary said, like that didn't count. "We may have been, but Papa wouldn't speak to us for a week after." "Why'd they throw chickens out of the window?" Dyna decided her own childhood paled next to the mums'. Aunt Grace pushed her glasses up on her nose. "It was the Depression. Some places they killed pigs, or poured milk on the ground. The farmers were protestin', In Maryville, Proffitt's store threw chickens and geese out of the second story window?." "Were they killed?" Dyna didn't like that dumb kind of protest. "Heavens, no. Must have been two hundred people there to catch 'em." Dyna laughed as she envisioned Miss Mary leaping in the air after the feisty geese. Glub-Glub wouldn't have stood for it! Just then they heard Oscar's footsteps on the porch and Dyna bit her lip. It wasn't right to be carrying on here at the mums' with Gram in the hospital. Dyna reached the door first and let him in. "By God, it's cold out there!" he said. Dyna grabbed him around the neck, grinning and sniffling, and hung on past all decency. She was so glad to see him! "How's Lillian . . . Gram . . ." they demanded at once, before he could get his breath back from the hugging. |
