Finding My Own Way by Peggy Dymond Leavey Read Free Book Online Page B

thinking, maybe I could grow cucumbers like we used to. Alex and I made pretty good money the years we did that. It isn’t too late, is it? To put seed in?”
    â€œPickling company doesn’t buy from the small growers anymore,” said Henry McIntyre, tilting his chair back so that it rested against the wall behind him.“They haven’t given any local contracts now for a couple of years.”
    His wife was wrapping waxed paper over the few biscuits remaining on the plate. “D’you mind the time Eddie Hackett got fresh with your mother?” she asked, looking up at me.
    â€œIs that what happened?”
    â€œShe didn’t tell you?”
    â€œNot in so many words,” I admitted. “I remember her telling me after whatever happened, never to let anyone take advantage of me just because I was a girl and, supposedly, weaker than they were.”
    â€œOh, she was hopping mad,” remembered Mrs. McIntyre, sliding the biscuits into the breadbox. “And the next time Alex put the sacks out for Eddie to collect, he just drove right on past.”
    Henry McIntyre eased his suspenders down over his shoulders. “When I saw the sacks sitting there the next day, I took them up myself. Said I’d do it for her whenever she needed them delivered.”
    â€œBut your mother wouldn’t hear of that.” Mrs. McIntrye’s tone was gleeful. “Eddie had been hired by the company to do the picking up, and she’d just let the company know that he’d missed hers. Came up here to use our phone, she did. That’s how come I heard the conversation. And then she told us what had happened. I guess that Eddie Hackett decided he’d collect on the favour he figured he was doing her. She told him she didn’t owe him anything, except possibly a thank-you.”
    â€œShe was a courageous woman, your mother,” said Henry McIntyre, shaking his head.
    â€œAnd did Mr. Hackett pick up our cucumbers after that?” I asked.
    â€œYou bet he did!” Henry McIntyre vowed. “Hackett was a bully, and bullies are often cowards. Your mother beat him, just by standing up to him.”
    â€œThat was the way Alex was,” said Mrs. McIntyre. “But we don’t have to tell you that, do we?”
    I began carrying dishes over to the sink. “One thing that my mother always made clear to me was that I was important and worthy of respect. And that was the way I was to treat everyone. Obviously, that wasn’t the way Eddie Hackett treated her.”
    â€œWell, a woman on her own has to keep her wits about her.” Henry McIntyre brought his chair down onto its four legs and reached for a toothpick from the holder on the table.
    His wife seized the plates from my hands. “Company does not do dishes in my house,” she declared.
    I sat down again. “I guess then, as soon as I’m a little more settled, I’ll walk into town and look for a job. It’s the sensible thing to do.” And sensible, after all, was what grownups would want me to be.
    â€œThe bus doesn’t go by here now till about eleven in the morning,” said Mrs. McIntyre. She tipped the teapot to drain the last of it into her husband’s cup. “Not much good to you, if you want an early start.”
    In the past, if Alex didn’t feel like walking, and if she could afford the fare, we would take the bus to town. I remember waiting impatiently for its arrival at the corner, singing as many choruses of “Jump Jim Crow” (with actions) as it took to make the bus appear in thedistance—a fat blue beetle lumbering towards us.
    I saw Mrs. McIntyre catch her husband’s eye, saw his small nod. “I think Henry has something to show you, Elizabeth.”
    Henry McIntyre heaved himself away from the table and asked me to hang on a second. He went outside, the screen door slapping behind him. A minute or two later we heard his whistle, and