Life Is Short But Wide by J. California Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

assifidity and cheap soap.
    So, the next couple of weeks he did stop by Rose’s house in the evenings, to see how she was and if she needed anything. He had nothing to give her, and nothing to do there, except maybe kill a spider if there was one there at the time, but he stopped by the house to check and see anyway.
    People with families were moving into town. There were other young men in Wideland now. Some of them called upon her, or just stopped by to see if there was anything they could do for her. She didn’t need Preacher Smoke. In fact, away from the church or a funeral, she never thought of him.
    But he thought of her. A great deal. As he lay back in his cot, one hand under his head, eyes looking through the dark at the ceiling, other hand on his crotch, he thought of her. “She such a childlike little lady. I know she got confidence in me. I can see it in them soft eyes a’hers. She real gentle, too, got that soft voice. Young, smooth skin. Got a full body; woman’s body, plump, but pleasin. She pretty! She do look like a rose, soft and gentle and, Lord … she lonely too. She ain’t got nobody else! Up there in that big ole house all by hersef! It’s my duty, as a man of God, to do my duty and answer her call.”
    One Sunday, as he preached, he looked down to the front-row seats, and looked directly into the eyes of Rose. When he held her eyes with his own, she blushed, embarrassed, andturned her eyes away. He thought, happily, “That’s what girls do when they love you! She really fallin in love wit’ me!”
    He began to seek her out, always trying to look into her eyes again. She always blushed because she was young, and didn’t know why he always seemed to want to look into her eyes. “I know he isn’t thinking of courting me!” She thought she was surely mistaken, but then he appeared at her side several times in the next few weeks, reaching for her hand, in a preacherly way, of course. She stopped sitting up close to the pulpit. Instead she sat in the back with Bertha.
    Preacher Smoke began to stop by Rose’s house during the dinner hours, when he thought she would have cooked, to try to have a meal with her. He thought he could eat
and
talk. But Rose didn’t eat much, and hardly cooked anymore since her father was not coming back.
    Preacher had to make another plan. He decided he would go to see Rose after he had eaten at another good sister’s house, and his stomach would already be full. But in the afternoons and evenings, someone, usually Bertha, was always there.
    And so it came about very early one morning, he got up from his lonely, musty bed to make a home-visit to Rose. Preacher Smoke knocked on the big oak front door. Rose had been asleep, so it took her a moment or two to get to the door. She was thinking, “Who in the world is knocking on my door this early?”
    When Rose saw Preacher Smoke so early she blinked, thinking, “Something must be wrong with somebody. Somebody has died!” She said, “Good morning, Reverend. What’s the matter? Has something happened?”
    She let go of the door to pull her thin robe closer around her neck. Preacher Smoke walked in through the loosened door and turned to wait for her to close it. “I’m jes out on my early duties and said to myself, ‘I betta stop and check on lil Rose while I’m out here.’ Is your coffee ready?” He smiled.
    She knew he had no wife, and that he lived in rooms in back of the church. She decided to make some coffee or, like she usually did, heat up what was already there. These were not times to waste anything.
    He followed her into the kitchen, talking. “Mz. Rose, your house always so neat and clean comfort’ble.” She stood at the stove to light the fire, and was putting on the coffee pot to reheat. When her back was turned to him, he came up close behind her and, putting one arm around her waist, pulled her to him as he placed his other hand over her breast! She dropped the pot she was holding and tried to