Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition) by Francine Thomas Howard Read Free Book Online Page A

her woozy, Eula bent her head closer to the steam from the cherry pot. As her own sweat dripped into the kettle, she could hear the other women squirm in their chairs.
    “Maybe she don’t know herself,” Jenny interjected.
    “That’s right, I sure didn’t know,” answered Belle. “All that marryin’ business is just so overpowerin’ anyway. That first year, a woman don’t know if she’s comin’ or goin’.” Belle pounded the edge of her knife against the table.
    Eula set her mouth in a firm line to stop the forming frown. On the morning of her wedding, she had fidgeted while Mother Thornton instructed her on the ways of the wedding night. “He’s a man,” Momma had said. “Let him have his way with nary a complaint nor a whine. You just lay there and it’ll be over quick. Whatever you do, don’t give him no encouragement.”
    Abruptly, Eula dropped her wooden spoon into the pot of just-put-on plums and walked over to the kitchen table to retrieve her journal. Pulling a pencil from her apron pocket, she picked up her account book and neatly marked a three besides the peaches column and a four next to the column lettered “cherries.” Belle, Jenny, and Cora gave her only cursory glances while Fedora continued with the apple coring. Tillie slowly made her way back into the room, her face showing dampness from the water she must have splashed over it.
    “I saw yo’ husband, Wiley George, at the Lawnover store the other day,” Jenny spoke out as Eula slipped her journal back to the table and made her way over to the stove. “He looked like a happy bridegroom to me.”
    “Tillie, when did you last have your rags washed out?” Fedora plunged the paring knife deep into a half-cored apple.
    “Momma.” She whispered in a voice heard by every woman in the room.
    “I checked your rags myself about two weeks before you married Wiley George.” Fedora frowned as though her mind was clicking off the months. “That was back in the first part of June. Well, have you dirtied any rags since then?”
    “Momma” was all Tillie managed a second time.
    “Fedora, it’s as plain as the nose on your face that she’s expectin’.” Belle announced airily.
    “Tillie, get over here.” Fedora rose to her feet as Tillie made her way slowly around the table toward her mother. As the girl approached, Fedora laid her hand across her daughter’s belly and leaned an ear close. Sitting back down, Fedora looked right past Cora and turned to Eula.
    “It’s a baby all right,” Fedora announced as Cora nodded her head.
    “A baby? Momma, I can’t have no baby. Not now. I just got married.” Tillie’s voice held the distinct sound of encroaching hysteria.
    “Fedora, didn’t you tell this girl where babies come from?” Belle could barely eke out the words through her laughter.
    At the stove, Eula turned her back to the women. Suddenly, the steam from the pots and the hundred-degree kitchen heat almost overwhelmed her. She leaned against the handle on the oven door. Closing her eyes, Eula tried to steel herself against more talk of babies.
    “Momma, I could die givin’ birth.” Tillie sank into a vacant chair.
    “It’s nineteen-thirteen, missy, and I reckon old Doc Starter knows enough to get that baby safe out of you.” Fedora, like mothers before her, dismissed Tillie’s fears.
    “And you can’t use that excuse to get out of your duty to Wiley George, neither.” Cora Lee snickered.
    “Every woman here knows about a wife’s duty to her husband, Cora Lee.” Fedora had just about reached her own boiling point. “We don’t need you to remind us.”
    Eula’s own pregnancy had started off like Tillie’s with sometime sickness in the mornings, but that had been slight and she had worked the farm alongside Alex. As for her wifely duties, despite what her mother had said, after the first few times, she hadn’t minded at all. Through the years, if she let herself, she found her duties downright enjoyable. It