Prayers the Devil Answers by Sharyn McCrumb Read Free Book Online Page B

white on rice to straighten things out. And if I have to shoot you, Mr. Slocombe, there’s not a jury in the state of Tennessee that will convict me.”
    He gave me a mulish glare. “A man’s got a right to keep order in his own home.”
    â€œAnd everybody’s got a right to shoot mad dogs, so look out I don’t take you for one. And don’t go thinking you can take this out on her.” I nodded toward Annie, sitting on the grass with the children crawling all over her like puppies. “If you lay a hand on her I’ll know. I’ll make her tell me. And then we’ll finish this.”
    â€œI’ll tell your husband—”
    I smiled. “If my husband had any idea what you’re getting up to over here, you’d already be dead. Now you restrain yourself, or me and this gun’ll be back.” I hope I sounded like the good guy in a cowboy movie. I intended to. If I hadn’t been dragged along to the movies once a week with Albert and the boys I wouldn’t have had any idea how to talk to a worthless bully like Slocombe, but apparently I sounded like I knew what I was about, because he left off knocking Annie around, and I never heard any more loud arguments from over there. Of course, I wasn’t exactly dear to his heart after that, butI didn’t care. Annie was grateful, but I don’t know that I cared about that either. It wasn’t right what he was doing, that’s all, and I wouldn’t stand for it. Facing him down with a pistol was a dern sight easier than making chitchat with the old biddies from church.

    After we’d lived in town for a year Albert bought us a big Atwater Kent radio for the parlor, and, with the coins he put in a tin box every week, he saved up enough to get me a secondhand sewing machine for Christmas. The machine had belonged to the wife of one of the railroad shop foremen. It was a good one, but it had stopped working, so instead of trying to fix it, the foreman’s wife bought a new one out of the Sears Wish Book. The foreman let Albert have the broken machine for a couple of dollars, and Albert took it to the machine shop, where he and the other men got it running again, so it worked just fine. Eddie pined for a bicycle, and I wanted an electric refrigerator to replace the old icebox in the kitchen, but Albert was set on putting as much money as we could spare away in savings, so we knew that those things would have to wait.

    After we got accustomed to life in town, our lives ticked steadily along for a while. I thought we were doing well, but then Albert got restless and bored at the railroad shop. He didn’t like being cooped up indoors all day, and maybe he had caught a touch of ambition from living in the town. I didn’t like the change in him as much as I thought I would.
    Albert waited until the boys went to bed before he told me, but he had already made up his mind.
    We were sitting together in the parlor, me mending socks and Albert fidgeting. Finally he turned down the music on the radio and motioned me into the kitchen. I poured him some coffee, and hesat down at the kitchen table, rubbing the sides of his coffee mug while he worked out what to say to me. “Ellie, I’m fixing to quit the machine shop.”
    I kept my eyes on the sock I was darning so that he wouldn’t see the look on my face. “Are they laying men off then, Albert?” I kept my voice as steady as I could so he wouldn’t leave off telling me. “I know times are getting worse for everybody.”
    That Atwater Kent radio brought us music and even plays to help us pass the time in the evening when it could pick up the signals from distant stations, but besides all the entertainment, it also reported the news from all over the country, which was a mixed blessing. It let us know that we were not the only ones struggling through hard times, but it also proved that things were no better anywhere else,