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Authors: Richard Peck
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difference between writing him at Fort Hood, Texas, and writing him in Germany. He never answered anyway. I couldn’t follow Phyllis’s thinking, and it might have been because I was a boy.
Anyway, after sulking in bed till after school, Phyllis was up that night in time for a committee meeting about the Future Farmers of America hayride. Though I thought the Future Farmers hayride had already happened.
* * *
Then before you knew it, it was Saturday and nearly noon. From the other end of town the band was tuning up on the high school blacktop. The homecoming parade was a bigger deal than the game itself. People had been stuffing tissue paper into chicken wire floats all week.
You wouldn’t expect Mrs. Dowdel to take much interest. She hated noise and hadn’t gone to high school. Besides, she and Ruth Ann were busy as bird dogs. They’d plucked all the geese Mrs. Dowdel had shot, for restuffing pillows.
But in fact Mrs. Dowdel loved a parade and never missed one. She and Ruth Ann were setting up a picnic out front just a ditch away from the parade route. And though Mrs. Dowdel didn’t neighbor, we Barnharts were invited.
She and Ruth Ann were back and forth from kitchen to road, bringing deviled eggs, pea salad, stuffed celery.Somehow I got pulled into it and sent to the cobhouse for folding chairs.
“Bring extry,” Mrs. Dowdel told me. “You never know.”
It was a day’s work finding anything in that cobhouse. The whole place smelled like olden times: cider and neat’s-foot oil, and at one time there must have been a cat. A brace of dead, naked geese hung from the beams, plucked and singed and waiting to be melted down for grease. Big, swaying bags of goose down hung in my way. Every floorboard was loose. This was another likely spot where Mrs. Dowdel might have stashed her money.
You never saw such a raft of stuff. Traps and tackle and a shingle machine. Ruth Ann’s hula hoop hung from a nail since she didn’t have time for it anymore. I finally dug out the folding chairs, all stenciled: PROPERTY OF THE SHELBYVILLE PARK DIST.
* * *
Then we were settled out by the ditch, around Mrs. Dowdel: Mother and Ruth Ann and I. Mrs. Dowdel’s big knees were wide-spread with her apron stretched drum-tight under her paper plate. Dad was to ride in the parade with the seven other preachers of the Council of Churches. We supposed Phyllis would be in the parade too, somewhere. It was an unusual sight—Mother right there next to Mrs. Dowdel.
She overflowed two folding chairs. Nudging Mother,she said, “I worked to get all the buckshot out of this goose.” She waved a sandwich. “But watch where you chew. Bite down hard on that shot, and you could bust up your choppers.”
Mother looked at her sliced goose sandwich.
“I haul off and roast a goose till the skin’s crispy and it’s fallin’ off the bone,” Mrs. Dowdel explained. “And I stick a fork in it so the fat will run off. You want your goose loose. Then I’ll stuff it with prunes. Never pass up a chance at a prune.” She nudged Ruth Ann on her other side. “This girl and I has plucked all the geese, and there’ll be down enough left over for you folks’s pillows. Then we’ll go to work and melt down the carcasses we don’t eat for goose grease and add us some camphor to rub on your chest, come winter.”
Mother took a quick look down at her own chest.
“We eat and wear and sleep on the goose.” Mrs. Dowdel tapped Mother’s knee. “Give me a good goose every time.”
Ruth Ann looked around her. “Me too,” she piped. “Every time.”
Now we saw the revolving light on top of Police Chief C. P. Snokes’s Dodge, clearing the street. Right about then, here came Mrs. Wilcox, wearing carpet slippers, stumping along the slab in her hat and veil and Mackinaw jacket.
“Hoo-boy, here comes Effie,” Mrs. Dowdel remarked.“She can smell a free lunch from here to Sunday. And you think she’s bowlegged now. You should have seen
Anyway, after sulking in bed till after school, Phyllis was up that night in time for a committee meeting about the Future Farmers of America hayride. Though I thought the Future Farmers hayride had already happened.
* * *
Then before you knew it, it was Saturday and nearly noon. From the other end of town the band was tuning up on the high school blacktop. The homecoming parade was a bigger deal than the game itself. People had been stuffing tissue paper into chicken wire floats all week.
You wouldn’t expect Mrs. Dowdel to take much interest. She hated noise and hadn’t gone to high school. Besides, she and Ruth Ann were busy as bird dogs. They’d plucked all the geese Mrs. Dowdel had shot, for restuffing pillows.
But in fact Mrs. Dowdel loved a parade and never missed one. She and Ruth Ann were setting up a picnic out front just a ditch away from the parade route. And though Mrs. Dowdel didn’t neighbor, we Barnharts were invited.
She and Ruth Ann were back and forth from kitchen to road, bringing deviled eggs, pea salad, stuffed celery.Somehow I got pulled into it and sent to the cobhouse for folding chairs.
“Bring extry,” Mrs. Dowdel told me. “You never know.”
It was a day’s work finding anything in that cobhouse. The whole place smelled like olden times: cider and neat’s-foot oil, and at one time there must have been a cat. A brace of dead, naked geese hung from the beams, plucked and singed and waiting to be melted down for grease. Big, swaying bags of goose down hung in my way. Every floorboard was loose. This was another likely spot where Mrs. Dowdel might have stashed her money.
You never saw such a raft of stuff. Traps and tackle and a shingle machine. Ruth Ann’s hula hoop hung from a nail since she didn’t have time for it anymore. I finally dug out the folding chairs, all stenciled: PROPERTY OF THE SHELBYVILLE PARK DIST.
* * *
Then we were settled out by the ditch, around Mrs. Dowdel: Mother and Ruth Ann and I. Mrs. Dowdel’s big knees were wide-spread with her apron stretched drum-tight under her paper plate. Dad was to ride in the parade with the seven other preachers of the Council of Churches. We supposed Phyllis would be in the parade too, somewhere. It was an unusual sight—Mother right there next to Mrs. Dowdel.
She overflowed two folding chairs. Nudging Mother,she said, “I worked to get all the buckshot out of this goose.” She waved a sandwich. “But watch where you chew. Bite down hard on that shot, and you could bust up your choppers.”
Mother looked at her sliced goose sandwich.
“I haul off and roast a goose till the skin’s crispy and it’s fallin’ off the bone,” Mrs. Dowdel explained. “And I stick a fork in it so the fat will run off. You want your goose loose. Then I’ll stuff it with prunes. Never pass up a chance at a prune.” She nudged Ruth Ann on her other side. “This girl and I has plucked all the geese, and there’ll be down enough left over for you folks’s pillows. Then we’ll go to work and melt down the carcasses we don’t eat for goose grease and add us some camphor to rub on your chest, come winter.”
Mother took a quick look down at her own chest.
“We eat and wear and sleep on the goose.” Mrs. Dowdel tapped Mother’s knee. “Give me a good goose every time.”
Ruth Ann looked around her. “Me too,” she piped. “Every time.”
Now we saw the revolving light on top of Police Chief C. P. Snokes’s Dodge, clearing the street. Right about then, here came Mrs. Wilcox, wearing carpet slippers, stumping along the slab in her hat and veil and Mackinaw jacket.
“Hoo-boy, here comes Effie,” Mrs. Dowdel remarked.“She can smell a free lunch from here to Sunday. And you think she’s bowlegged now. You should have seen
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