Old Man turned the full weight of his strange, unfocused eyes at him, but didnât answer. He just regarded him speculatively a moment, then returned to the steaming autumn highway. âNow tobaccoâitdidnât come on strong till later,â he began, changing the subject with no commentary at all, other than the weight of his eyes.
â¢Â  â¢Â  â¢
Sam pressed him no further, as it was but one conversation among many. He was still confident that he could track down the exact location of the store and Morrisâs grave and took Jolie on many a stroll around forgotten and weed-choked cemeteries, pretending to search for the graves of the names on the Creek Census (and coming upon a couple quite by accident).
She was well into her own fall semester by then, and when they were finished with their afternoon graveyard crawls, theyâd return to the parsonage for supper, where Brother Hoyt was as generous with his table as he was his memories of Old Hendrix. He seemed not unaware that Samâs interest toward her might be more than purely professional, but never made any inquiries into the matter. He just accepted Sam as part of the furniture around the parsonage, often on hand, with no threat attached. This very much annoyed the church Sisters, whose grievous loss of Lena had at least partially been compensated by Samâs appearance soon after.
He wasnât as ornamental or amusing as their golden girl, but had his own strengths. He was a man, and polite and smart and obviously in love with Jolie Hoytâand they were all for that, the old Sisters were, as practical as Lena when it came to poor girls and dead ends and the Men Who Could Get Them Out. They gave the match their full approval and sat back and waited for the inevitable eventsâeither engagement or pregnancyâthe former preferable, though the latter not so rare as to cause an earthquake on this end of the swamp.
But as the dog days of September quietly slipped away, and the October nights grew mild and golden, they began to wonder if theyâd misread the signs in this romance. For Sam never made any loverlike advances toward Jolie that they could see: never walked her to church or sent her flowers or sat with her on the porch at night. He seemed content to hang out with her father and spend his days talking to the poor folk on theriver, writing out pages and pages of any sort of nonsense those chattering gheechies came up with, something the good Sisters at Bethel (even if they were gheechie themselves) considered a criminal waste of time.
They soon tired of the mystery, and by mid-October, whenever they ran into Sam at the IGA or the café, they would baldly ask about his intentions toward Jolie, though he proved oddly shy in such matters, would blush to the tip of his forehead and stammer the most unsatisfactory replies.
It made the old Sisters privately wonder if little ole Jolie, raised in a household of men, simply hadnât learned how to courtâto bat her eyes and twitch that tail and land this particular fish before he got away. To that end, they began inviting them to Sunday dinner as a couple; would feed them like royalty on recipes cut from the pages of the Progressive Farmer, on chuck roasts and field peas and corn bread, all the while dropping glorious asides on the bliss of married life, trying to nudge them along.
They had a hard time gauging the effectiveness of the strategy, as Jolie had inherited her fatherâs inscrutability. She didnât seem to mind their maneuverings, just ate her corn bread and smiled her Mona Lisa smile and pretty much went her own wayâwhich wasnât difficult as she was on the inside of the joke and knew very well why Sam wasnât walking her to church every week or making any loverlike moves toward her in public. She also knew why he blushed to the tip of his hairline at the mention of his slow courtship, because he was living a double life,
â¢Â  â¢Â  â¢
Sam pressed him no further, as it was but one conversation among many. He was still confident that he could track down the exact location of the store and Morrisâs grave and took Jolie on many a stroll around forgotten and weed-choked cemeteries, pretending to search for the graves of the names on the Creek Census (and coming upon a couple quite by accident).
She was well into her own fall semester by then, and when they were finished with their afternoon graveyard crawls, theyâd return to the parsonage for supper, where Brother Hoyt was as generous with his table as he was his memories of Old Hendrix. He seemed not unaware that Samâs interest toward her might be more than purely professional, but never made any inquiries into the matter. He just accepted Sam as part of the furniture around the parsonage, often on hand, with no threat attached. This very much annoyed the church Sisters, whose grievous loss of Lena had at least partially been compensated by Samâs appearance soon after.
He wasnât as ornamental or amusing as their golden girl, but had his own strengths. He was a man, and polite and smart and obviously in love with Jolie Hoytâand they were all for that, the old Sisters were, as practical as Lena when it came to poor girls and dead ends and the Men Who Could Get Them Out. They gave the match their full approval and sat back and waited for the inevitable eventsâeither engagement or pregnancyâthe former preferable, though the latter not so rare as to cause an earthquake on this end of the swamp.
But as the dog days of September quietly slipped away, and the October nights grew mild and golden, they began to wonder if theyâd misread the signs in this romance. For Sam never made any loverlike advances toward Jolie that they could see: never walked her to church or sent her flowers or sat with her on the porch at night. He seemed content to hang out with her father and spend his days talking to the poor folk on theriver, writing out pages and pages of any sort of nonsense those chattering gheechies came up with, something the good Sisters at Bethel (even if they were gheechie themselves) considered a criminal waste of time.
They soon tired of the mystery, and by mid-October, whenever they ran into Sam at the IGA or the café, they would baldly ask about his intentions toward Jolie, though he proved oddly shy in such matters, would blush to the tip of his forehead and stammer the most unsatisfactory replies.
It made the old Sisters privately wonder if little ole Jolie, raised in a household of men, simply hadnât learned how to courtâto bat her eyes and twitch that tail and land this particular fish before he got away. To that end, they began inviting them to Sunday dinner as a couple; would feed them like royalty on recipes cut from the pages of the Progressive Farmer, on chuck roasts and field peas and corn bread, all the while dropping glorious asides on the bliss of married life, trying to nudge them along.
They had a hard time gauging the effectiveness of the strategy, as Jolie had inherited her fatherâs inscrutability. She didnât seem to mind their maneuverings, just ate her corn bread and smiled her Mona Lisa smile and pretty much went her own wayâwhich wasnât difficult as she was on the inside of the joke and knew very well why Sam wasnât walking her to church every week or making any loverlike moves toward her in public. She also knew why he blushed to the tip of his hairline at the mention of his slow courtship, because he was living a double life,
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