Read Online Leaving Cold Sassy (9780547527291) by Olive Ann Burns - Free Book Online

rock free, knew the ladies had stood up, and decided to go out there and say howdy.
    Just as I was about to open the screen door, I heard the preacher’s wife say, “I didn’t get to the watermelon cuttin’. Did you? Did you meet the new teachers?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “They say one of’m is real foreign-lookin’.”
    â€œThat’s Miss Klein,” Miss Alice Ann whispered back.
    â€œC-L-I-N-E?” Miss Jones whispered. “That’s an Irish name. We don’t need any Irish Catholics in Progressive City.”
    â€œHit ain’t spelt C-L-I-N-E. Hit’s spelt K-L-E-I-N.”
    I heard them sink back down into the rockers.
    â€œMust be she’s a Jew girl.”
    â€œSh-h-h, Miz Jones. Might be she’s to home.”
    â€œOnly Jew we ever had here was Mr. Izzie Lieberman, who had the furniture store,” Mrs. Jones whispered. “They say he drank hot tea out of a tall glass. But everybody liked him.”
    â€œMiss Klein ain’t no Jewess. She went to the Methodist church with Miss Love Sunday.”
    â€œWell, she must be some kind of hyphenated American,” said the preacher’s wife.
    â€œWhat you mean, hyph’nated?”
    â€œOh, there’s Irish-Americans and German-Americans, and British-Americans, and I-talian-Americans and—well, hyphenated is what the politicians call all those.”
    The chairs commenced rocking.
    â€œWonder why we don’t say Indian-Americans instead of American Indians,” Miss Alice Ann mused. “Maybe because they got here first. What are we, Miz Jones? American-Americans?”
    â€œThink, Miss Alice Ann. The hyphenateds aren’t us. They’re the immigrants. Like those Irish Catholics. They came over to this country starvin’. A potato famine drove’m here, and they ought to be thankin’ the hands that fed them. But no, they’re sidin’ with the Kaiser in the war.”
    â€œWhy come?”
    â€œCause Ireland hates England. Always has. I read how up North a Irish-American will get yellow paint slapped on their house if they don’t buy Liberty Bonds. German-Americans too, of course. I can see why German-Americans are pro-testin’ us gettin’ in the war—after all, we’re fightin’ their brothers and cousins. Still, if Miss Klein’s got kinfolks in the German Army, it don’t make sense to pay her forty dollars a month to teach school in Progressive City. Not with our boys over there in France gettin’ gassed by the Kaiser and dyin’ and all.”
    For a minute or two neither lady spoke. Then Miss Alice Ann said, “I’m thinkin’ on Mr. Izzie. Wonderin’ why he went back to Germany.”
    â€œThey say he went back to get marrit.”
    â€œWonder is he fightin’ in the Kaiser’s army?”
    â€œI doubt it. The Kaiser don’t like Jews.”
    â€œYou know, Miz Jones, ever since Mr. Izzie left to go back to Germany, they ain’t been any dark-skinned white folks in this town—not less’n you count that Armenian in the graveyard. Remember him? Come here sellin’ per-fume soap and died on us, and weren’t nothin’ to do but bury him?”
    â€œLaw, I’d clean forgot about him!” exclaimed Mrs. Jones. “Remember the big fuss about whether he ought to be buried in the cemetery? Somebody had heard that Armenians are Christians, but nobody knew for certain.”
    Miss Alice Ann sighed. “LeGrand Tribble donated his extra lot, remember? Said weren’t nobody left in his fam’ly to put there, or to get mad at him for invitin’ a stranger in, either one. And Brother Jones sure give that man a nice graveside ceremony, Miz Jones.”
    â€œHe thought it was the right thing. I mean in case he was a Christian.”
    â€œMr. Boozer said the reason all us ladies insisted on it, we liked his soap and he had them foreign