Read Online Man of the Family by Ralph Moody - Free Book Online Page A

evenly in the rows. She’d only planted about two feet of the first row when Sheriff McGrath hollered, “Mornin’, Miz Moody. Fine mornin’, ain’t it?”
    None of us had heard the sheriff coming, and he startled Mother so that she spilled most of the radish seeds she had in her hand. When we looked up, he was just stepping down from his saddle, and he had a whole box of tomato plants under his arm. He didn’t wait for Mother to say whether it was a fine morning or not, but came walking across the garden rows. “Shore do like to see women folks puttin’ in a garden,” he shouted; “woman’s always got a green thumb; beats a man all hollah, by George.”
    Mother straightened and smoothed down her apron. “Good morning, Mr. McGrath,” she said quietly. “I take it you’re something of a gardener yourself. My, what nice-looking tomato plants.”
    â€œNo’m, Miz Moody, I ain’t worth shucks ’round a garden. Now you take before my wife passed on; always had a right nice flower garden, but it’s all gone to pot on me. Don’t know a geeranium from a daffydil.” He held the box of tomato plants out toward Mother, and his voice wasn’t so loud when he said, “These here is off’n Hockaday’s place. Raises the best dad-gummed tumatas in this county, Hockaday does—bushel to a bush. Can ’em with a dite o’ sugar, they’ll make ya some mighty nice eatin’ come winter.”
    I stepped over beside Mother and took the box. It weighed nearly twenty-five pounds, and there were at least a hundred plants in it. Mother looked at them, and said, “Oh, my! Aren’t they lovely? This was most thoughtful of you, Mr. McGrath.”
    â€œâ€™Twasn’t nothin’, Miz Moody; ’twasn’t nothin’,” the sheriff said. “Want I should give you a hand a-plantin’ ’em?”
    â€œOh, I wouldn’t think of it,” Mother told him. “A garden is sort of a woman’s job, isn’t it? I’m sure the children and I can handle it ourselves.”
    While they were talking, Sheriff McGrath kept rolling the brim of his Stetson till it looked like a pair of megaphones. “Wouldn’t be no trouble at all, Miz Moody. Ain’t much to do this mornin’; got the town pretty well under control.”
    Mother had to thank the sheriff two or three times more before he climbed back on his horse. As he rode away up our lane, he turned and called back, “Shore is a fine mornin’, ain’t it, Miz Moody?”
    We only had room for a dozen of the tomato plants, so we gave the rest of them to our neighbors. Mother showed us right where everything should go before she went back to her cooking. It was nearly noon by the time we had the last hill of corn planted, but the morning had gone awfully fast. That was the first time I ever worked in a garden that I didn’t hate it.
    I had better luck on my cookery route that Saturday. Some of the women had been telling others how good Mother’s cooking was, and I got my book almost full of orders for the next Wednesday and Saturday. I didn’t think about selling more than Mother and Grace could make, but just kept writing down everything anybody wanted. That week I took in four dollars more than Mr. Shellabarger’s bill, and there was sausage in the package he called “scraps.” But with so much extra cooking, we’d used up all the coal.
    â€œThat half a ton of coal fairly melted away, didn’t it?” Mother said Tuesday night. “Ralph, are you sure you brought in all there was?”
    â€œEvery last scrap,” I said.
    She got up and looked at the two coal hods. “My, my!” she said, “it won’t be a bit more than I’ll need to finish the beans, and there’s all the brown bread to steam and the doughnuts to fry. Ralph, you’d better see if you can find a