Read Online Mercy Me by Margaret A. Graham - Free Book Online Page B

way in the world I could do that.”
    I got very quiet, and I stayed that way a full minute, although every second was costing me.
    â€œEsmeralda? Esmeralda, are you there?”
    Before she started clicking the phone and cut us off, I answered. “I’m here.”
    â€œWell, why don’t you say something?”
    â€œI did.”
    â€œI know, but—”
    â€œBeatrice, what I’ve suggested is no big thing. One time not long ago, you said you wished there was something you could do for the Lord. I don’t look at it that way, because I try to do everything for the Lord, but if that’s your way of thinking, I won’t question it. Well, now, here is something you can do for the Lord, and you’re balking like a mule.”
    â€œTo do for the Lord?” she repeated, and I knew I had scored a bull’s-eye.
    â€œThat’s right. Jesus said, ‘Love your neighbor.’ Are those two upstairs your neighbors or are they not?”
    â€œOh, Esmeralda, I wish you wouldn’t put it thataway.”
    I sighed loud enough for her to hear. “Do as you like, Beatrice. If you can’t do a little thing like that for Jesus, I don’t know what to make of you. I got to hang up. This is costing me an arm and a leg.”
    That’s the way you had to handle Beatrice sometimes—shame her. That poor girl was so timid and so scared, and I knew it would be very hard for her, but it was the right thing to do. I couldn’t wait to hear how it turned out. I had a bigger bombshell to land on her once she got over this one.
    That night after supper, I went out on the porch, feeling good about what I had accomplished, and I sat onthe glider for a while, enjoying myself. The fireflies were as thick as ever I’d seen them. Reminded me how we children used to catch fireflies and put ’em in a fruit jar to watch ’em light up. All the neighborhood kids would gather outside of an evening and have the most fun playing in the yard—games like Giant Step and so forth. We’d wind up under the streetlight on the corner, telling ghost stories and getting so scared we had to have somebody go with us when we ran home.
    Sitting on the glider is where I do my best praying and thinking. I had a lot of both to do that night, and the time slipped up on me. I was about ready to get up and go inside when I saw a woman coming down the street. I didn’t see her until she came under the streetlight, but that’s when she stopped. I figured she needed to hitch up her pantyhose or something, but she didn’t bend over or nothing. It was curious she would stop like that. I craned my neck, trying to see if she was anybody I knew—and I knew nearly every woman in Live Oaks. Well, as I came to think on it, I didn’t know one who would be out that late at night by theirselves.
    I was real puzzled. She began walking a few steps one way, turned around, and walked a few steps the other way. She must be lost, I thought. Then she just stood there. A few cars went by on the street, and when the first one passed, I could see in the headlights that this woman was not dressed right. She didn’t have on enough clothes to hide her nakedness!
    Well, I don’t have to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer to know a thing when I see it. That woman was nothing but a streetwalker!
    After discovering that fact, I couldn’t go to bed. I watched her hour after hour as she plied her trade, but one car after another whizzed past her. Business was not good, which was a credit to the community.
    When she finally gave up and disappeared into the darkness at four o’clock in the morning, I got up, thoroughly disgusted, and went to bed.
    As wide awake as the owls hooting in the trees, I lay there thinking what I must do. I decided I would keep this to myself and see how it went. Let one word slip out that there was a prostitute in town and every woman in Live Oaks would lock