Read Online The Sweetest Thing by Elizabeth Musser - Free Book Online

your face, Mary Dobbs Dillard. You’ve heard from your steady, haven’t you?”
    I squinted at her, frowned a little, and wondered if I could trust her. I looked at the circles under her eyes and their red rims. She must have been crying, but in those hurt green eyes sparkled a hint of mischief.
    â€œOh, come on, Dobbs! I bawled my eyes out in front of you. Surely you can tell me about your steady.”
    I brought the letter from behind my back, looked down at it again, soaking in Hank’s handwriting, running my fingers across the paper, as if in so doing I could touch the hand that had written those beautiful words, and then whispered to Perri, “Would you like to hear about him?”
    â€œWould I ever!”
    I stuck the letter in the pocket of my skirt, grabbed her hand, and whisked her through the foyer and down the hall to where I found Parthenia in the kitchen. I screeched to a halt, let go of Perri’s hand, and said, “Parthenia, I’d like you to meet my good friend Perri Singleton.”
    Parthenia’s eyes grew wide, and she curtsied a little. “Nice ta see ya, Miz Singleton.”
    Perri nodded. “It’s nice to see you too.”
    I went to one of the cabinets, opened it, and retrieved two tall glasses. “I came to get us each a glass of iced tea. We’re going to sit out on the back porch.”
    Parthenia showed the whites of her eyes, stopped cutting an onion, and said, “She ain’t even had breakfast yet, Miz Dobbs. She’s still in her robe.”
    Perri laughed again, a light, delicious laughter. “It’s okay, Parthene . . . Parthenia. I’m not hungry for breakfast. Iced tea will do just fine.”
    Before Parthenia could make her way to the Frigidaire, I’d taken out the glass pitcher filled with tea. I pulled open the rack underneath where the ice was kept and, with a blunt knife, chipped off two pieces of ice and plopped them into our tall glasses.
    As we walked out of the kitchen, Parthenia muttered to herself, “Ain’t proper for guests to serve themselves like that.”
    A few minutes later, Perri and I sat cuddled under an old quilt on the sofa on the screened-in side porch that gave a view of the stables and the servants’ quarters and the hill leading down to the summerhouse. We sipped our tea in silence until Perri finally asked, “What’s his name?”
    â€œHenry Wilson. But everyone calls him Hank. I met him eighteen months ago when he came looking for my father. Father is a preacher, and Hank was at Moody Bible Institute and wanted to see if he could help Father with his tent meetings.”
    â€œOh.” Perri looked a little confused. “Your Hank wants to be a preacher at tent meetings?”
    â€œYes. He’s devoted to the Sawdust Trail.”
    â€œThe Sawdust Trail?”
    â€œThat’s what my father calls preaching the Gospel and touching the world for Christ—it was a phrase used by the famous evangelist Billy Sunday.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œYou know—at tent revivals there’s always sawdust on the ground, and when someone converts, well, he walks down the sawdust trail to the front and meets with the preacher.”
    Perri looked at me blankly. “If you say so.”
    â€œAnd Hank will make a fine preacher with his deep bass voice and the prettiest blue eyes. He dreams of going all over the world, inviting people to walk the Sawdust Trail.”
    Perri took in this news with a cocked head. “Is that what your father does?”
    â€œWell, not exactly. He doesn’t travel around the world—just the States, primarily the Midwest and the Southeast.”
    Perri scooted closer on the sofa. “What’s it like? Going to those cities and seeing those people?”
    I closed my eyes and saw my father holding up his big black Bible, his face all red with passion, beads of perspiration running down his face, as he pled