“We looked it up on the E-nternet.” Aunt Mercy smiled proudly.
I couldn’t imagine how my aunts knew anything about the Internet. The Sisters didn’t even own a toaster oven. “How did you get on the Internet?”
“Thelma took us ta the library and Miss Marian helped us. They have computers over there. Did you know that?”
“And you can look up just about anything, even dirty pictures. Every now and again, the dirtiest pictures you ever saw would pop up on the screen. Imagine!” By “dirty,” Aunt Grace probably meant naked, which I would’ve thought would keep them off the Internet forever.
“I just want to go on record as saying I think this is a bad idea. You can’t keep them forever. They’re going to get bigger and more aggressive.”
“Well, of course we aren’t plannin’ on lookin’ after ’em forever.” Aunt Prue was shaking her head, as if it was a ridiculous thought. “We’re going ta let ’em go in the backyard just as soon as they can look after themselves.”
“But they won’t know how to find food. That’s why it’s a bad idea to take in wild animals. Once you let them go, they’ll starve.” This seemed like an argument that would appeal to the Sisters and keep me out of the emergency room.
“That’s where you’re wrong. It tells all about that on the E-nternet,” Aunt Grace said. Where was this Web site about raising wild squirrels and cleaning their private parts with Q-tips?
“You have ta teach ’em ta gather nuts. You bury nuts in the yard and you let the squirrels practice findin’ ’em.”
I could see where this was going. Which led to the part of the day that had me in the backyard burying mixed cocktail nuts for baby squirrels. I wondered how many of these little holes I’d have to dig before the Sisters would be satisfied.
A half hour into my digging, I started finding things. A thimble, a silver spoon, and an amethyst ring that didn’t look particularly valuable, but gave me a good excuse to stop hiding peanuts in the backyard. When I came back into the house, Aunt Prue was wearing her extra thick reading glasses, laboring over a pile of yellowed papers. “What are you reading?”
“I’m just lookin’ up some things for your friend Link’s mamma. The DAR needs some notes on Gatlin’s hist’ry for the Southern Heritage Tour.” She shuffled through one of the piles. “But it’s hard ta find much about the hist’ry a Gatlin that doesn’t include the Ravenwoods.” Which was the last name the DAR wanted to hear.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, without them, I reckon Gatlin wouldn’t be here at all. So it’s hard ta write a town hist’ry and leave ’em outta it.”
“Were they really the first ones here?” I had heard Marian say it, but it was hard to believe.
Aunt Mercy lifted one of the papers out of the pile and held it so close to her face she must have been seeing double. Aunt Prue snatched it back. “Give me that. I’ve got myself a system goin’.”
“Well, if you don’t want any help.” Aunt Mercy turned back to me. “The Ravenwoods were the first in these parts, all right. Got themselves a land grant from the King a Scotland, sometime around 1800.”
“1781. I’ve got the paper right here.” Aunt Prue waved a yellow sheet in the air. “They were farmers, and it turned out Gatlin County had the most fertile soil in all a South Carolina. Cotton, tobacco, rice, indigo—it all grew here, which was peculiar on account a those crops don’t usually grow in the same place. Once folks figured out you could grow just ’bout anything here, the Ravenwoods had themselves a town.”
“Whether they liked it or not,” Aunt Grace added, looking up from her cross-stitch.
It was ironic; without the Ravenwoods Gatlin might not even exist. The folks that shunned Macon Ravenwood and his family had them to thank for the fact they even had a town at all. I wondered how Mrs. Lincoln would feel about that. I bet she already knew, and it had something to do with why they all hated Macon Ravenwood so much.
I stared down at my hand, covered in that inexplicably fertile soil. I was still holding the junk I’d unearthed in the backyard.
“Aunt Prue, does this belong to one of you?” I rinsed the ring off in the sink and held it up.
“Why, that’s the ring my second husband Wallace Pritchard gave me for our first, and only, weddin’
anniversary.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “He was a cheap, cheap man. Where in the world did you find it?”
“Buried in the backyard. I also found a spoon and a thimble.”
“Mercy, look what Ethan found, your Tennessee Collector’s spoon. I told you I didn’t take it!” Aunt Prue hollered.
“Let me see that.” Mercy put her glasses on to inspect the spoon. “Well, I’ll be. I finally have all eleven states.”
“There are more than eleven states, Aunt Mercy.”
“I only collect the states a the Confed’racy.” Aunt Grace and Aunt Prue nodded in agreement.