The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

“If that’s Olive LeRoy,” Myra May said emphatically, “don’t tell her I’m here. She wants me to work for her on the switchboard tonight, and I’m playing hearts at Ophelia’s. Any of the rest of you coming?”


“Wish I could but I can’t,” Beulah said, as Bettina went to the phone, leaving Miss Rogers with her head in the shampoo sink. “I’m workin’ on Spoonie’s new Sunday dress. Promised it to her last week, but didn’t get it done. It is the sweetest thing, blue and white checks with white ruffles and blue rickrack trim.”

“I don’t play cards,” Miss Rogers said disapprovingly.

“Miss Rogers,” Myra May said, “just what do you do for fun?”

“Fun?” Miss Rogers asked. “Well, I read. I’m reading Wuthering Heights right now.”

“I thought that was ‘withering,’” Beulah said, finishing with Myra May’s rinse.

“Wuthering, my dear,” Miss Rogers said, in a superior tone. “The word refers to the atmospheric tumult to which Thrushcross Grange is exposed.”

It wasn’t Olive LeRoy on the phone; it was Mrs. Johnson, canceling her nine thirty. “Says she’s got a bad cold,” Bettina reported to Beulah, returning to Miss Rogers.

“Must be really bad,” Beulah said sympathetically. “Miz Johnson never misses an appointment. Likes to get her nails done on Monday so they look nice all week.” Voleen Johnson didn’t do any real work, except for cutting the flowers that went to the bank every day, so keeping her nails nice wasn’t difficult.

“A cold?” Myra May was derisive. “Is that what she said? Well, I for one doubt it.”

“Sit up, Myra May, and I’ll wrap you,” Beulah said, taking a towel. “Why do you doubt it?”

“Because she was perfectly fine yesterday morning in church. And because there’s trouble at the bank, and she’s probably afraid one of us will ask her about it” The minute Myra May said it, she pursed her lips, as if she knew she’d said something she shouldn’t.

“Trouble?” Miss Rogers asked, pushing herself up from her prone position. She sounded alarmed. “What kind of trouble?”

“Wait,” Bettina said hurriedly. “You’re dripping. Let me get your towel.” She wrapped Miss Rogers’ head in pink terrycloth. “There. You look just like Cleopatra.”

“You say there’s trouble?” Miss Rogers frowned. “At the bank?”

Myra May tsk-tsked. “Now, Miss Rogers. You know I’m not supposed to talk about what goes through the exchange.”

“But you told us about the pair that stole the automobile,” Miss Rogers protested. “The man and the young woman.”

“That’s different,” Myra May said defensively. “I could tell you that because you’ll read all about it in the paper, and because once the report goes to the sheriff’s office, it’s public. Like the escaped convict business, stuff like that. I don’t talk about the private things I hear. The things nobody’s supposed to know about” She gave them a significant glance. “And there’s a bushel of those, believe you me. I could tell you things that would curl your toes. But I don’t. Because they are strictly private, and I am a professional telephone operator.”

But her claim to complete confidentiality wasn’t entirely true, and Myra May knew it. She sometimes passed on tasty little tidbits of this and that, even when she felt it was wrong—but only when it didn’t matter too much and when it was just too good to keep to herself. Like the time old Mr. Beekins flushed his dentures down the toilet and Mrs. Beekins had to call Toomy LeGrand, the town’s plumber, to come and fish them out. Everybody giggled when she told them that one. Or the time little Wilbur McWilliams swallowed a goldfish, and his mother called Doc Roberts to ask what to do about it, and the doctor said he should drink lots of water. That was always good for a laugh.

But Myra May also knew that she had slipped up in her remark about Voleen Johnson. She felt she was right—Voleen didn’t want to have to face people just now, in case they asked too many questions about the situation at her husband’s bank. Voleen didn’t want to have to pretend that everything was hunky-dory when it wasn’t.

Myra May had to admit that what she heard about the goings-on at the bank scared her silly, too. One of the Mobile banks had failed the previous November and Myra May’s second cousin—her mother’s sister’s daughter’s son—had lost every cent he had to his name. He’d left town on a freight train with his mother’s last three dollars in his pocket and was somewhere out in Washington State, sleeping in a hobo jungle. Myra herself had money in the Savings and Trust, but she wasn’t going to leave it there for much longer. The minute Beulah finished trimming her hair she was on her way to the bank to take that money out. She’d have to put it under her mattress, but if half of what she had overheard was true, it would be as safe there as in Mr. Johnson’s Savings and Trust. Safer, probably.