The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

Bettina breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, I am glad to hear that. I guess I can put that big ol’ stove poker back where I got it, can’t I?” She unwrapped the last caterpillar. “Now, Mrs. Little, I need you to tell me what I’m doin’ wrong with my eggplants. They just don’t seem to be growin’ as good as they should. They’re just little bitty things.”


“Don’t you fret about those eggplants, dear,” Aunt Hetty said in a comforting tone. “The mornings have been chilly lately, and they don’t like cold feet. They love summertime, and they’ll perk up real good when it heats up some. Look for ‘em to grow like a house afire along about the Fourth of July. Come hot summer, you’ll have more eggplants than you know what to do with, and you’ll be askin’ everybody for recipes.”

“I’ve got a good one for you, Bettina,” Beulah said, hanging Bessie’s cape on the hook. “Tomato and eggplant pie, with eggs and a little milk and cheese rubbed through the grater, if you’ve got cheese. If you don’t, you can do without, but maybe put in an extra egg so the custard sets up. I have a hard time getting my children to eat eggplant, but they do like that pie.”

“Thank you, everybody,” Bettina said gratefully. She looked around, smiling. “I guess I owe just about everything I know about gardening and cooking to Beulah’s Beauty Bower.”

It is true, however, that while the Dahlias know quite a lot about growing vegetables and making pies, they don’t know all there is to know about escaped convicts.





EIGHTEEN


Lizzy and Verna Plan an Expedition When Lizzy and Verna stopped giggling about their narrow escape from Mrs. Brewster’s boardinghouse, they discovered that they were hungry—which might be expected, since the sandwiches they had eaten at lunchtime were a distant memory. Lizzy’s house was closest, so she invited Verna to have supper with her.

“Nothing fancy,” she said, “but there’s cheese and ham, and tomatoes and green onions and lettuce from the garden, and I can scramble some eggs and open a pint jar of Sally-Lou’s canned peaches. She always puts up more than we can eat.”

“Sounds perfect to me,” Verna said. “I think we need to talk, don’t you?”

Lizzy nodded. She had been wondering how much of what Mr. Moseley had told her she should share with Verna. He expected her to keep it in confidence, but she felt she owed Verna an explanation for taking that revealing letter, which she knew should be left for the police to find. But she and Verna had been friends for a very long time and Liz felt that she could be trusted. After all, they were both Dahlias, weren’t they? Dahlias were loyal. Dahlias could keep a confidence.

So while she fed Daffodil and then got busy scrambling eggs with cheese and bits of ham and green onions and Verna assembled a garden salad from lettuce, fresh tomatoes, and chopped green peppers, along with a handful of fresh raw peas and more green onions, Lizzy told Verna about her conversation with Mr. Moseley. Some of it was ... well, torrid, she thought, especially the part about Bunny and Mr. Moseley going to Mobile together.

But as Lizzy had said earlier, she wasn’t a prude. If Mr. Moseley wanted to have an affair with Bunny, who was she to sit in judgment? After all, she was thinking of Grady in pretty much the same way—although she had to admit that there was a difference. Neither she nor Grady were married. Mr. Moseley was, and Bunny knew it. That was what made it torrid, in Liz’s opinion.

Verna, however, was not very interested in the seamy stuff. In fact, she hardly blinked. She seemed to be much more interested in the story Bunny had told Mr. Moseley about her life on a farm outside Monroeville, with a drunk for a father and a runaway mother who had left her with four younger brothers and sister to care for, including a pair of twins.

“Bunny told him she kept them all fed and clothed and walked miles to school every day,” Lizzy concluded. “He was impressed by her courage. I guess that might have been what attracted him to her in the first place.”

“Courage, smourage,” Verna scoffed. “He was impressed by her—” She glanced at Lizzy. “By the way she looked in that red dress. What’s more, she lied to him. Bunny lived with her widowed mother, not with four little kids and a drunk.”

“How do we know?” Lizzy asked, pushing scrambled eggs onto two plates.

“What do you mean, how do we know?” Verna put the salad bowl on the kitchen table. “Because that’s what she told us.”

“Well, yes. But how do we know whether the story about her widowed mother is true, or the story she told Mr. Moseley?”

Verna frowned. “I guess we don’t,” she said slowly. “That girl was such a liar—I wonder if she told Maxwell Woodburn she’d marry him.”

“Or told Mr. Lima that she would run away with him. Or—” She put the skillet in the sink.

“Or promised something to somebody we don’t even know about yet,” Verna said. She looked around. “What’s to drink, Lizzy?”