The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

It was nice that the ladies were such a companionable lot, Bessie thought as she turned the pages of her scrapbook. Oh, there was the usual good-natured bickering about the checkers game, and Miss Rogers was always imploring someone to Please! Turn the radio down, if you don’t mind, But they had lived together for several years now and they were more like sisters than housemates—although of course, sisters had their differences. Even Miss Rogers (who Bessie knew was disappointed in the way her life had turned out and would have preferred to live alone if she could have afforded it) usually managed to keep her contrary opinions to herself in the evenings.

So by unspoken agreement, they all sat together on the porch for an hour or two before bed, while the softly scented evening grew darker and the birds sang themselves to sleep in the cucumber tree in front of the Dahlias’ clubhouse next door. It was at this time in the evening that Bessie missed old Dahlia Blackstone very much, for she had often come through the gap in the cherry laurel hedge (Prunus caroliniana, according to Miss Rogers) to listen to the radio with them, bringing along her knitting or crocheting.

Of all the Darling Dahlias, Bessie herself had probably been the closest to the old lady, which was only right, seeing that they had been next-door neighbors as long as they could remember. Of course, they were more than just neighbors, for they had shared a love of local history and of gardening. Bessie had spent a great many pleasant mornings in Mrs. Blackstone’s garden, listening to her stories about the old days and helping her with various garden chores, until she became so infirm that she couldn’t manage a rake or a hoe or a pair of clippers. Mrs. Blackstone was a good teacher and generous with garden advice.

Now Bessie always felt sad when she glanced out her bedroom window at Mrs. Blackstone’s overgrown back garden, or out her parlor window at the cucumber tree in front of Mrs. Blackstone’s house. The old lady had loved that tree so much and always looked forward to its blooms. This spring was the first in over eighty years that the cucumber tree would dress itself in all its beautiful blossoms and Mrs. Blackstone wouldn’t be here to see and appreciate it.

A noisy automobile went past on Camellia Street, coughing out a cloud of oily white smoke. Miss Rogers lifted her head and sniffed the air distastefully. Bessie sighed. It wasn’t just the passing of Mrs. Blackstone that made her sad these days. It was the inexorable passage of time, and the many changes time had brought to Darling, unwelcome changes, in her opinion. She remembered when people could sit out on their front porches in the evening—or during the day, for that matter—and not hear any noise at all, except for the laughter of the children at their games, or the barking of one of the neighborhood dogs, or the soft clop-clop of a horse’s hooves in the dust of the street. Oh, they might hear the railroad train, but the tracks were on the other side of town, and the train ran only once a day.

Now the motor cars were everywhere, and trucks, too, and motorcycles. And even airplanes flying low overhead on their way between Mobile and Montgomery, or landing at the grassy airstrip out at the county fairgrounds. Barnstormers might delight the young boys in town, but when the planes did loop-the-loops over the town, the earsplitting noise rattled everybody’s windows and scared the horses and dogs. And while Bessie liked their own radio, she wasn’t all that fond of the across-the-street neighbors’ choice in music. Jazz, and they turned it up so loudly that half the neighborhood complained. Bessie often longed for the days before the Great War, when the world seemed so much quieter and slower than it did now. But she was enough of a realist to know that modern life was upon them. The world was whirling like a kaleidoscope, faster and faster, everything blurring together. Nobody could stop what was happening—and worse, nobody seemed to want to.

When nine o’clock came, Miss Rogers (always the first to leave, since she wanted first turn in the bathroom) closed her book, and went upstairs. Mrs. Sedalius yawned and said that tomorrow was going to be busy, since the visiting nurse would be in town and it was her day to volunteer. “And with the Cartwright ghost wandering around, we’d all better get into our beds,” she warned, stuffing her knitting into her bag.

“I’d personally be more concerned about that escaped convict,” Maxine said. “He could be hiding out in half a dozen places around town.”

“Why would he hang around here, where somebody could catch him?” Leticia asked reasonably. “He’s probably in Memphis or Nashville by now. Or Chicago.” She jotted some numbers on a slip of paper. “You owe me thirty-seven dollars, Maxine.”

Maxine, who hated to lose, scowled at the piece of paper. “I thought it was thirty-four. You’d better add it again, Let-tie. Don’t forget what happened last time.”

“What happened last time was that you added wrong,” Leticia replied. She grinned amiably. “Come on, Max. Don’t be a sore loser. Fork it over. Thirty-seven dollars.”