The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

Lizzy had to smile at that. Sally-Lou was an astute observer of human nature. She spooned sugar into her tea and stirred, then changed the subject, thinking there’d been enough talk about Grady this morning. “You’re working at the Johnsons now, aren’t you? I heard that Mrs. Johnson is out of town.”


“Gone to her sister’s up in Montgom’ry,” Sally-Lou replied. “She asked me to stay nights at the house and get Mr. Johnson’s breakfast and do for him while she’s gone, ’cept the mornin’ I comes here.” She looked troubled. “I’s worried for him, Miz Lizzy. Some men come by last night after dark. They bang on the door and yell ’bout him closin’ the bank. Say they gonna get him for cheatin’ them outta they money. Night before, somebody throw’d a rock through the front window. Had a note tied to it.”

“Oh, dear. What did the note say?”

“Dunno. But it wa’n’t good, the way Mr. Johnson looked when he read it.”

Lizzy remembered the conversation she had overheard on the street, the farmer saying that somebody ought to take Mr. Johnson out behind the woodshed and teach him a thing or two. She forked a bite of coffee cake, as delicious as always. “I’m sure he hasn’t deliberately cheated anybody. It’s just that people don’t understand what’s going on. Did he call Sheriff Burns when the men came?”

Sally-Lou shook her head. “They went off right quick, so he didn’t.” She sounded worried. “He did call Mr. Moseley and talked to him some ’bout it. But you know folks, Miz Lizzy. Wouldn’t surprise me none if they be back one of these nights.”

Until recently, Mr. Johnson had enjoyed an excellent reputation in Darling, for he was a town booster and had been generous in the making of loans—too generous, Mr. Moseley had said regretfully. Some of those loans didn’t stand a chance of being paid back, which is what got the bank into trouble. Nevertheless, people found it easy to see him as the villain behind the closing, and now he was probably the most unpopular man in town. He looked like a villain, too, for he was thin and gaunt, with slick black hair parted precisely down the middle of his scalp and a dark, pencil-thin mustache over colorless lips.

But Lizzy had a different view of the man. She had dealt with him about the threatened foreclosure of her mother’s house—the very house in which she was sitting right now—and had found him to be unexpectedly sympathetic and understanding. Since then, in her role as president of the Darling Dahlias, she’d met with him several times to discuss the money the club had on deposit in the bank and he had helped her iron out a few wrinkles in the Dahlias’ ownership of the clubhouse they had inherited from their founder, Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone. She felt indebted to him for his help, and every time they got together, she’d liked him more. She was sorry that people were reacting the way they were to the trouble at the bank. Now, she wondered what would happen to Mr. Johnson if the bank somehow failed to reopen.

“I wish Mr. Johnson had somebody—a friend—who could come and stay with him while this is going on,” Lizzy said, finishing the last of her coffee cake. “Somebody he can trust.”

“He got his gun,” Sally-Lou said with a dark chuckle. “Although I have my doubts ’bout him usin’ it. He took it out back the other day and tried shootin’ tin cans. Missed ever’ durn one of ’em.”

Lizzy shivered. The idea of Mr. Johnson with a gun was not exactly heartening. And she didn’t much like the idea of Sally-Lou being in the Johnson house at night, with potential trouble on the other side of the front door. “If you need any help,” she said, “you let me know. You can always call, no matter how late it is.”

Sally-Lou smiled. “Remember the time me an’ Auntie DessaRae banged on them pots and pans and Miss Hamer gave the rebel yell and chased off that ole gangster who come down from Chicago to cause trouble for them two nice ladies livin’ with Miss Hamer?”