The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

“Well, let’s see how much I’ve got with me,” she said, and opened her pocketbook. But she could find only $1.50. “Looks like I’m a dime short.” She took the bag of grits out of the box. “I think Roseanne’s got enough grits to see us until next week, so let’s put this back.”


“No, go ahead and take it, and I’ll add a dime to this month’s bill,” Mrs. Hancock said, opening her ledger to the Magnolia Manor page and penciling in the grits. With a sigh, she closed the ledger, adding, “I really don’t know what we’re going to do in this town if the bank don’t reopen soon. I heard there’s going to be some funny money this week, as soon as the county and the bottling plant and the sawmill meet their payrolls. That’ll help some folks, but not me. My suppliers won’t give me credit and I won’t have any cash.” She put the ledger under the counter, looking as if she were going to cry.

“Well, I guess it can’t be helped,” Bessie said. “We’ll all just have to eat out of our gardens.” She chuckled wryly. “And maybe use some of that funny money for toilet paper.” But it wasn’t a laughing matter, she reminded herself. What would she do if the girls started paying their board bills with that worthless stuff?

“I blame Mr. Johnson,” Mrs. Hancock said bitterly. She shook her head. “It just do seem like trouble comes in patches, don’t it?”

“You’re talking about that purple paint, I guess,” Bessie said, thinking that it wasn’t exactly fair for people to be grateful to Mr. Johnson for extending credit on the one hand and blame him for the bank closing on the other. “Or maybe it was blue. I heard it both ways. Too bad about the flowers, too. They didn’t need to do that.”

“I don’t know anything about any paint,” Mrs. Hancock said. “Flowers, neither. I’m talking about what happened out on Dead Cow Creek.”

Bessie put the grocery list back in her pocketbook. “Dead Cow Creek?”

“Oh, you know, Miz Bloodworth.” Mrs. Hancock leaned forward, an avid look on her face. “That creek out west of town, where Mickey LeDoux makes his moonshine. One of the boys out there got shot last night and the still got busted up.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Bessie exclaimed, horror-struck. “Shot, really? Who was it?”

“Nobody’s said yet,” Mrs. Hancock replied. “If they have, I haven’t heard.”

Bessie frowned. “Well, was he shot dead or just shot?”

“Mr. Stevens at the post office was the one who told me,” Mrs. Hancock said. “He got the news from Miz Roberts, who hadn’t heard back yet from Doc Roberts at the hospital over in Monroeville.” Edna Fay Roberts was Dr. Roberts’ wife and a usually reliable source of information about people’s illnesses and accidents.

“Well, I hope not shot dead,” Bessie said.

Mrs. Hancock set her mouth in a defiant look. “I’m not sayin’ it was right to shoot anybody, whoever done it and whoever it was got shot. But I am proud that Mickey’s still got busted up. If you ask me, it was about time.” A staunch member of Reverend Trivette’s congregation, Mrs. Hancock had long been active in the local temperance movement and had made no secret of her opposition to President Roosevelt’s election on a wet ticket. She was one of the few people in town who had voted for Hoover and the drys in last November’s election. She also refused to stock patent medicines like Lydia Pinkham’s tonic for women, which was mostly alcohol.

“Sounds like it must have been the revenuers who did the shooting,” Bessie remarked. She didn’t know much about Mickey LeDoux’s operation, but she did know that, as a practical matter, Sheriff Burns wouldn’t make a move to close down that still, let alone fire on any of the shiners working out there. They were all local boys, and the sheriff owed his election to their extended families.