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Easter
Even though it was nearly Easter, there were still very few nights that it was warm enough to leave Miss Bessie out. And then there was the rain. All March it poured. For the first time in many years the creek bed held water, not just a trickle either, enough so that when they swung across, it was a little scary looking down at the rushing water below. Jess took Prince Terrien across inside his jacket, but the puppy was growing so fast he might pop the zipper any time and fall into the water and drown.
Ellie and Brenda were already fighting about what they were going to wear to church. Since Momma got mad at the preacher three years back, Easter was the only time in the year that the Aarons went to church and it was a big deal. His mother always cried poor, but she put a lot of thought and as much money as she could scrape together into making sure she wouldn’t be embarrassed by how her family looked. But the day before she planned to take them all over to Millsburg Plaza for new clothes, his dad came home from Washington early. He’d been laid off. No new clothes this year.
A wail went up from Ellie and Brenda like two sirens going to a fire. “You can’t make me go to church,” Brenda said. “I ain’t got nothing to wear, and you know it.”
“Just ’cause you’re too fat,” May Belle muttered.
“Did you hear what she said, Momma? I’m gonna kill that kid.”
“Brenda, will you shut your mouth?” his mother said sharply; then more wearily, “We got lot more than Easter clothes to worry about.”
His dad got up noisily and poured himself a cup of black coffee from the pot on the back of the stove.
“Why can’t we charge some things?” Ellie said in her wheedling voice.
Brenda burst in. “Do you know what some people do? They charge something and wear it, and then take it back and say it didn’t fit or something. The stores don’t give ’em no trouble.”
Her father turned in a kind of roar. “I never heard such a fool thing in my life. Didn’t you hear your mother tell you to shut your mouth, girl!”
Brenda stopped talking, but she popped her gum as loudly as she could just to prove she wasn’t going to be put down.
Jess was glad to escape to the shed and the complacent company of Miss Bessie. There was a knock. “Jess?”
“Leslie. Come on in.”
She looked first and then sat on the floor near his stool. “What’s new?”
“Lord, don’t ask.” He tugged the teats rhythmically and listened to the plink, plink, plink, in the bottom of the pail.
“That bad, huh?”
“My dad’s got laid off, and Brenda and Ellie are fit to fry ’cause they can’t have new clothes for Easter.”
“Gee, I’m sorry. About your dad, I mean.”
Jess grinned. “Yeah. I ain’t too worried about these girls. If I know them, they’ll trick new clothes out of somebody. It would make you throw up to see how these girls make a spectacle of themselves in church.”
“I never knew you went to church.”
“Just Easter.” He concentrated on the warm udders. “I guess you think that’s dumb or something.”
She didn’t answer for a minute. “I was thinking I’d like to go.”
He stopped milking. “I don’t understand you sometimes, Leslie.”
“Well, I’ve never been to a church before. It would be a new experience for me.”
He went back to work. “You’d hate it.”
“Why?”
“It’s boring.”
“Well, I’d just like to see for myself. Do you think your parents would let me go with you?”
“You can’t wear pants.”
