Harry on the Prairie

Chapter 9

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Like a rhyme with no reason
in an unfinished song.
There was no harmony,
life meant nothing to me
'til you came along.

-Kenny Rogers

*****

FRANKIE:

"Is this here your girlfriend, Mr. Styles?" She asks him. I feel my temperature rising, and I can't tell if I'm about to faint or engage in some very unladylike behavior. "Because she looks a little old for you, don't she?"

"Listen here –," Harry begins to speak, when suddenly Mr. Corden is there with his hand on her shoulder, steering her out of our way.

"Girls, you know recess is about over. Come along now."

Mr. Corden gave us a wink and Harry opens the door quicker than a hot knife slices through butter.

I mouth a "thank you" to Mr. Corden, and when the door closes behind us, I breathe a sigh of relief.

*****

HARRY:

I am pleasantly surprised that Frankie doesn't lay into me on the ride home about the schoolgirls at the mercantile, yet I have to wonder if she isn't saving it up for later. Not that she has anything to get onto me about, but I know women often do stuff that seems plum crazy for reasons menfolk have never been able to figure out.

She has a lot of nice things to say about Mr. Corden and his store. Frankie says he seems like a genuine upstanding fellow, and I agree with her. I'm glad he stepped in when he did to save me from possibly making a jackass out of myself in front of Frankie. It is bound to happen at some point, but the longer I can hold it off, the better.

"Anything particular you're gonna be working on today?" Frankie asks me when we enter the cabin.

"Funny you should ask that, Frankie," I reply. "Seems I've got a house guest that is persnickety about the bathing situation around here." Yeppers. About to do some extra work for her and I wonder if I whine about it a bit, maybe I'll get another peach pie reward or somethin'.

"I am not persnickety, Harry. I just am not going to be walking around by the creek showing off what God gave me. Both my mama and Mrs. Tomlinson would roll over in their graves."

I swear this girl makes me laugh so hard sometimes. Despite the laughs, I still catch that she just mentioned her mama for the first time. I want to ask about her but decide not to.

"Really, Harry. What do you do in the winter?"

"In the winter I bring a big tub in here and plop it down in the kitchen by the stove so I can stay warm," I tell her. "Once I fried some catfish and took a bath at the same time. I was mighty impressed with myself."

Frankie gets a good laugh outta that one. She's so damn pretty, and when she's smiling it almost makes my heart hurt a little bit. I especially like when she's smiling about something or other I've said, whether it's silly or not. I also like when she just casually passes by me sometimes, she might touch my shoulder, or my arm. I haven't been touched by anyone in so long, and I didn't even realize I was missing it before now.

"Alrighty. If I build like a little outside fence thingy by the creek so no one can see you washing up, will that be okay? I mean, we can put the tub in the kitchen now, but then we gotta bring in all that water and that's a load of work."

"You're sure no one will see?" She looks doubtful.

"It'd be like a fence with posts, and a bucket. I wasn't gonna put a roof on it, so your head'll show, and your feet underneath. Nothing else." I pause and wait while she thinks. "And no one comes out here anyway. If someone does, you just holler and I'll run out and shoot 'em dead."