Amendment

{Three} Jim Vance

I didn’t remember what I’d been dreaming of, but it must’ve been pretty bad because one of the little Hatfield girls felt the need to shake me awake. For a good, solid minute I forgot completely where I was and nearly had a panic attack.

"It’s okay," the little girl assured in a soothing voice.

At the sight of her rough looking nightgown, I groaned. Still stuck in 1882, it would seem. The light of dawn of trickling in through the window, shining directly on me. I blinked against the harsh contrast and asked, "Do you know if they found my brother?"

The girl shook her head. At first, I was crushed; thinking she meant that they hadn’t found Russ. But then she said, "I’ve been asleep." Her big brown eyes roamed to where my dress and hoop lay on a stool. "Your gown is real pretty. Did your mama give it to you?"

I was trying very hard not to act rude and impatient, but what’s a girl to do when she’s stuck in the middle of nowhere, not in her time, and all alone? "Umm, what?"

"It’s mighty out fashioned," the Hatfield girl said.

I looked her over curiously. She was very slight with pale brown hair, maybe only seven years old or so. Smiling a little, I said, "It is, isn’t it? I don’t s’pose many girls still wear hoops anymore, do they?"

When did the southern belle fashion change, again? I thought furiously. I’d been dressed in the Civil War period, but now I was stuck eighteen years after the war. Surely, that meant a few things had changed a bit since then.

The little girl confirmed this by bobbing her head up and down, giggling all the while. "But it’s alright—you can still wear the skirt without it. It just might drag a bit."

I shrugged. "That’s okay." My eyes glared at the awful clothing and I wished, for not the first time, that’d I’d had the sense to dress in jeans and Converse underneath that dreadful skirt. How was I going to get in that thing alone?

"Do y’all still wear corsets?" I asked the girl.

She giggled. "Yes, but there’s no real need for ‘um here. But….you might still wanna wear yours. I’ll help you with it."

I breathed a sigh of enormous relief. I wasn’t sure how a seven year old could pull those strings as tight as they needed to be, but then again it’d keep me breathing. If Mrs. Hatfield was pulling my corset strings, I had no doubt she’d be yanking until I was blue in the face.

"I’m Josie, by the way," I said, and then quickly berated myself for not using my full name. Was it aloud to do that back then?

"I’m Elizabeth," the Hatfield girl murmured. "But you can just call me Betty."

I grinned. Apparently you were aloud.

　

Some time later, Betty and I made our way downstairs for breakfast. My poor stomach was in loud protest, as I hadn’t eaten anything besides an apple yesterday morning. I had been expecting for everyone to be seated at the long dark wood table, but to my surprise most were missing. True, I wasn’t sure how many kids the Hatfields actually had, but I knew the blonde brother from last night and Cap were absent, though.

Devil Anse wasn’t, though. He sat his butt at the table while his wife and daughter peppered about the kitchen, getting plates set out and everything. Two little boys, maybe ten and four, sat across from their father. The three of them were playing some kind of game. If I didn’t know Devil Anse better, my fear for the man would have faded instantly at the sight of him with his children. But, while I didn’t know him as well as Russ, I was still smart enough to stay cautious.