A True Southern Belle

  The other four were fine, perfect in fact, but her youngest... she considered her youngest to be her demon among angels, for all her other children were angels compared to Charlie.  Daniel, her oldest and only son, was a wealthy trader who lived in Virginia. He was not married, but being a man, this could be excused. Virginia, the eldest of Mrs. Winter's daughters, had married a lawyer and lived in Tennessee. At twenty-two, she was expecting her third child. Next came Diana, who had married a doctor, lived in Alabama, and had just had her first child. Then there was Jane, whose engagement to a banker from Atlanta was the reason for tonight's party. 

 Finally, there was Caroline - or Charlie as her father called her. From the moment she was born, Charlie had been louder, healthier, smarter, livelier, and far more demanding and outspoken than any potential Southern Belle baby had any right to be. She was stubborn and constantly stood her ground no matter what.

 But despite a lifetime of being like that, there was only one day in Charlie's life that Mrs. Winter would never forget and would  always hold Charlie accountable for. 

 Charlie had always been against marriage, saying she refused to be her husband's 'property.' No one ever said anything since Southern Values forbid the discussing of topics so direct, until it happened. A Yankee boy who had been passing through with his father had decided to court Charlie - without her permission. He had heard of Southern Belles, but nothing had prepared him for Charlie - not that Charlie was your typical Southern Belle. All anyone knew was that the forward, mindless boy has insulted her for being smarter than him, and then had tried to kiss her in apology. Charlie had chased him off the property with the switch of a peach tree. 

 Mrs. Winter's friends had patted her hand and assured her in the gentle, kind, venomous way Southern Ladies had, that even the best of families occasionally produced a bad apple in the bunch. She had gone home from the sewing circle that day in embarrassment and shame, Mrs. Winter never forgot what Charlie had did to her - what she was always doing to her. 

 And Mr. Winter was not helping. He had commissioned Mary to sew shirts and britches for Charlie. He called Charlie Charlie instead of Cara or Carol, the proper nickname for someone named Caroline. Everyone knew Charlie was only acceptable for a Charlotte, and even then, it wasn't highly favorable. And when the school master had refused to teach Charlie what the boys were learning, he had taken it upon himself to finish her education. Imagine! Her own father teaching her, when he, like everyone else knew that learning spoiled a girl's looks. (It was a secret observed by the whole plantation that Mrs. Winter must never know that nearly every day Charlie and her father rode the grounds, where he instructed her on land management, taxes, and how to be a fair employer.) 

 Mary had insisted that all of it was a phase, but she'd said the same thing when Charlie was eight, and Mary had caught her and Daniel climbing trees, Charlie wearing a pair of Daniel's britches which she'd cleverly tied with a rope. And when Charlie had passed up dolls for rifles and decided she would rather rough house with her brother than have tea parties with her sisters. If this was a phase - and Mrs. Winter dearly hoped it was - it was a long one, and she wished Charlie would get it over with already. 

                                                                           Chapter Two 

 Currently, Mrs. Winter's demon stood before Jane and Mary clad in corset, chemise, stockings, and hoops. Or, Jane was, but Charlie, though helpless in the wearing of corsets, put her foot down when it came to stockings. And slippers when she felt like it.

 Mary relentlessly tugged on the strings of Charlie's corset, but her waist was not getting any smaller. Charlie hugged a bed post for dear life, and Jane looked on, brushing her corn-colored hair.