Even Cowgirls Get the Blues Read Online Free PDF Page B

through this little scene.
    “Now, as to the shape of your thumb, it is, I'm not pleased to say, rather primitive. It's broad in both phalanges, attesting to great determination, which can be good; and the skin is smooth, attesting to a certain grace. Because, furthermore, its tip is conic and the nail glossy and pink, I'd say that you have an intelligent, kindly, somewhat artistic nature. However, Sissy, however , there is a heavy quality to the second phalanx—the phalanx of logic—that indicates a capacity for foolish or clownish behavior, a refusal to accept responsibility or to take things seriously and a bent to be disrespectful of those who do. Your mama tells me that you're pretty well behaved and shy, but I'd watch out for signs of irrationality. All right?”
    “What are the signs of irrationality,” asked Sissy, rationally enough.
    For reasons known only to her, Madame Zoe chose not to elaborate. She pulled the young girl's thumb to her breast once more, breathing with relief as Sissy sweated and swallowed, unable to pursue her questioning. The palmist's house trailer was neither wide nor tall, but oh it was rich in odors that day.
    “Your thumbs are surprisingly supple, flexible . . .”
    “I exercise 'em a lot.”
    “Yes, well, um. The flexible thumb personifies extravagance and extremism. Such people are never plodders but achieve their goals by brilliant dashes. They are indifferent to money and are always willing to take risks. You, however, have a pretty full Mount of Saturn and, here, let me see your head line; hmmm, yes, it's not too bad. A long sharp head line and a developed Mount of Saturn—that's the little pad of flesh at the base of the middle finger—will often act as a sobering influence on a flexible thumb. In your case, though, I'm just not sure.
    “I guess the most important aspect of your thumbs is the, ahem, overall size. Uh, what was it, do you know, that caused . . . ?”
    “Don't know; doctors don't know,” called Mrs. Hankshaw from the couch, where she'd been listening.
    “Just lucky, I guess,” smiled the girl.
    “Sissy, dang you, that's what Madam Zoe means when she tells you about 'irrational.'”
    Madame Zoe was anxious to get on with it. “Large thumbs denote strength of character and belong to persons who act with great determination and self-reliance. They are natural leaders. Do you study science and history in school? Galileo, Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz had very large thumbs; Voltaire's were enormous, but, heh heh, just pickles compared with yours.”
    “What about Crazy Horse?”
    “Crazy Horse? You mean the Indian? Nobody that I've ever heard of ever troubled to study the paws of savages.
    “Now, I must tell you this. You have the qualities to become a really powerful force in society—God, if you were only a male!—but you may have such an overabundance of those qualities that they . . . well, frankly, it could be frightening. Especially with your primitive phalanx of logic. You could grow up to be a living disaster, a human malfunction of historic proportions.”
    What had she said? With some effort—for they seemed to hold her even as she held them—Madame Zoe let go of Sissy's thumbs. She wiped her palms on her kimono: they were red like the sign. It had been years since she'd given such a deep reading. She was more than a little shaken. The toaster, for toasterly reasons, sat with endlessly bowed back, its flank mirroring her wig, which now hung slightly askew.
    “So accurate a revealer of personality is the thumb"—she was addressing Mrs. Hankshaw now—"that the Hindu chiromancers base their entire work on it, and the Chinese have a minute and intricate system founded solely on the capillaries of the first phalanx. So, what I've given your daughter amounts to a complete reading. If you want me to consider the palms separately, it'll cost you an extra three-fifty.”
    Confusion had the better of Mrs. Hankshaw. She wasn't sure whether too little had