Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Read Online Free PDF

tall now as I used to be. When you get old, you shrink.
    “Isn’t hair a funny thing? So many people are just crazy about their hair. Of course, I guess it’s just natural. The mention of hair runs all through the Bible: Samson, and that Sheba woman, and that girl that washed Jesus’ feet with her hair.… Isn’t it odd, the colored want straight hair and we’re always wanting curly hair. I had brown hair at one time, but now I use Silk and Silver Number Fifteen … I used to use Number Sixteen, but it made my hair too dark, and it looked kinda dyed-lookin’.
    “Back then, I just twisted it up in a knot and went on about my business. Not Miss Leona. Her hair was always a sore spot between her and Idgie. I guess Idgie was around nine or ten, and she’d been over in Troutville, playing with the children there, and came home with a case of head lice. So we all had to wash our hair with this mixture of sulphur, kerosene, and lard. I never heard so much screaming and hollering. You would have thought that Leona was being burned at the stake. Leona wouldn’t speak to poor Idgie after that.
    “During that time, Buddy came home from school and saw that Idgie was pretty low. He had a football game to go to and when he was leaving the house that night, he said, ‘Come on, Little Bit,’ and he took her down to the football game and let her sit right on the bench with the rest of the players. That was Buddy for you …
    “I don’t think Leona ever really forgave Idgie until after she married. Leona was vain about her looks until the day she died. One time, she read an article in the
McCall’s
magazine that said anger and hate could cause wrinkles. She was always threatening Idgie she was going to kill her, but she kept a smile on her face while she was doing it.
    “Of course, Leona did get the richest husband, and her wedding was exquisite. She had been so scared that Idgie was going to ruin her wedding, but she needn’t have been, because Idgie spent most of the day with the groom’s family and charmed them so, that by the end of the day, they thought she was the grandest thing on bush or tree. Even at that age, she had that Threadgoode charm. And nobody in the world had charm like Buddy Threadgoode.”
    Mrs. Threadgoode stopped for a moment to take a sip from her cup, and reflected, “You know, this little coconut cake reminds me of the picnic, that awful day.
    “I was already engaged to Cleo, so I must have been seventeen at the time. It was a Saturday afternoon in June, and we had just had the best time at our BYO church picnic. The young people’s group from the Andalusia Baptist Church had ridden the train over for the day, and Momma and Sipsey had baked about ten coconut cakes for the occasion. The boys were wearing their white summer suits and Cleo had just gotten himself a brand-new straw hat from Poppa’s store, but for some reason, Buddy had talked Cleo into letting him wear his new hat on that day.
    “After the picnic, Essie Rue and I came home with the cake plates, and all the Threadgoode boys went down to the train station to see the group from Andalusia off, like they always did. Momma was out in the backyard with a pan, picking figs off her tree, and I was out there with her when it happened …
    “We heard the train start up, and just as it pulled out, the whistle blew. Then we heard the train screech and grind to a halt, and at the same moment we heard the girls screaming.
    “I looked at Momma, who all of a sudden clutched at her heart and fell down on her knees and cried out, ‘Oh no, not one of my babies! Dear God, not one of my babies!’
    “Poppa Threadgoode had heard the noise from the store and ran over to the station. I was on the front porch with Momma when the men came up the walk. The minute I saw that straw hat Edward was carrying, I knew it was Buddy.
    “He had been flirting around with that pretty Marie Millerthat day, and as the train pulled away, he’d stepped on the