Good Heavens Read Online Free PDF Page A

the sun.”
    â€œHey, if you think so much of those leaves, you can have ’em. Here’s a sack; help yourself.”
    As fast as he peeled off the leaves I stuffed them in that bag, and before you knew it, I needed more bags. It made the fellow curious that I was taking so much. “You got a big family? Having company?” he asked.
    â€œNo,” I told him. “It’s for Priscilla Home.”
    Right away he lightened up, said he’d heard of that place. “That Old Turnpike is a washboard of a road, ain’t it?” he said, and I agreed.
    Seeing he had several shelves of vegetables he was going to have to offer at discount, I asked him, “What’s the best price you can give me on the whole lot?”
    â€œHey, I just work here,” he said. “I’ll have to ask the boss.” He stopped what he was doing and disappeared behind swinging doors.
    In about five minutes he reappeared with the store manager in tow. By then I had made up my mind the limit I would pay.
    â€œShe wants a price on all o’ this stuff,” the produce man explained.
    Both men surveyed the shelves, and then the store manager said, “Lady, if you can use this stuff, you’re welcome to it. You’ll be doing us a favor to take it off our hands—save us having to rewrap and reprice it.”
    He turned to go back through the swinging doors, so I called after him, “How much?” But he was gone.
    â€œThere’s no charge,” the produce man told me. “Here, I’ll help you bag it.”

    I can’t tell you how happy I was as I left that store. I still had money left and was beginning to feel like that woman in the Bible with the pot of oil that didn’t give out.
    There was a meat market up a ways from the store, so after I’d stashed the vegetables in the backseat, I drove up there. In the worse way I wanted some red meat for those sad-looking women.
    A round-faced man in a white apron and cap was leaning on the meat case and spoke to me as I came in the door. Before I buy, I always check a meat counter to see if it’s clean, and his was. There were hams, roasts, steaks, sausages, pork chops, chickens, and hamburger meat all neatly displayed in trays. I decided my best bargain would be the hamburger. It being Monday, I knew the meat he had was probably left over from Saturday, and he’d favor a quick sale of hamburger. So I pointed at the price posted and told him, “I can use all you got of that ground beef if the price is right.”
    He rolled open the sliding door of the cabinet, pulled out the pan of hamburger, threw a paper on the scales,and dumped the meat on. “I’ll weigh it,” he said and leaned his head back to read the numbers bobbing on that little glass tube. He was taking so long I figured he was trying to decide on what he would charge me. Finally he announced, “Eight pounds, four ounces.”
    â€œSo, what’s your best price?” I asked.
    He didn’t answer; he just asked me if I was going to put it in my freezer.
    â€œNo,” I said. “It’s for Priscilla Home, and after a meal or two there’ll be nothing left.”
    â€œPriscilla Home?” He turned to look at me. “How many wimmin you got up there now?”
    â€œAbout a dozen, I guess. I just came yesterday.”
    â€œYou a patient up there?”
    â€œNo, I’m the new housemother.”
    He started wrapping the meat. “Hold on,” I said. “You didn’t give me the price.”
    â€œTwo dollars,” he said, wrapping twine around the package.
    â€œDid I hear you right? Two dollars?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œThat’s giving it away!” I didn’t want to take advantage of the man.
    He placed the meat on the counter. “I ain’t a-losin’ a penny, because as my granny used to say, ‘Give and it’ll be give back.’ She was one good