Kizzy Ann Stamps Read Online Free PDF Page B

are brown or khaki or whatever material was left from what she had sitting around. They are shaped to hang down my body from the shoulders to my knees, and they cover me and that is that. I also have had other hand-me-down dresses, but never anything from someone like Laura Westover. My hand-me-downs before were just dresses from here and there — dresses from the church bazaar or yard sales, things Mama saw for sale for a nickel or something. Not like I’ve ever cared. I just put on whatever’s there that’s clean that Mama sets out. If girls could wear jeans to school, I’d wear jeans. I’m not frilly, not froufrou, not fancy. I am plain and down to business. I’m a no-bow girl, like Shag is a no-bow dog. I am not a strawberry sundae or a dream. I am just me. I am who I am. I am jeans, dirt on my hands, and my dog with me at the end of the day.
    Maybe it’s because of my scar. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a sister. Maybe it’s because of how I spend my time, working with Shag on the farm. I don’t feel comfortable in dresses and fancy wear and anything that’s bringing attention to me. Still, I cannot make my mother’s sacrifice be for nothing. After Labor Day, I will wear clothes that are not me and try as hard as I can to fit into someone else’s dresses, someone else’s school, and someone else’s world.
    I don’t think this will be easy.

    I hate Frank Charles Feagans. I know that’s not what Jesus wants us to say, but Pastor Moore says God can read our hearts, so there’s no hiding it from the Lord. Frank Charles is entirely too nosy about my dog. And his nosiness cost me a beating.
    We went to Bedford City yesterday with our vegetables to sell. Saturdays are market days, and nobody can grow zucchini like Granny Bits. I helped her, just like I’m supposed to — I laid out the green and yellow gourds alternating, so the pretty colors danced together, just the way she likes. Shag lay panting in the shade under the display counter, and when Granny Bits said we could wander, I called Shag to heel and off we went.
    Market is one place that is already integrated, you know. My granny has a stall right up front, where the prizewinners stay. She’s won first place on those zucchini three times at the county fair, and her strawberry-rhubarb preserves win the blue ribbon year after year too. She is set up right next to the Right Reverend’s wife, Mrs. Dr. Stanbridge. She is a sweet-voiced lady with the fine, downy jawline old white ladies show. Every week she hints for Granny Bits’s secrets, and every week she leaves with an empty basket but a heart full of hope that she’ll wheedle it out the next Saturday. Daddy says Episcopalians must be a mighty hopeful lot.
    Anyhow, Mrs. Dr. Stanbridge always brings a small round bone for Shag to enjoy while we set up. Shag is used to kicks from white people, not treats, so she is wary usually, but Mrs. Dr. Stanbridge’s fresh baby-powder scent is Shag’s cue to peek out and ease her mouth delicately around the offered bone. Mrs. Dr. Stanbridge always exclaims about what a lady Shag is, and my dog, with her perfect manners, stands immobile while the smooth white hands glide over her coat three times.
    Three is all Shag allows to folks besides family. Three trips down her fluffy fur. Then she steps back quickly and circles herself around that bone. Her crunching, her crackling, her lip-smacking enjoyment, is the background noise to our vegetable setup.
    This Saturday was like any other, until that Frank Charles ran into us. I was looking over the whistles that Old Man Pickerel carves when I heard that sly Frank Charles’s voice, sneaking commands to Shag.
    “Come, Shag. Here, Shag. Here, girl.”
    Of course she ignored him.
    He got a little louder. “Here, Shag.”
    “Stop doing that,” I said. I admit, I was right snappy with my tone. I admit that. But he shouldn’a’ been calling her. And then he clicked his tongue at her!
    “I told you to stop that,