The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

seconds, then let himself fall to the ground, spent and defeated.
    Ruthie, like every other West Feliciana fan there that night, was shattered. She and her friends held each other, wailing and sobbing. Our boys worked so hard all year, she thought, and had this game all but won! The Saints’ gruff coach gathered his team behind the dugout, and with tears in his eyes told them how proud he was of them.
    Heads bowed, the boys gathered their gear and loaded back onto the team bus. The fan bus followed close behind. The buses pulled over at a McDonald’s on the way out of town. Mike sat next to Ruthie in the booth and they ate hamburgers and fries together. This left her giddy, and almost redeemed the disastrous night.
    The following weekend Mam and Paw let Ruthie have a birthday party in Paw’s old barn, just up the gravel road from their place. They promised her they wouldn’t stay back there, watching the kids, but they trusted her to make sure her friends wouldn’t drink alcohol. A big crowd turned up that night in Starhill, parking their trucks in Paw’s field, and beckoned by the sound of country music, joining the party under the tin roof. One Starhill kid turned his truck lights on and captured Ruthie and Mike making out by the fence row.
    “What’s the matter with him?” Ruthie fumed. “Hasn’t he ever seen anybody kissing before?”
    In the aftermath of the evening Ruthie and Mike had to pick upseveral trash bags’ worth of empty beer cans and whiskey bottles. Mam and Paw were furious. Ruthie and Mike were disappointed in their friends. That’s how these parties usually went, though. That next week Ruthie turned fifteen and got her learner’s permit to drive. Paw let her take his big white Lincoln Continental, a wedding cake on whitewalls, to school.
    Ruthie and Mike were crazy about each other, but couldn’t quite move to the scoot-across-the-truck-seat phase of a West Feliciana teenage courtship. Were they just friends, or weren’t they? Mike adored Ruthie, but couldn’t believe a girl like her wanted to be with a guy like him. His self-doubt and natural timidity caused him to hang back. Ruthie took this for disinterest. They were at an unhappy stalemate.
    One July day Mike was riding a lawn mower, cutting grass outside the Bank of St. Francisville. He saw Ruthie drive by four or five times with Mam in the car, and wondered what she was up to.
    “Ruthie,” said Mam, “if you don’t pull over and ask that boy, I’m going to do it for you.”
    Ruthie stopped the car, got out, and walked over to Mike. He powered down the mower.
    “Hey,” she said.
    “Hey.”
    “You know that Junior Babe Ruth championship tournament they’re having this month at the baseball park?”
    “Yeah, I’m playing in it.”
    “I know. I’m going to be on the court. Some kind of queen thing. The girls on the court have to have one of the baseball players escort them. I was kind of wondering if, um, you would escort me. You think you might be able to do that?”
    Mike only managed to say, “Yeah, I reckon I could.” Ruthie thanked him, got back into the car with Mam, and drove away. Mike started the mower again, and glided across the Bermuda grass. And that was all it took. Ruthie Dreher took her place on the tournamentcourt, on the arm of Mike Leming. They were never again apart. Years later, in fact, they would both say it was hard to remember a time when they hadn’t been together. Ruthie and Mike just knew this was how it was supposed to be for them—a conclusion all their friends quickly drew.
    With Ruthie at his side, and not a paper’s width between them, Mike would drive them to Baton Rouge on dates. They would go to the movies, and then to eat at Wendy’s, Ruthie’s favorite. When the Greater Baton Rouge State Fair was on in the fall, they would drive into the city to the far end of Airline Highway, and step out into the colored lights of the midway, with all its funnel-caked, cotton-candied,