The Personal History of Rachel DuPree Read Online Free PDF Page B

allow the men in the kitchen, but by the time I was twenty-five, she pretended not to notice. Likely she thought I was an old maid and that the men looked at me as nothing more than an older sister. But maybe there was a spot of kindness buried somewhere in her heart. She had a son of her own far away from home. Maybe she understood that a man needed to lean against a kitchen wall. Watching a woman tidy up was good for easing homesickness.
    But not all of the men saw me as a sister. Some of them tried to court me.
    One particular evening it was Thomas Lee Patterson who spoke up. Four other men ringed the kitchen. “Miss Reeves,” he said. “That strawberry pie was right tasty.”
    “Crust didn’t do like it should,” I said, drying the last pan.
    “Puts my grandma’s to shame, it was that good.”
    “Better not let her hear that.”
    He grinned, straightened up, and looked at the other men. I felt their eyes telling him to go on, give it a try. I shook my head a little to warn him off. Thomas Lee didn’t seem to see. Instead, he took a steadying breath. “What say, Miss Reeves? How about me walking you on home tonight?”
    The air tensed.
    “Oh my,” I said. I tilted my head, acting like I was considering the offer. But I wasn’t. Thomas Lee was as good as the next slaughterhouse man, but that was what he was: a slaughterhouse man. I had lived in the district since I was eleven and knew all there was to know about such men. Dad was one until he slipped and fell in a mess of hog guts and blood, knocking himself senseless for a night and a day. When he came to, his face drooped, his left hand dangled by his side, and one of his legs didn’t do like it should. He never was able to work again.
    There was something about slaughterhouse work that soured a man; even my mother said so. He could start off all right, but if he stayed more than a year, the work laid him low. Killing animals for a living broke a man’s dreams, turned him bitter and mean. Or turned him to drink. That wasn’t the kind of man I wanted. I wanted a man what aimed to better himself, what wasn’t afraid to look inside a book, and was willing to save his money for something grander than a pint of beer.
    Thomas Lee Patterson was a handsome man. But he’d been in the slaughterhouse for nearly three years. He’d never get out.
    “Much obliged,” I said to him, “but you know my father. Most likely he’s out there now, on the stoop, waiting for me.” That was because, I could have added, Dad didn’t want anybody courting me, he didn’t want me getting married. Him and Mama counted on my wages.
    “Yes, ma’am, I do. Men back home, that’s how they do for their daughters. It’s just that your daddy, he drags that leg of his so bad, thought maybe it’d go easier for him if somebody else was seeing to you.”
    “Where you from, Mr. Patterson?”
    “Huntsville, Alabama.”
    “Well then. You’re a Southern gentleman just like Dad.” I took off my apron and put it in a laundry basket for Trudy, the housemaid, to launder. “Now out of my kitchen,” I said, flapping my hands. “All of you. Out.”
    “But—,” Thomas Lee said.
    “Out,” I said as if I didn’t know his meaning. One of the other men laughed. I shot him a hard look, shushing him. Thomas Lee’s head drooped. I stepped close to him, wanting to make him feel better. “It’s my father. He’s old-fashioned,” I whispered, shrugging my shoulders as if to say that otherwise it’d be different. He drew in some air and gave me a quick glance as he left. He didn’t believe me but pride kept him from pressing. Pride, I also knew, would keep Thomas Lee out of the kitchen from then on. He’d have to find something else to do to fill the lonesome evening hours, and that made me feel bad. But not bad enough to change my mind.
    Alone in the kitchen, I hung up the last frying pan and put the footstool back in the corner. I set the dining table for the morning, and then, after