Whisper Town Read Online Free PDF Page B

asking and no one knows a thing about her. You wouldn’t know of a family
     that would take her in, would you?”
    “Whites don’t want her, my guess?” The woman’s mouth lifted at one corner.
    “I’m not married and I’ve already taken in three youngens. Don’t seem right for this little girl to be brought up without
     a proper momma.”
    A large man appeared behind the woman. “It’s a girl, you say.” He didn’t smile at all and his face was without any expression.
    Jackie whispered something to her mother that Jeb could not hear.
    “Take her, Monette,” said the man. He looked up at Jeb. “Leave her here. You can be on your way.”
    “Preacher, don’t leave her!” Jackie grabbed the basket before Jeb could set it on the porch.
    “Shut up, girl!” The man was angry. He grabbed her by the shoulder. “I told you to stop mouthing off or you’d get it!”
    “Jackie, go on into the kitchen,” her mother told her.
    Jackie did as she was told but kept yelling, “He’s not my daddy” and crying.
    Jeb backed away. He held the basket close to him. The big man took a step forward onto the porch. Jeb turned and ran to his
     truck, jostling Myrtle. She whimpered.
    He heard the man swearing at him from the front porch. From an upstairs window, the curtain came open. Jackie waved from behind
     the glass, as though she shooed Jeb and Myrtle away.
    The sun had now fully bloomed into afternoon. It felt like summer. The bog part of Tempest’s Bog heated up like mud stew.
    Jeb drove them away from Tempest’s Bog. “We’re going to go and meet your dinner, little girl,” he said. “She’d best be nice.”
    “Who told you about me?” Belinda Tatum was a stout woman, at least as young as twenty. She was missing a bottom tooth. When
     she talked, she had a matter-of-fact tone, but she drew back her shoulders as though she expected a fight.
    Jeb stuck out his hand. “Dr. Forrester sent me over.”
    “Oh, him. Sometimes the women around town talk about me. That’s why I asked. I guess you want me to come over to your place?”
    Jeb had not thought that far ahead. “I’d be grateful if you could. I don’t know anything about babies or feedings.”
    “I come morning and night. I just weaned a kid from up north of town, so this is a good time.”
    “I’ll give you my address.”
    “I charge five dollars a week and that’s not negotiable.”
    Jeb felt the color drain from his face.
    “It pays the grocery bill, and ’sides all that, Doc says I give the best milk in the county.”
    Jeb expected her to moo.
    “You try and keep her on cow’s milk and see if she don’t get sick. Babies can’t tolerate cow’s milk, you know. You try putting
     her on dairy and see if she don’t die.”
    “This is just until I can find her a good family.” He handed Belinda the address.
    “You’re giving away your baby?”
    “Myrtle’s not mine. She was left on my porch.”
    “I got a cousin named Myrtle. Can I see her?”
    “Here, come out to the truck.”
    Belinda followed Jeb out, her arms still full of her own wriggling baby boy. She peeked through the truck window. “Reverend,
     she’s a Nigra baby.”
    “It’s fine. I don’t think she’ll mind.”
    “You didn’t tell me that.”
    “What difference does it make?”
    “I can’t do that at all.” Belinda backed away from the truck.
    “You seem like a reasonable person.”
    “Find some momma down in Tempest’s Bog.”
    “I’ll pay you extra.”
    “How much?”
    “Six-fifty a week.”
    “Seven.”
    “Fine, then.” Jeb reached through the window and picked up Myrtle. “How about a dollar’s worth right about now?”

4
    T
OADS COULD BE HEARD MAKING A RUCKUS down the alley between Snooker’s and the feed store, like creatures engaged in mating rites.
    Farley Williams drove up on most nights from Tempest’s Bog. He was the man who danced in the evenings from the time the sawmill
     closed until the bottoms of his feet ached. Every night his