“Mmmm…” He hardly glanced at it.
“Well, aren’t you going to say anything?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Well, is that all right with you? Do you want me to pay for it?”
“Pay for it? No, I don’t want you to pay for it. But I will praise the Lord that maybe you’re finally going to try to look like a young lady. You been wearing that brown sack so long, looks near ready to fall off. Take all the dresses you want. By all means.” He seemed embarrassed and turned to flee into the
storeroom.
Why do I always expect the worst of him? she wondered. And then when he
surprises me by being nice, I think he’s doing it for the wrong reasons. But she couldn’t help suspecting that he considered it an excellent investment – spruce Olivia up a bit, maybe some poor man would take her off her brother’s hands .
She picked out three more dresses – two of which she knew would have to be
taken in – but it was the one of a deep royal blue that she couldn’t wait to try on.
She hurried home, stepped into it, and stood in front of the hinged oval mirror in
her room, beginning to understand why women fretted so much over their
clothes. She looked like a whole different person, all grown up. Elegant. She still
wore her dark hair like a young girl, cut blunt and shoved behind her ears, but
now she swept it up with both hands and could imagine herself a real lady, all done up, with ringlets and ribbons in her hair.
Under the eaves she had found two large rectangular wicker baskets with lids
that lifted on hinges. One of them had been half-filled with her mother’s clothes
and Olivia wondered who’d packed them away after she died. Their father? Mrs.
Hardaway? Good thing Mabel hadn’t been around back then; she’d have hung
them in the store. Olivia cleaned the baskets and practiced packing: two velvet winter bonnets; two pairs of mitts; four cotton day caps; a corset; four chemises;
a pile of stockings, garters, and extra white collars and cuffs. Then she started with the petticoats she so hated – three flannel, three muslin, three calico, and only one crinoline. She still had to fit in her dresses, an umbrella, a parasol, a heavy winter coat, and whatever she was going to wear on her feet.
Her guidebooks advised going barefoot as much as possible during the
summer, in order to save shoe leather for cold weather. They also said one
should save on scuffing by always, winter or summer, removing shoes when
riding in a wagon. She had no intention of doing that either.
Mourning happened to be in Killion’s General the day she confiscated three
pairs of work shoes. They were all the same, with cloth uppers, squared patent
leather tips at the toes and heel sections, and laces at the inner ankle. That week,
when they met near Uncle Scruggs’ grave to compare lists, Mourning asked why
he had seen her carting off a barrel full of shoes.
“I’ll need them.”
“Ain’t nobody need no three pair a shoes.”
“If you want to risk having to run through the woods barefoot, that’s your
affair, but I want to be sure to have enough sturdy work shoes. I’m only taking
one pair for Sunday.”
“You mean them three ain’t all?”
“I can’t very well attend church in work boots.”
“I bet all them farmers wives out there do. If they even got a church.”
“It’s just one little pair of Roman sandals.”
“Roman what?”
