The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree (2 page)

BOOK: The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree
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Elizabeth Lacy had been a member of the Darling Garden Club ever since Mrs. Blackstone started it in 1925, and president for the last two years. But she couldn’t remember a more important meeting. Today was a special day. They were celebrating the opening of their clubhouse.
Their
new
clubhouse, Lizzy thought proudly, as she called the meeting to order after their tour of the garden—although of course the house wasn’t new at all. It was the old Blackstone house at 302 Camellia Street, one block west of the courthouse square and one block south, next door to Bessie Bloodworth’s boardinghouse, Magnolia Manor. Mrs. Blackstone, a lifelong resident of Darling, had died a few months before at the grand age of eighty-two, leaving her house to the club, along with almost an acre of garden in the back, a half-acre vegetable garden in the adjoining lot, and two beautiful cucumber trees, one in front and one in back.
As usual, Lizzy started the meeting with the roll call. All twelve of their members were present on this special occasion. Since it was Sunday, the ladies were wearing their church outfits: summery flower-print cotton and crepe and rayon dresses with pretty collars of organdy and pique and dotted swiss and hats with ribbons and flowers. Their skirts were safely below their knees at last, now that the Roaring Twenties had stopped roaring. They were all very tired of the flapper look (especially since most of them had never been flappers) and ready for pleats and ruffles and those cute, perky angel bell sleeves that were (as Ophelia Snow put it) the very dickens to iron. Myra May was the only exception to the summer-dress rule. As usual, she wore trousers, light-colored, with a leather belt and tailored blouse.
After the roll call, Lizzy moved quickstep through Ophelia’s minutes (adopted, with a correction by Earlynne Biddle, who wanted it known that she had donated a book to the club library) and Verna Tidwell’s treasurer’s report (five dollars and fifty-two cents in the kitty). Bessie Bloodworth reported on the upcoming plant sale, which would be held the next Saturday at the Curbside Market on the courthouse square, and answered people’s questions about where to go and what to bring. She also invited people to volunteer for garden cleanup, which (as they could see from their tour) was going to be a big job. They would need all the help they could get.
Next, Lizzy took up the most important item of business, which was renaming their club in honor of their founder and benefactress, Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone. Henceforth and forever, they would be known as the Darling Dahlias, and their clubhouse would be called the Dahlia House. Ophelia Snow made the motion, Verna Tidwell seconded it, and there was a loud chorus of ayes.
“Which is good,” Lizzy said with satisfaction, “because Beulah has already painted our new sign. It’s leaning up against the tree for now, but we thought we’d have a little ceremony.” She reached for her Kodak. “Why don’t we go outside and I’ll take a picture for Friday’s column.”
For the last five years, Lizzy had written the “Garden Gate” column for the Darling
Dispatch,
which was edited and published by Charlie Dickens. The paper came out every Friday morning—unless there was a problem with the printing press, in which case it might be Saturday or even Monday, since Charlie would have to send down to Mobile for parts, and the parts would have to come back to Darling on the Greyhound bus. Lizzy loved writing the column, but she had a full-time job as secretary in Mr. Moseley’s law office and had to do it after hours, on the Underwood typewriter at work. She never ran out of things to put in her column, though. There was always something pretty in bloom or something interesting going on in somebody’s garden.
Outside, the club members gathered under the cucumber tree—so old and large and beautiful that it was one of the town’s landmarks—to witness the unveiling of the freshly painted wooden signboard. Myra May Mosswell did the honors. “Ta-ta-ta-TA-ta-ta!” she cried, imitating a trumpet, and pulled off the bedsheet that Lizzy had brought to drape over the sign. Beaming, she flung her arm around Beulah Trivette. “Didn’t Beulah do us proud, ladies? Just look at that beautiful basket of dahlias!”
Lizzy peered down into her Kodak, focused, and snapped. Beulah (whose talents as a hairdresser extended to all things artistic) had really outdone herself this time. She had painted THE DARLING DAHLIAS in big fancy letters, in vivid green on a white background, arching the words over a basket of dahlias in every imaginable color: red, yellow, orange, peppermint-striped, purple. It was really too bad that the newspaper photo would be just plain old black-and-white, Lizzy thought. If people wanted to see the sign in full color, they’d have to walk over to Camellia Street for a look.
“It was nothing, really,” Beulah said in reply to Myra May. She tried not to look too pleased.
“Nothing?” Verna Tidwell chuckled. “Nothing short of gorgeous, Beulah. Beyond words.” A wordless murmur of assent rippled through the group.
But Voleen Johnson had words, as usual. “Tad bit gaudy for my taste,” she said, putting her head on one side. “Too many dahlias in that basket”
Lizzy sighed. When Voleen Johnson climbed onto her high horse, the best thing you could do was ignore her. “Okay, everybody,” she called. “I’ve got a good shot of Beulah and Myra and the sign. So if you’ll line up behind them, I’ll get the rest of you.”
Everybody dutifully lined up and put on their picture-taking faces. Lizzy looked through the camera, thinking that they were a fine group, in their spring dresses and perky straw hats—no more of those silly felt cloches that hugged your head and smashed your hair. They weren’t spring chickens, though, none of them. At thirty, Alice Ann Walker was the youngest. Aunt Hetty, nearly eighty, was the eldest, now that dear Mrs. Blackstone was gone. Next oldest was Mrs. Johnson, at fifty-five. The rest were clumped in the middle, give or take a few years.
“I believe I’ll just stand here,” Mrs. Johnson said, planting herself comfortably next to Myra May in the front row. She always put herself out front, and why not? She was the wife of George E. Pickett Johnson, owner of the Darling Savings and Trust Bank. What’s more, she was the spitting image of Mrs. Herbert Hoover, marcelled silver hair and all. Everybody thought so. Mrs. Johnson must’ve thought so, too, because she framed the cover of the May 13, 1929, issue of Time magazine, the one with Mrs. Hoover on it, with a string of real pearls wound around her throat and looped artistically down the front of her black dress. Lizzy knew this because Danzie, who did the Johnsons’ laundry on Mondays, was sister to Sally-Lou, who worked for Lizzy’s mother. Danzie had told Sally-Lou (and Sally-Lou had told Lizzy) that the First Lady was hanging right beside Mrs. Johnson’s dressing table.
“A tad too many dahlias,” Mrs. Johnson repeated, putting up a hand to push her Mrs. Hoover white hair under her stylish purple hat, which she’d had made for her by a milliner in Atlanta, rather than Fannie Champaign, who had a shop right on Darling’s courthouse square and made hats for every other lady in town. She said it a little softer this time, but Aunt Hetty Little was standing right behind her and heard it.
“That’s only
your
opinion, Voleen,” Aunt Hetty said tartly. “If you had your way, there’d be nothing but lilies growin’ in this world.” She raised her voice. “Beulah, those dahlias are just fine. You have done us right proud, dear. Now, smile, ever’body, so Lizzy can get our picture and we can get on with our meeting:”
This time, everyone agreed with Aunt Hetty, so enthusiastically that Beulah Trivette turned pink with pleasure and Mrs. Johnson pressed her lips together. Lizzy smiled as she snapped the photo. Aunt Hetty was the only person in town who could use that tone to Mrs. George E. Pickett Johnson. This was because Aunt Hetty really was Mrs. Johnson’s aunt, although the Littles were a big family and Hetty was either aunt or cousin or other kin to just about everybody in town. And of course Aunt Hetty was right about the lilies, because Mrs. Johnson loved lilies with a passion, but only the pure white ones, never those common orange ditch lilies that everybody else had in abundance. The Johnson garden was full of white flowers, and Mrs. Johnson sent a big bouquet to the bank every morning all summer long, for the table by the front door.
Lizzy snapped another picture, and then a third, because Bessie Bloodworth was squinting. “All right, ladies,” she said, “let’s have our refreshments now. We can finish the meeting while we’re eating.”
The Dahlias were much too ladylike to shove, but nobody tarried. They trooped inside, the heels of their Sunday pumps clacking on the wooden floors, and straight to the back porch, where the table was spread with an embroidered cloth and decorated with a big blue glass vase full of flowers from the Dahlias’ gardens: gladiolas from Aunt Hetty, iris and azaleas from Verna, cutleaf lilacs from Earlynne Biddle, Japanese cherry and dogwood from Lizzy, and lacy ferns from next to the back door for greenery. Times might be just a little difficult, but that didn’t stop the spring flowers from blooming or the Dahlias from gathering big bouquets to share with their friends.
They’d brought plenty to eat, too. Bessie Bloodworth had piled a big plate high with those little deviled-ham finger sandwiches that are so light and tasty you could eat a half dozen before you knew it. Mrs. Johnson had brought a sandwich plate that was probably made up by her cook, Lucretia, with stuffed tomatoes and stuffed squash blossoms arranged around it so that it looked like something out of Better Homes
and
Gardens, where Mrs. Johnson had won a dollar the year before (and kept it, too) for Lucretia’s butterscotch pie recipe. Most of the Dahlias didn’t have time to stuff squash blossoms, even for a party, but they had brought their usual dishes of pickled okra and watermelon pickles and pickled eggs, along with spiced figs, pear compote, and fresh strawberries. Verna Tidwell brought molasses cookies, Mildred Kilgore brought her famous ribbon cake with peach filling, and Lizzy brought some of those little thumbprint cookies filled with raspberry jam made from the berries from the patch behind her house. Ophelia Snow had brought a couple of gallons of cold rosemary lemonade. She had extra ice from Friday’s delivery, so she brought that, too, and the lemonade was frosty cold. When their plates were full, the Dahlias carried them into the parlor and settled down to enjoy their friends’ cooking.
You’re probably curious about the Dahlias’ new clubhouse and gardens, so while they’re eating and chatting, we’ll have a quick look around. The house isn’t very large, just two rooms in front, the parlor where everybody is sitting in wooden chairs, and the front bedroom, wallpapered in green and white roses. This room has been turned into a sitting room featuring photographs of old Mrs. Blackstone and her beautiful garden—the way it once was, years before—and shelves that now contain the club’s gardening library. On the wall is a big gold-toned plaque from the Darling Town Council naming Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone Darling’s Woman of the Year. She earned the plaque three years running, 1926, 1927, and 1928, which annoyed Mrs. Johnson, who has never gotten it even once.
Behind the front bedroom is the pink-check-papered bedroom, which the Dahlias are planning to use as a workroom. Behind the parlor is the kitchen, which has a gas range (installed just a couple of years before) and an icebox on one side, a sink under the window, and cabinets and a pine table with white-painted legs. The house, built sometime in the 1890s, is on city gas and water and there’s an indoor bathroom at one end of the back porch. It also has electricity, for back in the mid-1920s, Ozzie Sherman installed a Delco generator to power his sawmill just outside of town. A smart businessman, he talked the Darling City Council into installing streetlights around the square and letting him run electricity through the town. Last year, the council took over the Sherman Electric Company and bought two new generators. If the money held out, they planned to run electricity all the way out to the Cypress County Fairgrounds.
BOOK: The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree
7.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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