Chapter 8
I’ll Cast the First Stone!
By the time Shelby Miller reached the old watering hole, every chair but one had somebody sitting in it. The place was a bar by night, but the community used it as it’s needed during the day.
Shelby smiled as she entered.
“Looks like I’m late.”
“You are,” Abigail answered without looking up from her needle. “Frankie’s already threatened to thread needles for anybody too proud to admit they cain’t see.”
“I heard that,” Frankie said.
“And I meant every word.”
The room chuckled.
Shelby laid her basket beside the quilt frame.
Katie McGathery already occupied the chair beside the front window.
Nobody had pulled it out for her.
Nobody ever did.
That chair belonged to Katie as much as the window itself.
From there she could see every stitch in the room…
…and everything happening out on the square.
Shelby nodded toward the empty place beside the quilt.
“Morning, Katie.”
Katie smiled without turning around.
“Mornin’.”
Miss Shelia was in the middle of waving both hands through the air.
“…and Aunt Ruby said if she’d known Atlanta was that dangerous she’d’ve packed a skillet.”
Doris smiled.
She waited exactly long enough to make certain.
Then she softly began humming.
“Amazing grace…”
Shelia stopped talking before the second line. This was one of Doris’ friend adjustments. Shelia would pause a story every time for a song.
Shelia didn’t sing this time. She usually started singing a beautiful soprano melody. Not this time. She stared at Doris.
Miss Doris dropped the thread from her needle and Shelia saw it first. She watched as Her friend tried to rethread it, and failed miserable. Shelia pointed out her misstep, “Doris, you aren’t ever going to get it like that! You have to hold your tongue right.”
Frankie Daniel’s needle froze half way through the stitch. That child, just use a phrase her dear dead husband use to say to there son. “That’s odd,” she thought.
Miss Shelia picked up on the second versus.
“…how sweet the sound…”
Without another thought she joined right in.
One voice became two.
Two became five.
Soon the whole room was humming and singing while needles slipped quietly through cloth.
Shelby looked from one woman to another.
Nobody seemed surprised.
When the hymn ended, Shelia laughed.
“I done it again, didn’t I? I know I talk.”
“You surely do,” Frankie answered, sideways staring at her like a mama would.
“But a lotta times I’ll start tellin’ a story folks’ve heard before, and it’ll remind somebody else of one they ain’t ever told.”
She shrugged.
“Half the time everybody forgets I was talkin’ in the first place.”
Doris smiled.
“And that bother you?”
“Lord, no.”
Shelia laughed.
“I just like hearin’ stories. What people find interesting tells a lot about a body.”
“That’s two.” Frankie thought. “Georgie’s spirit must be close. I keep hearing him in your words.”
The room settled back into the rhythm of quilting.
Frankie stood.
Without saying a thing she walked behind the counter.
She laid a single coin upon the worn wood.
Poured herself one little swallow from the bottle waiting there.
Set the glass back down.
Then, in the same easy voice she’d carried for years, she eased into one of Georgie’s old sea shanties. Like most local songs, they take on a personality that shows a mountain flavor.
Soon may the Goatman come
To bring us sugar and tea and rum…
Nobody joined at first.
They simply smiled.
One by one their voices found hers.
By the last verse every woman in the room knew the tune.
Frankie came back to the quilt frame.
Threaded her needle.
Shelby smiled.
“I always liked that one.”
Frankie nodded.
“So did Georgie.”
Silence settled over the room for just a moment.
Then Shelia’s eyes lit up.
“Y’all ain’t heard this happening.”
The women looked up.
Doris folded her hands.
“No?”
Shelia smiled.
“Well… I was thinkin’ about little boys tryin’ to prove they’re men. So any of you have a story about that?”
Frankie looked over.
“I had one close in my memories just now.”
Shelia laughed.
“Then you tell yourself!”
Frankie leaned back.
“Y’all ever hear about the time little Georgie near killed Howard?”
Outside…
Howard stopped walking.
Katie noticed first.
She didn’t say a word.
She only kept watching.
Frankie told how a handful of older boys dared nine-year-old Georgie to spend the night alone in the graveyard.
How Georgie gathered flat rocks.
How sheets came floating through the darkness.
How one sharp rock found Howard square in the forehead.
How every boy hollered,
“You killed Howard!”
Then they took off, running scared to home!
Outside the window Howard closed his eyes.
“Oh, Lord…”
Inside…
Frankie reached the part where little Georgie knelt beside him.
Threw water in his face.
Looked at the knot swelling on his head.
“You best go show your mama.”
“What do I tell her?”
“Tell her you fell and hit your head…I don’t rightly care what you tell her…”
“…but you better tell somebody.”
Katie burst into laughter.
She slapped both hands together.
“Y’all come here!”
Every woman hurried to the window.
Howard stood frozen in the middle of the street.
Seven women looked straight at him.
He pointed one finger toward the window.
“I hope y’all are proud.”
Shelia stood on her tip toes and shouted back, “Come on old man! I’ve got a rock for you!”
Well, with those words, a couple of things began to happen, but all at the same time.
Frankie had a realization.
“And that’s not Georgie’s voice I’ve been a hearing. That’d be my sons.” Frankie was done second guessing. Shelia was talking with her son’s voice and she vowed to herself she would find out how and why.
Doris had heard her friend’s words and…
Panic!
“You do not have a rock!” She ran to her friend’s raised hand and forced her arm down.
“You do!” Doris snatched the rock.
“I’ve told you Shelia, you have to stop throwing rocks!”
“Give it here.” Doris held her empty hand out and waited.
Shelia disappointedly deposited a well crafted slingshot.
She didn’t look sheepish.
Frankie took the slingshot from Doris, “I’ll hang on to this little miss.”
Frankie examined the weapon. The two long pieces of leather around a single piece of wood leading into a woven pocket. “Yep, that’s my son’s wrapping.”
Everyone but Frankie was laughing wildly.
Howard shook his head.
“Miserable bunch.”
He turned and stomped off toward the square.
Still muttering.
Katie laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks.
She caught her breath. “I needed that laugh.”
Slowly the room settled again.
Needles found cloth.
Abigail smiled.
Frankie looked upward for just a second.
A smile crossed her face.
“That will be a good story, well earned.” She looked toward heaven and said, “thanks for the laugh, Georgie…”
And the quilting bee went right back to work.