The Hall cousin from Gainesville, the one with the automobile, had come back to the Carrier house every day since Christmas. He arrived every afternoon after the midday meal and sat on the porch with Sylvester, smoking a pipe and looking towards the screen door in hopes of seeing Happy, the real reason for his visit. He had taken an obvious shine to her on Christmas day and waited every afternoon to see her. Happy grimly stuck to the kitchen, her face in a constant flush whenever John Hall was visiting. It was so unlike her usual behavior that everyone knew she must be affected by the handsome man’s attention, despite ignoring him.
“Why don’t you just tell him then if you’re not interested? Kind of mean to keep him coming around,” Sarah told Happy, who shook her head.
“Not my business he wants to waste his time,” she muttered, but Sarah just laughed at her.
Rose and Queen, out of school until the New Year, went back and forth between the porch and the kitchen, offering coffee to the men and reporting back to Happy on John Hall’s clothes, his nice manners and his conversation.
Happy always sniffed and asked them “Why you telling me?” But she turned every time they entered and stopped whatever she was doing to hear their reports.
On the day before New Year’s Eve, John Hall said, “I believe I’ll just go and have a word with the maker of this fine coffee,” and excused himself from the group on the porch.
Rose and Queen were about to chase after him, hoping to eavesdrop, but a gesture from their uncle kept them on the porch until his guest had passed into the hallway.
“You two chickens let them have a minute,” he told the girls.
“What about the dishes?” Rose tried.
“No dishes need washing right now, Miss Nosy,” he told her, “But I’ll be sure to let Mama know you’d like to wash up tonight.”
The girls waited impatiently until John Hall returned to the porch, smiling and coming over to shake Sylvester’s hand.
“Mr. Carrier, I have enjoyed our visit,” he said. “I’ll be pleased to see you tomorrow evening.”
Sylvester stood to shake hands again and walked the man to the gate where his automobile was parked. Sylvester cranked the car for him and stood watching as the vehicle roared away, shaking his head at the dust and the noise. He came back up on the porch and put his pipe on the pipe rack next to his chair.
“Let’s go see what Sister has to say,” he told the girls.
Happy was out on the back porch, putting away newly processed jars of marmalade in one of the jelly cabinets.
“Now don’t you all start on me,” she complained, but her eyes were shining and she was smiling in a satisfied way. “All he did was tell me how good my coffee was. ‘You sure have a way with a cup of coffee, Miss Carrier’, that’s what he said.”
“Why’d he tell me he’d be back tomorrow evening then?” Sylvester asked, peering at his sister through the ring of a jelly jar cap he picked up off the table. “Hmmm?”
“Oh, he wants to escort me to the church supper tomorrow night, if he could,” Happy told them, looking up to the ceiling and swishing her skirt back and forth as if it was a ball gown. “He wanted to drive me in his automobile, can you imagine the mess from that crazy thing, driving on these dirt roads, dust all over my party clothes? I told him that and he said ‘Miss Carrier, I’d walk from Gainesville to fetch you, I surely can walk from town to escort you to the church'.”
“You sure it was you he was asking for?” Sylvester teased. “I told him Beauty was the sweet one.”
Happy looked at Sylvester and again grinned that satisfied grin.
“Not everybody likes sweet the best,” she told him. “Some like spicy better.”