some free directions.
“Weezie and Jackson,” I said, hopeful he'd know whom I was talking about.
“Oh, sure, the Jackson what's the borough manager.” He painfully counted out my change and gave me directions in typical Lickin Creek style. “Take the Old Mill Road south for about three miles, look for the burnt maple tree. It'll either be on your left or your right. Turn there onto Orphanage Road, go about a mile to where the fruit stand used to be, then watch for the Hillside Mennonite Church. Hang a left at the cemetery, go past the Martin Farm—or maybe it's the Mellott Farm—till you get to the dirt lane. That's the Clopper place. You can't miss it.”
To my great surprise, I found it, with no trouble. I was beginning to understand the local lingo!
A small, faded sign nailed to a fence post said ALTERATIONS and KNIVES SHARPENED. The winding lane was muddy from melted snow. I gritted my teeth and drove slowly down it to the two-story brick farmhouse nestled at the bottom of a hill.
A flock of Canadian geese who had taken up residence beside a partly frozen pond flapped their wings but didn't seem to be concerned by my presence. There was a general air of seediness to the property, from the white paint flaking off the wood trim of the house to the leaning red barn. A wheelless tractor was suspended on cement blocks next to the house. A scruffy German shepherd sniffed at my tires, then slunk back into the barn.
I knocked on the front door before noticing a handwritten sign saying COME IN. Pushing open the door, I stuck my head in and called out, “Hello … anybody home?”
From somewhere in the back, I heard the whir of a sewing machine. There was no answer to my question, so I went in, closing the door behind me.
There was no entrance hall. I stepped directly into the living room, furnished with the heavy red-plush furniture I associate with the Depression era. An artificial Christmas tree stood in one corner, but it did nothing to brighten the room. A gloomy Jesus looked down at me from several picture frames.
I passed through a dining room, crowded with the kind of enormous, dark oak furniture one would expect to find in El Cid's castle, and followed the sewing machine sound into a large kitchen.
Weezie looked up and nodded. “Have a seat. I'll be finished with this in a jiffy.”
I moved a laundry basket full of clothes off a chair and sat down at the table. A hearty wail erupted from the basket.
“What the … ?” I exclaimed.
“It's my granddaughter.” Weezie rose from her sewing and extracted a crying baby from the mound of clothes. “I sit her while my daughter works at the Giant Big-Mart.”
She held the baby and stroked its back until the crying stopped, then gently replaced her in the basket and covered her with a towel. While she was busy with her grandchild, I had plenty of time to look around the kitchen and notice that it was a cheery place, unlike the gloomy front rooms. I found the red and white checked curtains at the windows and the Blue Willow china on the plate rail charming. Less charming was the purple shiner Weezie sported around her left eye.
“What happened to your eye?” I asked.
“Walked into a door.” Her brazen stare dared me to argue with her.
“Sorry to hear that.” She made me think of Mrs. Pof-fenberger, another abused wife. Didn't anybody have decent marriages anymore?
“Let's have a cup a coffee.” Weezie filled two blue and white graniteware mugs from the coffeepot on the stove. “Sugar's on the table. Want milk?”
“Please,” I said.
She took a plastic milk container from the refrigerator, dropped it on the table, and sat down across from me to watch me doctor my coffee.
“I don't often use real milk and sugar. This is a real treat for me,” I said with a smile.
“Don't hold with that artificial stuff. It all causes cancer, you know. You like Christian music?”
“I … guess so. A long time ago when we lived in Okinawa, I sang with a Sunday school chorus. We did The Messiah at an Easter sunrise service on a cliff overlooking the China Sea.” I stopped, because Weezie was staring at me as if I were speaking an unfamiliar language.
“Lived in Oklahoma, huh? Had a cousin went there once. But I didn't mean classical stuff. I'm talking about Christian music.”
She jumped up and left