NOBODY COULD EVER explain exactly why it was, but the girls who lived in all the other parts of Oconee County were different from the ones in our section. All the girls in Woodlawn, which was the name of the town where we lived, were the sassy kind. They were always slapping and biting, too. I suppose all of them were tomboys. That’s about the worst thing you can call a girl when she is growing up. But the girls who lived at Macy’s Mill, and at Bradford, and especially in Rosemark, were a different kind. We used to talk about it a lot, but nobody knew why it was.
“How are the Rosemark girls different?” I asked Ben, when we were talking about it one day.
“Jiggers,” he said, “I don’t know exactly.”
I never went around like Ben and the other boys did, because I had a girl who lived in town and I went to see her two or three times a week, and that was as many nights as my folks would let me go out. They did not believe in letting me go all over the county to see girls. So I stayed at home and went to see Milly pretty often.
But those girls in other parts of the county were not like the ones at home. The other boys used to go off nearly every night to see girls at Bradford and Macy’s Mill and Rosemark, Rosemark especially. I don’t know why that was, either. There was just something about those girls down in Rosemark that made a man act kind of funny.
Ben went down to Rosemark three or four nights every week to see girls. The strange part of it was he rarely went to see the same girl more than once. He had a new girl almost every time he went down there. The other boys did the same way, too. They had a new girl every time. Shucks, I had to stay at home and go to see Milly and nobody else.
I asked Ben in a confidential way what it was about the girls down in Rosemark that made them so different from the ones around home. Ben was my first cousin and I didn’t mind asking him personal questions.
“Jumping jiggers!” he said, “You’ve never been down there to see a Rosemark girl, have you, Fred?”
I told him how it was about Milly. I did not want to go to see her all the time, but I never had a chance to go down to Rosemark like the other boys.
“Well,” he said, “you are a fool to go to see her all the time. She’s just like all the other girls around here. You’ve got to go down to Rosemark and see some real girls. They’re not like these around Woodlawn.”
“What are they like, Ben?” I asked him again. Everybody said they were different, but nobody ever said in what way they were different. “What do they do that’s different?”
“Well, that’s hard to say. They act just like all girls do — but they are different.”
“Tell me about them, Ben.”
“I’ll tell you this,” he said. “You got to be careful down there. Every girl in Rosemark that’s got an old man or a brother is watched pretty close. I guess that’s because they are pretty wild.”
“How are they wild?” I asked him. “What do they do?”
“That’s hard to say, too. You can’t put your finger on it exactly — they are just different. You’ve got to go down there.”
“But how can I get a date with one of them?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “You just go down there some Sunday night and wait outside a church until they come out. Then pick one out and ask her to let you take her home. That’s the way to do it.”
“Can I do that? Would she let me take her home?”
“Sure. That’s one way they are different. You can get any girl you want if you ask her before somebody else does. You go down Sunday night and try it. Jiggers, Fred, you got to see those Rosemark girls! The ones around here aren’t fit to fool with.”
I hated to tell my folks the next Sunday night that I was going to see Milly when I wasn’t, but — gee — I had to go down to see those girls in Rosemark. I drove the old car down and got there just before the churches let out.
I picked out the biggest church I could find and waited outside the door. I figured that the bigger the church the better chance I would have because there would be more girls in it.
Shucks, it wasn’t any trouble at all. I asked the first girl that came out by herself if I could take her home and she said, “Sure,” just as nice. Gee, this was the way to see girls. Up at home the girls acted sassy about letting you take them home. These Rosemark girls were different that way.
“Where do you live?” I asked her.
“About five miles out in the country,” she said. She talked nice and soft like all girls would if they knew what was good for themselves. “Do you want to take me?”
“You bet I do,” I told her. “I don’t care how far it is.” Five miles wasn’t anything. It was fine, because I’d have a longer time to find out about her. I could tell right away she was different.
She showed me the way to go and we started out. The old car was running good, but there was no hurry to get there. “What’s your name?” I asked her.
“Betty,” she said.
No girl up in Woodlawn had a name like that. I was beginning to see why all the boys at home liked to come down to Rosemark.
Gee, she was different! She sat real close to me and sort of hunched her shoulders forward like she was awfully pleased. I had never seen a girl act so nice in all my life. She put her arm through mine and sort of leaned against me a lot and I had a devil of a time trying to keep our old car in the road.
As soon as we got outside of town a little distance another automobile came up behind us real close. I drew over to the side of the road so it could pass, but whoever was running it wouldn’t try to pass. I thought that was funny, because I was driving only about ten miles an hour and making a lot of dust behind, too. The man who was running the other car was crazy not to pass us and go on ahead.
Betty sat closer and closer all the time and was so nice I didn’t know what to make of it.
“The devil,” I said to myself, “I’m going to take a chance and kiss her.”
That was a reckless thing to do, because all the girls I knew up home were pretty particular about things like that and they didn’t mind slapping you good and hard, either.
Gee whiz! I reached down and kissed her and she wouldn’t let me stop. The old car rocked from one side of the road to the other as dizzy as a bat. I couldn’t see to steer it because Betty wouldn’t let me stop kissing her, and I had to wait until we ran into a ditch almost before I knew which way to turn the wheel. Gee whiz! The girls in Rosemark were certainly different, all right.
Finally I got away from her and got back my breath and saw which way to guide the old car.
“Don’t you like to kiss me?” she asked, hunching her shoulders forward again like a girl does when she wants to make you feel funny.
Shucks, I couldn’t let her get away with that! I reached my right arm around her and kissed her as hard as I could. She didn’t mind how rough I was, either. I guess she liked it, because she put both of her arms around my neck and both of her legs across my lap and hugged the life out of me. Gee whiz! I didn’t know girls did like that! Ben said the girls down in Rosemark were different, but I didn’t expect anything like this to happen to me. Holy cats! The girl was sitting on my lap under the steering wheel and I was having a devil of a time trying to kiss her for all I was worth and steer the old car at the same time.
Right then I knew I was coming down to Rosemark again as soon as I could get away. Ben sure knew what he was talking about when he said the girls down here were nothing like the ones at home. Shucks, those old girls up at home were not anything.
By this time we had got to the place where she lived and she looked up just at the right moment to tell me where to turn in. Before I could steer the old car into the driveway the automobile that had been behind as all the time beat me to it and I had to jerk on the brakes to keep from running smack into it.
‘Who is that fool?” I asked Betty.
“That’s Poppa,” she said.
I started to say something pretty mean about him for doing a thing like that but I thought I had better not if I wished to come back to see her. I was going to ask her for a lot of dates as soon as we got in the yard.
She took her arms down and moved over to her side of the seat just as if nothing in the world had happened.
I shut off the engine and reached over and opened the door for her. She jumped out just as nice and I was right behind her. I got as far as the running board when the man who had beaten us to the gate pushed me back into the seat. He shoved me so hard I hurt my spine on the steering wheel.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he growled at me. “Start up that car and get away from here and don’t ever let me see you again.”
He came closer and shoved me again. I then saw for the first time that he had a great big rusty pistol with a barrel about a foot and a half long in his other hand.
“If I ever catch you around Betty again I’ll use this gun on you,” he said.
I didn’t lose any time getting away from there. I hated to go away and not see Betty again, so I could ask her for a lot of dates next week, but it wouldn’t do any good to have dates if I couldn’t come back.
I drove the old car back home and went to bed. I knew now why Ben never went to see the same girl twice. He knew what he was doing, all right. And I knew why he said the girls down there were different. They sure were different. It was hard to say what the difference was, but if you ever went down there it was easy to feel it all over yourself.
The next morning I saw Ben and told him about going down to Rosemark the night before. After a while I told him about the way Betty kissed me and how she wanted to sit on my lap under the steering wheel.
“What!” he said, his eyes wide open.
I told him about it again, and how she wouldn’t let me stop kissing her and how she put her legs across my lap.
“Jumping jiggers, that’s funny. None of them ever let me kiss her, and none of them ever sat on my lap.”
“Gosh, Ben,” I said, “then why did you think they were different?”
“Jumping jiggers!” he said again, frowning all over. “I don’t know.”
(First published in American Earth)