CHAPTER NINE
Laurel and Bess
t never made much sense to Laurel that they would still be weeding the garden in September when most of the vegetables had already been harvested. But that was the chore Mama had set her and Bess while the younger twins were in charge of cleaning the house.
Of course they weren’t just weeding. They were also gathering errant potatoes and turnips and the like that had been missed during the earlier harvest, putting them in a basket to take inside later. When they were done weeding, they were supposed to turn the soil on the sections they’d weeded. After that, one or more of the other girls would spread compost over it all and that would be it until spring. Mama liked a tidy garden, everything neat and ready for next year’s planting.
“We should’ve gone with Adie and Elsie,” Laurel said.
Bess shrugged. “This’d still be waiting for us when we got back.”
“I know. But I’m bored. This whole weekend’s just all too boring.”
Last night’s dance at the Corners had been canceled, no one was exactly sure why. But there were rumors and gossip, as always. Bess had heard from the postman that the building had become infested with rats and so the county had closed it down. Martin Spry, a fiddler who lived down the road from them, had told Laurel that someone had vandalized the place the night before and the police were still investigating. But Mama said all of that was nonsense.
“Mrs. Timmons told me the Jacksons got called out of town,” she said. “Something about one of their grandkids getting sick, and by the time they heard, it was too late to get anyone to take over for the night. That’s all.”
Maybe, maybe not, Laurel thought. All she knew was that they hadn’t gotten to play out since last weekend. Hadn’t been playing, hadn’t been dancing. All they had to look forward to were school starting, chores, and watching interchangeable videos on the music channel.
Laurel leaned on her hoe. “I really wanted to play that medley of Ziggy Stardust tunes that we worked out—just to see the faces on the old fiddlers.”
The twins loved the old tunes and songs, but they also had an inordinate fondness for music from the seventies and eighties, which they kept trying to shoehorn into old-timey arrangements with varying degrees of success—everything from Pink Floyd to punk and disco.
“Instead,” Laurel said, “all we have is boredom.”
“Way too much, too,” Bess agreed.
“If only something interesting could happen around here.”
It was at precisely that moment, as though called up like an answered wish, that they heard the fiddle music come drifting down the hill and across the pastures to where they were working in the garden. The twins lifted their heads as one.
“Do you hear that?” Laurel asked.
“I’m not deaf.”
“Don’t know,” Bess said. “But it’s not Marty.”
Laurel nodded. “The tone’s too sweet to be him.”
“Doesn’t sound like anyone we know,” Bess added after they’d listened a little more.
Not only was the player unfamiliar, but so were the tunes. And that was irresistible.
Laurel laid down her hoe. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Always.”
Bess brushed her hands on her jeans, and the two of them went into the house to collect their instruments.