It made me mad in a way I can’t really explain.
When I was a kid, Locust Street was the prettiest street in Cedar Ridge. The men took pride in their yards. They’d mow on Saturday mornings and then stand at the curb in the afternoon with cans of Busch and talk about each other’s grass. Grandpa won Yard of the Month from the garden club three summers in a row.
Now it looked like nobody lived there at all.
I looked back at Grandma on the porch.
She was looking down the street too.
I rolled the mower next door.
Miss Edna Pruitt lives in the little yellow house with the green shutters. She’s eighty-one. She taught third grade at Cedar Ridge Elementary for thirty-eight years, and she taught me, and my dad before me. She used to give out butterscotch candies if you got a hundred on your spelling test.
She was sitting on her porch in a straight-backed chair with a big metal bowl in her lap, snapping green beans. When she saw me coming up her driveway with the mower, she stopped snapping.
“Hunter Gaines,” she said. “Is that you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Look at you. In your shorts. Back from overseas.” She looked me up and down over her glasses. “You’ve filled out.”
“The Marines feed you pretty good, ma’am.”
“Well, it shows.” She looked at the mower. Then at her shaggy yard. Then back at me. Her face changed. Something careful came into it.
“I can’t pay you much, honey,” she said.
“I’m not asking you to pay, Miss Edna.”
“Well, I’d want to.” She set down the bowl of beans. “But I have to tell you the truth. I can’t afford much. Your uncle’s price was dear.”
