"Open up a little early this morning?" the man questioned.
Cleav raised his head and stared at the man wordlessly, then turned and walked into the store.
From that very difficult beginning, Cleav saw his day grow increasingly worse.
Esme Crabb was determined to both make herself at home and to be as helpful as possible. While Cleav did his Monday book work and restocked shelves, Esme kept Denny entertained with a chat.
When the old man's checkers partner, Hiram Tyree, showed up, Esme even helped them set up the game on the front porch. "So you can enjoy the day," she told them. "They's yellow violets up on the hill already," she informed the men cheerfully. "Saw 'em myself this morning. Afore you know it, the wildflowers will be across the valley like God's own patch quilt."
The men smiled and laughed with Esme, her warmth and good humor brightening the still-foggy morning.
Cleav, however, felt no such sense of good cheer. The situation was growing very awkward, and he was convinced that if things continued this way. Miss Sophrona would surely hear gossip. He was determined to order Esme out of the store, but the time was never quite right. Customers came and went, making a private conversation impossible. He considered telling her to leave, privacy or no, but he couldn't do it. In his memory he saw her standing so bravely in the church. Her pride far too large for her meager lot in life. That was nothing to him, he quickly reminded himself. Setting his jaw firmly, he swore to himself to set this womanful of trouble out of his life as soon as possible.
Remarkably, he found she was actually quite helpful in the store. Somehow, in a few short days, she'd ferreted out where just about everything in the store could be located. And she was willing, even eager, to help out the customers.
"Since when have you been working here?" Cleav heard Pearly Beachum, the biggest gossip in town, ask her. Cold fear gripped him as he hurried over to them. What would Esme say? Whatever it was, it would be all over town by nightfall.
"I'm just helping out," Esme told the woman with a sweet smile and then whispered to her quietly, "We've run up some debt here in the past," she said in confidence. "Mr. Rhy has been so good to just forgive it, but I want to do what I can to make it right."
Cleav couldn't hear their whispers, and as he reached them, the two women moved apart. Pearly gave him a curious, but not unpleasant, look. Cleav decided that since she hadn't hit him with her parasol, Esme had obviously not said the worst.
As the morning wore on, his anger, which had ridden so strongly on Cleav when he arrived, lessened. Esme was unfailingly pleasant to the customers. He was even amused at the ingenious way she managed to make sales.
When Rog Wicker came in for his weekly supplies as well as a pack of Red Leaf, she spoke up.
"You know, Mr. Wicker, I don't chew myself, but from everything I've ever heard, Carolina Blue is a much superior jaw to that old Red Leaf."
Turning to look at the young woman, Wicker's brow wrinkled in consternation. "Course the Carolina's better," he agreed. "Costs more, too. I'll stick with Red Leaf, thank you."
"Of course." Esme nodded calmly in reply. "A penny saved is a penny earned, true enough." She sighed lightly and then added, "It just seemed to me that a man like yourself, a man who's got his farm all paid for and his children growed and married, a man who's got only one vice—and that merely being partial to a chew of tobacco— well, such a man ought to have the best. Seemed like such a man would deserve as much."
Rog Wicker's eyebrows raised. He stared after Esme for a minute as she wandered toward the canned goods. Cleav gathered the rest of the order.
"What else?" he asked the man finally.
"That's about it," Wicker answered, "total it up." The man reached for his tobacco and held it in his hand for a moment as if weighing it.
"Take this back and give me the Carolina Blue," he said without further explanation.
Cleav was momentarily stunned. Rog Wicker had been chewing Red Leaf since Cleav's daddy had run the store.
Wordlessly exchanging the tobacco, Cleav could barely concentrate on his math as he totaled up the purchase.
As Wicker took his leave, Cleav glanced across the room at Esme. Her grin was as wide as a new moon, and she raised her eyebrows in a bragging salute. The impish behavior was so infectious, Cleav caught himself grinning back. Then fastidiously he straightened his cuffs as he avoided looking at her. But he couldn't quite tamp down the smile that twitched at the corners of his lips.
The day might have taken a solid turn for the better if the next customer had not been Reverend Tewksbury. At his side, his daughter, Sophrona, was clothed in a calico work dress and sunbonnet, and even in this modest outfit the diminutive young woman looked like a princess.
The reverend's smile was welcoming as he walked in but dimmed considerably when he glanced across the room and saw Esme Crabb apparently rearranging the canned goods.
For Esme,things were proceeding according to plan. Cleav was already seeing how much easier his job would be with her at his side. And she was surprised herself at how easily the customers were accepting her.
She'd hated her forced explanation to Pearly Beachum, but that couldn't be helped. She knew the best way to throw a dog off the scent was to give him another bone to chew on.
Now with her unequivocal victory over the tobacco, she was beginning to feel somewhat cocky. Cleav couldn't maintain his stiff behavior forever. He was coming around. A moment ago, he'd smiled at her in genuine friendship. It was going to be easier than even she had expected. Her thoughts were strictly positive until she spied Sophrona Tewksbury.
Even if Esme were better wife material, physically the preacher's daughter was everything that Esme was not. And the pretty expanse of bright blue calico was headed straight in her direction.
"Esme! Good morning, what a surprise."
