The two, finding themselves unexpectedly alone, glanced at each other guiltily before good humor overwhelmed them.
Laughing, Esme jumped down into her husband's arms, wrapping her long, stocking-clad legs around his waist.
"We are shocking the neighbors," she declared as she rubbed her bosom wantonly against his chest.
"It isn't the first time," Cleav answered, his hands cheerfully cupping her bottom. "That's how we got together in the first place."
"Are you sorry?" Esme asked, surprised at her own candid question.
Cleav's expression momentarily turned serious and then a mischievous smile brightened his face. Rubbing himself lewdly against her, he answered, "Only if you're going to make me wait until after supper."
Esme playfully reprimanded him with a slap on the shoulder. "I most certainly am going to make you wait. You have got to get back to work, Mr. Rhy. You've got a family to support."
Cleav shook his head in mock solemnity. "You're right about that," he said. "I've got a garden-grubbing mother, a fiddling father-in-law, a set of lovelorn twins, and a positively wicked wife with the longest, lustiest legs in Tennessee.
Esme giggled and then gave a flirty swipe of her tongue to his ear.
"I do promise, Mr. Cleavis Rhy, my dear husband," she stated baldly, "to make myself absolutely worth the wait."
And she was.
It was on a Thursday when the mail arrived that Cleav, brimming with excitement, left the store in the not very dependable hands of his father-in-law and rushed to the house.
"Esme!" he called, banging open the front door with atypical unconcern for the fine piece of oblong beveled glass in its middle. "Esme! Where are you?"
Her hair tied up in a kerchief, Esme stepped out of the back parlor, feather duster in hand. "Save to graces, Cleav. What has happened?"
As if in answer, he held up a long, slim envelope.
Esme looked at it curiously.
"What is it?"
"A letter from Mr. Simmons of Springfield, Massachusetts," Cleav replied, his eyes bright with enthusiasm.
"Who?"
"The gentleman of the American Fish Culturists Association." Cleav's face was wreathed in smiles that were instantaneously contagious.
"Oh, yes," Esme said finally. "One of your trout friends from up north."
"Well, he's not a friend," Cleav corrected her modestly. "Although the gentleman is a frequent correspondent" Smiling broadly, he added, "And today he sent some very thrilling news."
Esme grinned. "Well, are you going to tell me or make my bile choler trying to guess?"
"Mr. Simmons is coming to Vader," he said, hugging her to him.
"What?"
Cleav laughed out loud at his wife's expression.
"Mr. Theodatus G. Simmons of Springfield, Massachusetts, is coming to Vader, Tennessee, to"—Cleav opened up the envelope and read from the letter inside—" 'survey the trout-breeding experiments of a fellow pisciculturist'— that's me."
Esme's face paled and she stood speechless before him.
"Surprised?" he asked but continued without waiting for a reply. "There's more. On his way down here he'll be stopping in Washington, D.C., to meet his friend, Mr. Benjamin Westbrook of the U.S. Deputy Fish Commissioner's office, to accompany him."
Cleav laughed with genuine joy. "Can you believe it? Two of the most important gentlemen in the fish-culture movement are coming to Cleavis Rhy's little trout farm in Tennessee!"
