***
On the way to Retta’s, I stopped in town at the Troublesome Creek Library branch.
Inside, I studied the bulletin board. Someone had penned an advertisement about a new litter of pointer hunting dogs available for a fair price at Timothy Garvey’s place. Another posted: Get a dozen eggs for only 65 cents. Someone else was looking for a mechanic’s helper or gas attendant over at the filling station, and there was a post about missing eyeglasses. Another board had a posting for an assistant librarian, and I studied it.
March 2, 1953
WANTED, ASSISTANT OUTREACH LIBRARIAN
We have an opening for a respectable, steady, young female rider to deliver books and reading material in Knott County. Weekends off. Pay $98 per month. Reply to Eula Foster.
I thought about Mama. She would’ve loved doing it again, and I was surprised to see the pay was raised from $28 to almost $100 now. Sure was a lot of money, and I envied the person who got it. I was tempted to apply, but I knew I had to get Retta’s guardianship before I did anything.
A man stepped up behind me, and I moved aside as he left a new advertisement on the board. March 7, 1953, 1 room for rent over the Company store. Kitchen and bath privileges. See Mr. Edgar Franklin.
Browsing the new books section, I spent a half hour trying to guess Pearl’s favorite reads, once in a while looking up to peek out the tall windows, making sure the sheriff and social worker over in Leslie County hadn’t decided to come snooping around over here in Knott County.
From behind, someone said, “Ray Bradbury’s The Golden Apples of the Sun is a real grabber filled with twenty-two stories.”
I spun around. It was Eula Foster, the director of the library and the woman who Mama had worked for long ago. They’d started out on the wrong foot, but Mama won her over in the end. Mama claimed it was the books that changed Miss Foster. She always said the printed word could soften the hardest of hardened hearts.
She was not so lucky with another librarian, Harriett Hardin. After Eula Foster found out the horrid things Harriett did to my folk, the director called Harriett a seed spreader, a cultivator of ill will, and eventually got rid of the disgraceful librarian by transferring her over to Marion County.
“Hello, Miss Foster.”
“Honey, it’s good to see you. You’re back early this year. How are you and your mama doing?” she asked warmly.
“Ma’am, we’re doing just fine,” I lied. “Mama sent me ahead to visit with Retta. I wanted to take some books back with me. I’ll likely be here a while.” Then because it felt safer, I picked up Bradbury’s book and changed the subject. “Hmm. A real grabber, you say?”
“Oh, my, I enjoyed it,” Miss Foster gushed. “We were lucky to get an early copy from the big library in Lexington. I think ‘The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl’ may be my favorite.” She tapped a finger to her lips, thinking. “But I so loved ‘The Pedestrian’ too. And there was the wonderful short story called ‘The Golden Apples of the Sun.’ The anthology collection is some of his finest work!”
“I’ll take it. Much obliged, Miss Foster,” I said.
She nodded, pleased. “Well, good day, Honey. I need to get back to work.” I watched her slip into her small office behind the checkout counter.
I added Robert Hichens’s novel Strange Lady and a novel by Barbara Pym, Excellent Women, that sounded humorous.
I moved over to a table and found a recent combined Sunday edition of the Lexington Herald and the Lexington Leader, along with an older edition of the Louisville Times.
In the magazine section, I picked up Hit Parader and admired a picture of a woman named Betty Grable. I flicked through the magazine and set it back down. The cover of a smudged, tattered Life magazine caught my eye. The pretty woman named Janet Leigh was scantily clad in a ruffled lace dress exposing a large part of her breasts. I scanned the library to make sure no one was looking.