The Courtship of Hattie Mae Jenkins

The Courtship of Hattie Mae Jenkins by Judy K. Miller One look at the bent-over salesman and Hattie Mae was sure that he was her man. Not that he was the best catch in the world, but at her age she couldn't afford to let any catch at all get away. Just to let him know that she was interested, she bought a pair of his pale stockings even though she knew she'd never wear them. As he packed his satchel to leave, the salesman promised he'd be back through. He told Hattie Mae and her mother that the company he worked for was expanding into a new line of goods. "That's nice," Hattie Mae clapped her hands in front of her face like a child. "Suspenders and gloves," he said, dragging his satchel toward the door. "I don't reckon you'd be interested in no suspenders, would you?" His face, pinched and drawn with seriousness, caused Hattie Mae to laugh. Tucking his chin into his neck, he shouldered his way out the door. Hattie Mae waited until her mother went back into the kitchen, then she followed him down the steps and out the walk. The way he shuffled with his head bowed and his shoulders bunched forward made him look even smaller. "You'll be coming back through real soon, won't you?" she asked. He nodded, or at least she thought he did, as he crawled into the dented Plymouth parked by the curb. For months Hattie Mae waited by the front door, each day expecting the little man to come back. And instead of going to church with her mother, she started spending most of 57 every Sunday perched on the porch swing—a bird waiting for a worm. She was watching the sun pierce the point of the church's steeple late one Sunday afternoon when a man came down the street, walking so fast that at first she thought he was running. She picked up the fan out of the folds of her lap and swished it back and forth in front of her face as fast as she could. Twice she cleared her throat. The words of a greeting twitched the edges of her lips, but before she had time to speak, the man bounded up the porch steps toward her, his hand stretched out. "Mrs. Jenkins, is it?" he said. Hattie Mae tightened her grip on the fan. "Miss," she said. "Miss Jenkins." "Yes, yes indeed." He dropped his hand to his side, slapping his thigh with it gently as it fell. "Miss Jenkins, allow me to introduce myself." His mouth widened into a looselipped grin. "The Reverend Haywood." Hattie Mae settled deeper into the swing's cushion and dropped the fan into the valley made by her dress sagging between parted knees. "Who have we here, Hattie?" The screen door squeaked open. Her mother held onto the door handle with one hand and with her other she pointed her cane at the stranger. "He says he's a preacher, Momma. Preacher Haywood." "You're a little young for the calling, ain't you?" "Not so young." The wood creaked as the preacher shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Well, come on up here, Mr. Haywood, so I can get a better look at you." With the careful slowness of an old man the preacher eased himself into the canebottomed chair pushed back against the wall beside the door. Her mother clumped over to the chair next to his and fell down on it. Hattie Mae watched bulges of flesh curl over the edges of the chair, then she looked at her own lap. More than once she had heard people making fun behind her back. "Broad as she is tall," they said. "Wide as a door, short and fat." Hattie Mae used to think it was because of her size that nobody had ever married her. But week before last she saw a wedding picture in the newspaper of a four-foot-tall woman who had married a seven-foot-tall man. "I don't recollect hearing of any preacher around here...