Mercy Me Read Free

will find a cure for my dreaded disease before I die of old age. Do you think they will?
    Well, I took your advice a while back and died my hair. A older man with a pigtail come in the store the other day and he asked me if that was a wig I waswearing or what. I told him it were not a wig but I did not tell him it was died hair. Do you think I should have told him the whole truth?
    About Percy Poteat . . .
    (I should’ve known my mentioning Percy when we talked on the phone would get her ulcers in an uproar.)
    I know he teased me a lot but I like to think it was because he liked me. I got a crush on him in eighth grade the year we dropped out of school. He was very smart. He told me he had a photo mind.
    As for them jumpers I wore, Mama didn’t have no pattern. She made me a white one for Easter and she was hoping it would do for the next Easter. By the next year I had got a little long legged but she said it would do if I didn’t bend over. We had dinner on the grounds that Sunday and a Easter egg hunt. I ate standing up and much as I wanted to find the golden egg I excused myself from the hunt.
    Is that music director the one they fired from Cold Water Baptist in Springs County? That name Boris Krantz sort of rings a bell with me.
    Yours very truly,
    Beatrice
    I folded the letter and put it in my apron pocket, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that somehow I had to get Beatrice to wake up and get a life.
    As I worked around the house and in the garden that day, possibilities kept running through my mind. Before I sat down, I knew I had better call Beatrice, because once I sit down, it’s hard to get up again. I dialed her number, but there was no answer. I figured she wasn’t off work yet.
    I sat down, and before I knew it, I had fallen asleep. It was eleven o’clock when I came to, too late to call anybody. So I went to bed.
    Naturally, a few days went by, and I had not gotten back to Beatrice. At night I would think about calling her, but I would be so tired that I just wasn’t up to tackling her main problem, namely Percy Poteat and the dreamworld she was living in. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that writing a letter would be better than talking on the phone. That way I could make sure I was putting it in the best way possible. If I made a mistake, I could change the way I put it. That’s not to mention the fact that I would save big bucks by not talking on the phone and also that Beatrice would get a mailbox treat, something besides supermarket coupons to clip.
    My tablet was buried under the Daily Journal, but I found it and a ballpoint in the drawer.
    Dear Beatrice,
    I tried to call you but got no answer. The reason I have not wrote is because I have really been hoppinghere lately. Elijah come and grubbed up the garden. I gave him something extra for Maude and he near ’bout cried. That old man sure loves that old mule and I reckon the mule loves him too.
    I had forgot what was in her letter, and since she always asked my advice about things, I dug it out of the basket by my chair. I again was surprised as all get out that she took my advice about her hair.
    You must look a lot better with your hair died. Since you had chemo and it come back curly you sure don’t need to get another one of them curly perms. I hate them things. As for that man asking you if you wore a wig, no, you don’t have to tell him the whole truth. It is nobody’s business what you do with your hair.
    I sure hope you will let that torch for Percy Poteat flame out. Why, shoot, he never even knew how to say your name. Remember he called you Beetriss. Not Be-AT-trice the way it is spelt.
    As for Percy Poteat having a photo mind, he must have run out of film at an early age. Ha! Ha! If you ask me, I think he was light in the upper story. To this day I don’t see what you saw in him. Them little round glasses made him look like a owl.
    The ballpoint run