Miss Dimple Suspects Read Free Page B

it, and it stank of rotten peaches. It was waiting and she knew it, sensed it closing in to make her heart race, her breath come fast, her reasoning take leave of her.
    Do get a hold of yourself, Dimple. You are not eight years old and you know very well where you are! If it gets too dark to see, all you have to do is make your way down this hill a few feet at a time. Still, she couldn’t erase the memory of her frenzied mission to find help for her two-year-old brother struggling to breathe with diphtheria.
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    It was the last of August and the day was born muggy and oppressive even before sunlight slanted through the slits in the bedroom shutters. And it was as humid inside as out because her mama kept a steaming kettle next to Henry’s little bed with a tent made of bedsheets over his face. Dimple’s papa had gone to Milledgeville the day before with corn to be ground into meal and the last of the okra and green beans to sell at the market. He was staying with relatives there and didn’t plan to come home until tomorrow, so when Henry woke with fever and chills and his breathing began to make that terrible squeaking sound by late afternoon, Dimple and her mother knew they had to get help fast.
    “Minerva will know what to do,” her mother said, pacing from Henry’s cot to the window for about the tenth time. Their neighbor lived almost five miles away if you went by the road, and in the absence of a doctor, Minerva Sayre had ministered to just about everybody around at one time or another. Why, she’d even stitched up her father’s leg when he cut it open chopping wood, and you could hardly see the scar.
    “I’ll go, Mama! Let me!” Dimple covered her ears to block out the sound of her little brother’s labored breathing. She could hardly bear to hear it. Her father had taken the horses and she knew she wouldn’t be able to control either of the two mules. “Please! I can run. I’ll run as fast as I can!”
    Her mother held her close and kissed her, smoothing the soft brown hair from her face. “Go by the road and take Bear with you. Minerva will bring you back in the buggy.
    “Be careful, and God go with you!”
    Calling to her dog, Dimple ran down the path to the road, glancing back to see her mother watching from the doorway. Once she reached the road, now thick with red dust, she turned toward their neighbor’s as her mother had directed, but Dimple Kilpatrick knew a shorter way, and as soon as she was out of sight, she veered off, skirting her father’s field where cotton would soon be picked and carried to the gin on the big wagon drawn by mules. Bear, a mixed breed dog of part collie and part who-knew-what, trotted obediently along by her side, although he seemed hesitant about leaving the road.
    “It’s all right, I know a better way!” Dimple called to him, running ahead. The familiar pathway through the woods was much cooler and the shade welcome after the choking dust of the road and Dimple had played there often, setting up housekeeping for her dolls under the trees, serving them tea in acorn cups. She knew how the big cedar, so old her father referred to it as “Granddaddy,” spread its pungent branches like a ceiling, surrounding her with its calming green. She knew how the roots of the water oak made perfect little elf houses, and although she’d never seen them, Dimple knew they were there. She knew that beyond the woods she would have to duck under the pasture fence and cross the grassy meadow where her father’s cattle grazed. It felt good to wade through the shallow creek where Bear drank noisily and sprinkled her when he shook himself, but today she couldn’t take time to splash and make “frog houses” in the mud or pick a bouquet of buttercups and daisies for the supper table. Trying not to think of what she might find when she reached home, Dimple raced across the pasture and climbed the fence to the other side, where rows of corn taller than she were