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every week. She feels it is her duty as a southern woman to help bring culture to the young ladies of Shell Beach. Momma said I have to go.
    Mrs. Dot writes a column for the Magnolia Springs paper and she put us in it. The column is called “Dashes from Dot.” It said: “Shell Beach has a new family, the William Harpers and their darling daughter, Daisy. They’ve moved from Jackson, Mississippi, and purchased the malt shop at the end of Highway 4. Mr. Harper was previously employed in the finest theaters in Jackson as a master projectionist. We wish them good luck!” Daddy said we would probably be in the paper a lot because there are only twenty people living here.
    The closest town is Magnolia Springs, ten miles up the highway. Mrs. Dot said Shell Beach was ten miles to a loaf of bread and twenty-five miles to a spool of pink thread. I went to Magnolia Springs the other day and it has one street, and that’s it. But it has a movie. I saw Lash La Rue in
Frontier Phantom
. It’s funny to sit in the audience and not in the balcony.
    The other morning I woke up about seven o’clock. I thoughta war had started. Guns were going off and we heard an army marching up and down the beach and some man shouting orders. Daddy ran out the door in his underwear.
    And guess what? There was a whole group of women in boots and uniforms doing maneuvers right in our backyard, charging along the sand dunes. Daddy went over to the man giving the orders and found out his name was Mr. Curtis Honeywell. He owns the Stars and Stripes Insurance Company in Magnolia Springs. His army is all the secretaries and the receptionist that work there.
    He was in a uniform with a big hat with a feather on it from Australia. Mr. Honeywell swears the Communists are coming to take over and are going to land right on our beach. He’s getting his army ready to defend the Gulf Coast of Mississippi as his patriotic responsibility.
    The girls are called the Mississippi Maidens for Freedom. If you are a secretary at his insurance company, you have to be in the army and train three times a week.
    Daddy said he didn’t think Communists were interested in Shell Beach.
    Mr. Honeywell asked Daddy if he knew that in the Second World War they found three Japanese submarines with dead Japanese soldiers still in them right up the road, in the Mississippi Sound.
    Daddy said, “No, I didn’t know that and what in the world would the Japanese want in Mississippi?” and went back to bed.
    I was dressed because I sleep in my swim trunks, so I stayed out there with the Mississippi Maidens shooting their guns. Halting and coming to attention is what they do best. Mr. Honeywell said I could be the mascot. I told him I had a BB gun and would be happy to shoot with them. The girls were real nice.
    Daddy asked Mr. Romeo about Curtis Honeywell. He said that he always had an all-woman army and he owns almost all of Harwin County.
    Momma said he must be crazy as a loon. I think it is great and I feel very safe. If I were a Communist, I wouldn’t want to tangle with those girls.
    The only bad thing is that I’m not getting to swim in the Gulf as much as I thought I was going to because Momma has to watch me. She is afraid the undertow will get me.
June 4, 1952
    Jimmy Snow came down to see us the other day and said the place looked great. The reason he hasn’t been here sooner was he was busy crop-dusting. After he left, Daddy said that Jimmy was a great guy and got drunk one time and dusted crops in downtown Tupelo. Momma didn’t think that was funny. But I do.
    I finally met Kay Bob Benson. I don’t think she likes me much. I had to go to her house and look at the dumb collection of dolls that she has in a glass cage. She is real impressed because she has some Madame Alexander dolls. Big dealt What good are dolls in a glass cage?
    She is president of the Jr. Debutantes’ Club and gets to go to camp every summer. I don’t understand why she would want to leave the beach. She