Read Down by the River for Free Online

dangle around her neck as she came around Endeara. “For goodness sake,” she complained, gently pushing her maid out of the doorway. “Come in, darling, come in. This must be your man.” Myrna, perhaps five foot one, stood aside so they might enter. Her white hair was a little springier than usual. She’d fixed a large bun on the top of her head with her pencil stuck through it, but it rebelled and little curls escaped around her face and ears.
    June and Myrna pecked cheeks, then Myrnastepped back and said to Jim, “Now, let me look at you.” She gave him a study that was almost roguish for a little old lady. “My yes, you’re certainly attractive enough for my niece. But are you rich enough?”
    “Auntie!”
    “I have barely two nickels to rub together, but I plan to earn my keep.”
    “Ah, I see. So you’ve already struck a bargain, have you?”
    “I promised her that I would do anything she asked.”
    June lifted a single brow and regarded him dubiously. When had he promised that?
    “Then I hope she’s begun a list to keep you busy a long, long time. Now, come into the sitting room and I’ll have the girls bring us some refreshments. Endeara, snap out of it,” Myrna demanded. “Amelia, get a grip!”
    The twins disappeared huffily, both taking refuge in the kitchen.
    “And if I hear one bicker out of either of you, you’ll never get another favor out of me. Do you hear?” There was subdued grumbling, clearly from both of them.
    Myrna hooked her arms into June’s and Jim’s and led them to the sitting room. “I thought this might be a bad idea, but I was in a fix, you see. When Endeara came to work this morning I told her that you’d be bringing your gentleman over to meet me. Well, she took on this superior air. She thought shewas going to have one over on her sister.” Myrna looked up at Jim and explained, “All the two of them have done all their lives is argue and spit at each other, which is why I’ll only have one of them at a time, unless there’s an urgent need for both. And don’t I pay the price when that happens!”
    When they reached the sitting room, she pointed them to their chairs and took the settee across from them in the middle. “But there I was, with Endeara thinking she had the advantage. So I was forced to call Amelia and tell her that if she could behave herself, she might come and have a look at you, too.” She smiled like the rascal she was. “I do believe they approved.
    “Now!” she said, clapping her hands together. “Tell me all about yourself!”
    So came the story—in brief.
    “And your people?” Myrna asked.
    “I have a married sister in the Midwest. She has a couple of teenagers and she has been bossing me around all my life.”
    “Ah, you’re close.”
    He shrugged. “I suppose, though we don’t see too much of each other.”
    “And how many times have you been married?”
    “Never,” he said.
    “Engaged?”
    “Not even engaged.”
    “Then what makes you think you can marry my June and be a sufficient husband to her? You’re rather old, after all.”
    June rolled her eyes. She had known it was going to be at least this bad.
    Jim leaned toward Myrna, resting his elbows on his knees. “And if I’d said I’d been married once and was divorced?”
    “I’d ask what makes you think you’ve got it right now?”
    “If I’d been married and divorced three times?”
    “A mighty bad track record, don’t you agree?”
    He leaned back, laughing. “You’re impossible to please, aren’t you, Mrs. Claypool?”
    “Probably,” she said good-naturedly. “Lucky for you, then, that you don’t have to worry about pleasing me. Isn’t it?”
    “Indeed,” he agreed.
    She let her eyes gently close with the nod of her head. “Do you play poker, Mr. Post?”
    “I never have,” he lied, “but I’d be willing to let you teach me.”
    She laughed a little too gleefully and glanced at June. “He’s a live one. Good job, June.”
    At that moment