Read Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 03 for Free Online Page B

tables in Farberville. Someone had to pay for the custom pool cues and the longneck beers.
    To my astonishment, Ruby Bee went to stand next to Johnna Mae. "Yeah, how's she supposed to feed her family and new baby if she stays home?"
    Estelle completed the triumvirate. "Everybody knows her husband's disabled. You have no call to stand there and say that sort of thing about a woman who's trying to take care of her family."
    "She's tempting the devil," Brother Verber replied smugly, if inanely. Mrs. Jim Bob scurried right over to him , her expression that of a hen anticipating an attack on one of her chicks.
    Sherman Oliver cleared his throat. "I don't see why this needs to go any further. Why don't we all just go about our business?"
    "Chauvinist pig!" Johnna Mae shouted at him.
    "This is an outrage!" Mrs. Jim Bob shouted at me.
    "Hussy," Brother Verber shouted at Johnna Mae.
    "Old fart!" she shouted at him.
    "Go home and diaper your baby!" someone shouted from the crowd.
    "Who's supposed to pay for the diapers?" Ruby Bee shouted in the general direction of the last participant.
    "Sherman Oliver is unfair to women!" Johnna Mae shouted.
    "He is not!"
    "Stuff it!"
    "An abomination in the eye of the Lord!"
    I could assign all this dialogue, but it doesn't much matter who was shouting what because all of a sudden everybody was shouting at the top of his or her lungs and the noise level was rising faster than Boone Creek after a thunderstorm. Elsie McMay was nose to nose with Raz, busily telling him how Johnna Mae was doing the right thing by bringing home a paycheck. Ruby Bee was doing the same with one of the hulks, while Estelle was shaking a finger and shrieking at another. Johnna Mae was exchanging remarks with Brother Verber. Mrs. Jim Bob was getting in her two cents' worth every other second or so.
    Cars and trucks were crawling past now, the passengers in danger of terminal rubberneck from twisting to catch every bit of the scene. Kevin Buchanon almost lost his life to a camper when he stopped his bicycle in the middle lane to goggle. The hippies came out of the Emporium and stood on the porch, shading their eyes with their hands and poking each other when someone let out a particularly idiotic remark.
    Sherman Oliver was turning more purple by the moment. He stormed over to Johnna Mae and began to bellow at her, which of course sent Ruby Bee and Estelle right back to Johnna Mae's side to bellow in her defense. Which isn't to say that she wasn't bellowing real well herself.
    You might be wondering what the upholder of law and order was doing during all this. Nothing. Not a blessed thing. I suppose that I could have fired my gun into the air to stop everybody, but I hadn't thought to bring a bullet along. I was pondering the possibility of trying to make myself heard, or going inside the bank where it was bound to be cooler, when that which had been threatened took place, to wit: Johnna Mae Nookim grasped the broom handle of her sign with both hands, raised said sign above her head, and slammed it down on Sherman Oliver's bald spot.
    Despite the fact that the sign was primarily posterboard, he stumbled backward and might have sprawled in the shrubbery had not Brandon Bernswallow caught him. "Arrest that woman for assault!" Oliver sputtered.
    "And battery!" Mrs. Jim Bob added as she rushed forward to play Florence Nightingale.
    I felt obliged to intercede. Johnna Mae had the sign reared back to bust him again as I grabbed the corner of it. "Hold your horses," I said. "You can't do this."
    "Why can't I? He damn well was asking for it. I have every right to express my opinion, because this is the land of the free and we are guaranteed freedom of speech." She tried to tug the sign out of my grasp. "Hell, Arly, he's a pig. Lemme have one more swing."
    All the combatants had quieted down by this time and were crowding in around us. Faces were still red, however, and the breathing was heavy. A few hands were curled into fists,