Read The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life for Free Online

Tilt-a-Whirled glory. Ruthie was the fearless one. She would ride every ride. It didn’t matter. She just wanted to do it. Not Mike. She’d ride them, and he’d wait for her, tickled and proud that she was his girl.
    Most weekend nights, though, they would ride in Mike’s truck into town to see what their friends were up to. Creek parties, barn dances, and in the fall, football on Friday night. There wasn’t much going on in St. Francisville, but for Ruthie and Mike, it was enough. The main event was each other—it didn’t matter where they were or what they were doing, as long as they were together.
    “I don’t care about my friends,” Ruthie told him. “I just always want to be with you. You’re not only my boyfriend, but you’re my best friend. I can tell you anything and you understand me.”
    Their devotion deepened throughout the fall of Mike’s senior year. One night they went to a party on the sand dunes at Thompson Creek. Late into the evening they lay with each other under the stars, in each other’s arms, staring at the full moon.
    “I love you, you know,” Ruthie said.
    “I love you, too.”
    And that’s when they knew this was for keeps. A year later Ruthie wrote Mike a letter in which she called that moment “the best night of my life.”
    “I’ve been happier than I’ve ever been,” she wrote, “and it’s all because of you. I’ll love you forever and a day.”
    Ruthie began wearing Mike’s blue football and baseball letterman jacket. When his senior class ring came in, Mike never put it on his finger; he gave it straight to Ruthie. Because Mike’s family lived a long drive away, at the northern end of the parish, Mam and Paw invited him to sleep on the couch on weekend nights. That worked to Paw’s benefit too. On Saturday mornings Paw put Mike to work cleaning fence rows, cutting trees, removing brush, chopping firewood, and doing other chores.
    At first Mike was intimidated by his girlfriend’s father, but the intimidation eventually gave way to respect and affection for Paw. Because Mike didn’t have a lot of spending money, Paw bought him several steel traps, and taught him how to snare raccoons by placing the traps underwater in the creek. Mike set a trapline in the hollows behind Paw’s place, and caught two or three coons each night. Ruthie sometimes helped him run his traplines. Paw taught him how to skin the coon to keep the hide intact. Every couple of weeks the buyer came through and paid Mike fifteen dollars per hide—enough to buy gas for his truck and burgers and Cokes for him and his girl. Paw called him “Trapper.”
    During her junior year Ruthie’s crowd began hanging out at the river, where they could build bonfires and drink beer without adults hassling them. But Mam and Paw had forbidden Ruthie to spend time there. After a local boy died in a drunk-driving crash, parents were scared. They had reason to be. Still, if you weren’t a social outcast, and you wanted to be with your friends from school on the weekends, you went to the river. Mam and Paw, however, would not yield on their conviction that it was no place for a girl to be.
    After a while some of Ruthie’s friends began taunting her for her absence at the river. You think you’re better than us, they said. That got to Ruthie, who hated elitism above all else.
    One night Mam and Paw went to a ball game in town. As they left the stands Mam told Paw she had a strange feeling Ruthie was down at the river. They drove to the ferry landing, took a left, and motored in the darkness to the bonfire site. And there was Ruthie. She had come there with Mike.
    Furious and hurt Mam parted the crowd and took her startled daughter by the arm.
    “Sister, I can’t let you come down here,” Mam said. Ruthie knew instantly that she had been caught, and that she was in the wrong. She put her head down and, through scalding, humiliating tears, let her mother lead her away. She wept and didn’t say a word all the