The Gambler's Daughter Chapter 9
A Work In Progress
The Set Up
If you’re new, you can start the story from the beginning HERE or go ahead and jump in.
This is the working draft of a new Roosevelt County Novel about Maxine, a ten-year old girl growing up in Eastern New Mexico in the 1930s. Think Little House on the Prairie, but on the edge of the Dust Bowl and Pa is a gambler.
In these installments, I pull back the curtain on my revision process, posting drafts-in-progress, complete with the typos, question marks, and random “add more here!” notes to self. I’ll explain what has me “stuck” in the chapter or what problems I’m still working to resolve.
You’ll be invited to give feedback, so stick around for the Issues section and comment button.
Chapter 9
On Sunday morning, I made biscuits while Momma stirred butter and cream into a pot of boiled potatoes. Daddy lingered at the kitchen table with his coffee and fried eggs. Claude and Gordon had been sent to change into their church duds.
“I guess her Majesty is back already?” Daddy asked. My parents used the nickname of a favorite Zane Grey character to refer to Mrs. Flint, the wealthy widow and benefactress of the region’s Methodist churches. The late Mr. Flint had started banks in Portales and other small towns in the region. When he died twenty years ago, he left his widow with a sizeable ranch and a significant proportion of bank shares.
“You guess right,” Momma answered. “We’ll meet up at the church in Portales after our service in Inez. Are you going to join us?
“Looks like the only way I’ll get dinner,” he said. “Or a biscuit,” he said, turning to me. His voice sounded gruff, but his wink gave him away. We couldn’t afford enough flour, even with the addition of ground millet, for two rounds of biscuits.
“You know I’d bring you a plate,” Momma said.
“Why does everyone throw a party when she comes to town?” Claude asked.
“When Mr. Flint brought her out here as a young bride, she was forty miles from the nearest woman. Now she never tires of socializing, like she’s still trying to salve the lonesomeness of those early years.”
“Nothing cures lonesome like a brood of Methodist hens,” Daddy said with a wink at me. Momma laughed, but she thumped his arm with a wooden spoon.
“Mrs. Flint enjoys meeting up with everyone in the area, and we don’t mind an excuse to get together. Folks will oblige the wishes of an old lady,” she said, returning her attention to Claude.
“Especially a rich one,” Daddy added.
“Why doesn’t she just move back to Portales?” I asked.
“She’d rather live with her sister in Fort Sumner than in that big house all alone, especially now that her two daughters are married, and her boy is in school all the way in California. Her monthly visits and church dinners keep her in the loop.”
“Why doesn’t she move in with one of her daughters?” I asked.
“Would you want me moving in with you?” Momma asked. I thought I wouldn’t mind it at all.
***
As the ladies arranged platters and bowls on tables inside the large church in Portales, talk was all about Mr. Pressure Cooker, as they had taken to calling him.
“Did he sell any of his machines?” Mrs. Greathouse, Deanne’s mother, asked.
“Not in Rogers,” Momma answered.
“Not in Portales either,” said Mrs. Hammar. “But I believe Mrs. Flint bought one in Fort Sumner.” She turned toward the guest of honor. “Is that right, Lila?”
The ladies paused to look at Mrs. Flint with curiosity, but not surprise. The Flints always had the newest and finest in everything.
“I did, though I don’t know what I’ll do with it. It’s too heavy for me to manage, and I don’t grow enough garden anymore to make use of it. The foolishness of an old woman, I guess. Trying to be modern even at my age.”
The aroma of everyone’s best cooking wafted through the autumn air. When the food was all laid out, the community gathered in a large circle, and even though he was a guest, Grandfather Tollett offered a blessing for the food. Even as a child, I knew his way of putting himself in charge of any gathering he was part of. I couldn’t decide back then whether it was a trait to emulate or avoid.
Everyone moved through the line to fill their plates, starting with the oldest members, then the mothers with small children. The table was picked over by the time I fixed my plate. Last year’s pork was gone, and everyone had lost much of this year’s poultry and vegetables. In years past, autumn tables were laid with winter squash, beans, and fried chicken. Apparently, the we weren’t the only ones getting by on root vegetables and pickled eggs. I frowned at the bowls of mashed turnips and beet salad. Then I felt a stab of shame when I remembered that some of my friends didn’t even have a noon meal.
The previous month’s potluck gathering was driven indoors by dust and a north wind, but the sky today was clear and bright. Young couples, mothers and toddlers, and youngsters old enough to be unattended sorted themselves onto blankets spread over the barren churchyard while many of the men stood here and there, leaning against the eastern wall of the building.
Depending on bus routes, mail routes, and notions as unpredictable as the wind, our communities withered and thrived in turns. Mail routes expanded, contracted, and rerouted, both following and initiating population trends. Schools opened, consolidated, and closed in response. I lived in Inez, but went to school at Rogers. My mother had started at Rogers, but came to Portales for high school. Portales was the hub that brought everyone in Roosevelt County together.
I think that’s why Momma enjoyed these monthly gatherings so much. She loved visiting with her Aunt Xenia and the cousins she’d lived with when she was in town for school. The women shared a connection borne of a lifetime of shared grief and celebration. I was sure Cleo, Deane, Freeda Mae, and I were building a sisterhood of the same kind.
The Issues
In order to get certain things to happen in later chapters, I need Mrs. Flint, who is from Portales, to be involved with the communities in Inez and Rogers. I’ve based her character off a real Portales woman, and I’m attempting to bring her in to a real story my grandma told. It requires fiction to bring these two “real” things together, and I wonder if it’s too big of a stretch. Did you find the monthly potluck story unbelievable? Or that the families from surrounding communities would all come to Portales every month? Any suggestions for making it more believable?