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“If we skip supper in the dining room and just have pie this evening and maybe for breakfast, I bet we can eat both of them with no problem.” Lily shooed away a fly and went back to her chair. “I miss Holly’s cooking at the Paradise.”

“Me, too, but Poppy could do better on blackberry cobbler,” Daisy said. “Holly always got too much flour in the filling and it was as thick as jelly. But I bet you don’t miss men like old Cooter, do you?”

“I do not!” Lily declared.

“Did I hear something about blackberries?” Beulah brought three tall glasses of cold sweet tea from a back room.

“I’ve got a whole thicket of those things out behind the store.

I make cobblers for sale on Saturdays, and they go first thing in the morning.

If you want one, I’ll be glad to set one aside for you anytime.

Did y’all have a seamstress shop in that town you came from? I don’t remember the name.”

“Spanish Fort—and we did a lot of sewing for the ladies we knew,” Daisy said. “We want to buy the two pies we’ve set on the counter.”

“I’ll start a tab for you. You can pay me by the month or else we can use the barter system and you can do some sewing for me,” Beulah said. “I love to bake and cook, but anything that has to do with a needle and thread drives me up the wall.”

“That sounds great.” Lily took a sip of her tea. “This does have a little kick, but it tastes really good, and to have ice is a real treat.”

She and Daisy had never been invited to have tea with a store owner back in Spanish Fort. No, sir! There, they were looked at like they were lower than dirt.

“Amen to that. Something cold to drink on a day like this is special,” Daisy added. “And to answer your question, we decided to come to a bigger place and offer our services to more people.”

“I’m glad you did, and I hope you find a place. If I had more room, I’d let y’all set up shop right here,” Beulah said with a wink. “Us unmarried women have to stick together.”

“Have you lived here your whole life?” Daisy asked.

Beulah nodded. “I’ve always lived here.” She chomped on a small piece of ice.

“The best part of my morning tea is the taste and coldness of the ice. Right after the war, my parents moved from down around the coast. This place was just a settlement then. Daddy put in this store, and I was born in the living quarters through that door back there. Mother died of a fever when I was ten. Daddy raised me right here in this very building. I married at seventeen. All I ever knew was menfolk telling me what to do. Now I’m my own boss, and I love it. ”

“Do you know Alma?” Lily asked and told her about the incident in the café.

Beulah set her tea on the counter. “She was my best friend when we were girls—we walked to school together every day and were in and out of each other’s stores all the time.

We used to read any old newspapers that we could find, and made plans to fight for women’s right to vote.

But all that changed when we both got married.

Alma had it worse than I did because her folks more or less made her marry Joshua.

He was a new preacher in town back then, and he seemed like a good man.

After all, he is a man of God, right?” Sarcasm dripped from her words, and she slammed a fist into the palm of her other hand. “Wrong!”

“Your folks didn’t make you marry your husband?” Daisy asked.

“No, but they were sure glad to see me settled down and not talking about doing things women shouldn’t.

” Beulah took a drink of her tea. “My husband, Orville Walters, was a carpenter and helped build a lot of the homes in town. He even built me a nice little place about a quarter of a mile out of town with a garden spot and a place to raise chickens. My job was to take care of that, make sure his supper was on the table when he came home, do my wifely duties in the bedroom, and have babies.”

“Like all of us,” Daisy agreed with a nod.

Beulah lowered her voice to a whisper. “I never did have babies, and he blamed me for that. I also must not have been good at the bedroom duties, because after a couple of years, he wasn’t interested in that anymore.

I figured he was spending time with the soiled doves at one of the saloons or the hotel down the street from here, but by then I didn’t care.

Lord ...” She paused and took a sip of her tea.

“It’s good to have some women that I can talk to.

Since Orville left, most men forbid their wives from having anything to do with me. ”

“But you’re the only general store in town,” Lily said, sliding a long sideways glance over at Daisy. Without saying a word, they understood each other perfectly. Both of them knew how so-called decent women felt about them.

“They have to buy stuff from me, but they sure don’t like that I’m outspoken and don’t take bullshit off the men just because they wear pants,” Beulah said.

Lily liked this woman more with every passing minute. “Amen to that.”

“I have missed Alma so much, but we do what we can,” Beulah said.

“Oh?” Daisy asked.

“I put sheets of paper and a pencil in Alma’s sack when she leaves, along with the letter that I write a little in every night between her visits.

Then she can bring me a letter when Joshua lets her come to town.

He would punish her if he found out, so .

..” Beulah put a finger over her lips and went on.

“A good wife is submissive and never questions her husband. Don’t y’all know that? ”

“I’d rather be called an old maid,” Daisy declared.

“Amen,” Beulah said. “I would have rather been an old maid than a married woman.”

Matt Maguire pushed the screen door open and stepped inside the store. “Mornin’, Miz Beulah.”

“Same to you, Matt.” Beulah picked up her tea, finished off the last drink, and set the glass on a shelf under the counter. “I thought you bought everything you needed for the next month yesterday.”

“I did, except I forgot to get a twenty-pound bag of sugar, and my mama would make me turn around and come back if I didn’t bring it home.

It’s blackberry season, and she’s making pie filling and jelly.

When I remembered it, you were already closed, so I spent the night at Uncle Elijah’s,” Matt explained and tipped his hat toward Daisy and Lily.

“Mornin’, ladies. Did you get settled in at the hotel? ”

“Yes, and thank you again for your help,” Lily said.

Beulah picked up a stubby pencil and a receipt pad. “Sugar all you need, Matt? Want it on your bill?”

“Yes, ma’am, and that should do it,” he said. “I’ll sell off some stock next month and be in to pay you what I owe.”

“I’m not worried,” Beulah said. “You always have been good for what you owe.”

“Y’all all have a good day, then.” He hoisted the bag of sugar onto his shoulder and left the store.

“That was unusual,” Beulah frowned. “I’ve never known Matt to forget anything.”

“We should be going, too.” Lily wondered if Matt forgot stuff on purpose.

That thought made her blush, and she hoped that Beulah and Daisy figured it was because of the heat.

In reality, seeing Matt again had caused the same reaction she’d had when she sat so close to him in the wagon.

“Thank you for the tea, and especially for the ice.”

“It was a small price to pay for a visit,” Beulah said. “Y’all come back anytime, and let me know when you get your shop open. Like I said, I love to cook and bake, but I hate to sew. I will be your first customer, and I’ll be glad to put any of your creations in the store to sell as ready-mades.”

“We appreciate that,” Daisy said.

As soon as they were outside, Lily said, “Sure seems like there’s some dissatisfied women in Autrie. Do you think Miz Raven knew that when she sent us here?”

“Miz Raven knows everything,” Daisy said with a chuckle.