"Them blame pin-hookers are stealing from the farmers around here again," Dad said.
"Every month, you go to the cattle sale, come back with the same tale," Mama said. "Did they beat you out of any money?"
"Well, no, but they did some of the others. If we don't do something about them soon, the sale barn will close and folks around here won't have no place to sell their stock. No way and can we afford to haul them all the way to Knoxville, Greenville, Chattanooga, or Atlanta."
"Then why don't you go over to Cold Cabin Creek and ask Will Gorman for help?"
"Woman, he's the shystiest trader in these here parts."
"I've heard you say that many a time. Appears to me that's exactly what you need."
"Well, if that don't beat a hen a'crowin." Dad looked at me. "Quill! Quill! I don't know what you've done to my razor. How you dulled it shavin that peach fuzz on your face is beyond me!"
"I sharpened it on your leather strop--"
"You sure you didn't use a file or a rasp? I'll take you with me to the sale next time and get you one of your own."
"Quill combs his hair twenty times a day," my next-to-youngest sister said. "He gets all gussied up ever single night. He's turned into a sissy."
Dad went to the bee house like he always did when he got mad. "Gonna clean me some bee gums."
"Went to his pouting house," Mama said, when my younger sister asked where Dad was.
"Why don't he like Will Gorman?" I said.
"Folks say they're a strange lot."
"How come?"
"Keep to themselves, they do--save for Will. He gets out and about."
"Where do they live?" I asked her.
"Way back up above Footers. Place called Cold Cabin Creek."
Dad came to the house well after dark. He seemed in a better way; he even turned on the battery radio for a spell. I could smell the faint odor of rhubarb wine on his breath. "I'm going to see Will Gorman," he said. "Got me an idea."