Runabout Read Online Free Page A

make it work. Gently, he squeezed her shoulder again. He would do anything to make his Tulsy happy.
    }They had known each other since Luther and Arthel had come to Prattville ten years before. After their father had died, they had expected to be taken in by their grandmother, Maimie Briggs. But Miss Maimie, as she was called by everyone, had never approved of her son's marriage to a Cherokee woman so she had rejected her grandsons. Luther had been devastated.
    }Tulsa May had made them feel welcome that first day, as the two of them had sat sadly in the kitchen of the old Briggs mansion, waiting in vain for their grandmother to ask for them.
    }"You can stay with us!" Tulsa May had insisted immediately.
    }What Reverend Bruder had thought of that solution, Luther never really knew. But he and his brother were graciously welcomed into the parsonage and lived there for almost a year before Luther found work that was steady enough to support himself and Arthel. Luther had always been grateful to Reverend Bruder and his wife, Constance, but he'd loved Tulsa May, his Tulsy, as the younger sister he never had.
    }"It'll be like taking candy from a baby," he assured her. "I'll parade you around town a bit, take you on a picnic, sit with you on the porch in the moonlight, and folks in this town will forget Doc Odie ever even called on you."
    }"But then how will we get out of it?"
    }"Don't worry," he assured her. "Once I've shown an interest in you, the other young bucks will be taking a second look. When you see one you like, you break it off with me and no one will be the wiser."
    }She rubbed one of the buttons on her gloves, worried. She wasn't sure it would be that easy.
    }* * *
    }Ruggy's Lowtown Saloon was dark and dank and smelled of sweaty bodies and stale beer. For a bar, the atmosphere was perfect. Luther squinted, his eyes adjusting,to the dim interior. He made his way to the bar and grinned at the barkeep, an old black man who was polishing barrel-bottom beer goblets with a faded red checked towel. Garbed in a fancy dress shirt, a black corded neck scarf, and a bar apron, Conrad Ruggy dressed as formally in his role as a saloonkeeper as he had as Miss Maimie's butler.
    }"Evening, Mr. Ruggy," Luther said as he seated himself at the bar in front of the older man. "Did we have a good day or a stinker?"
    }The old man's face crinkled into a broad grin. "Some of it's been good," he answered. "And some of it has been stinkin'."
    }Luther laughed. "I suppose you plan to tell me which is which."
    }Conrad Ruggy and his wife, Mattie, had worked for Miss Maimie Briggs for as long as anybody could remember. Since it was traditional to leave faithful servants a legacy, the folks in Prattville were highly surprised that Miss Maimie's will did not mention her servants at all.
    }"I want to settle some money on you," Luther had told the old man after the will was read. "I don't claim to have ever understood Miss Maimie, but I know that you should have some money to keep you in your golden years."
    }Ruggy had chuckled and shook his head. "I don't plan to have no golden years, boy," he said. "I've been black all my life and I see no evidence that I'll be changing any time soon."
    }"But I want—" Luther had begun, only to be interrupted by the older man.
    }"What I want, boy, is a job. A good job that I can go to every day and keep my mind busy and make a living for my wife and me. I don't need much pay, just a mite. Just enough so that I don't ever have to live off my little Maud and her man."
    }Luther nodded, understanding, but scratched his chin as he thought. "Do you know anything about machines, Mr. Ruggy?"
    }Conrad had laughed. "You mean like that silly horseless of Miss Maimie's? Lord no, I don't know a thing and don't intend to neither." Ruggy folded his hands across his chest and eyed Luther. "I heard you bought that rundown beer parlor down in the Lowtown."
    }Luther shrugged. "Just bought it for the building. I thought I might fix it up for