Pootie Game Revived #2: The Kid

[wvwoman]

"sweet girl," zeke responded, nodding his head, "that was the question EVERYONE was asking!"

Evvie giggled - it was a sweet, infectious sound that her grandpa loved. "Maybe she was just hoping he'd break another tooth!" Then she said, "But Gramps...what did he do with those earrings?"

"Evvie," Zeke said, "Aunt Donna was one of the most forgiving souls on this earth. She baked him another one. In retrospect, that might have been a mistake. Trevor never came to claim the pie, and Donna never got the diamonds back."

[Lurker]

"Golly," Evvie said, "did Donna have him arrested for stealing the pie?"

[wvwoman]

"that's how we found out what had happened," zeke replied. "ol' doc stephens blabbed it all over town after trevor showed up at his office the next morning."

"Dang!" Evvie said. She relished her grandpa's stories. "But Gramps...didn't he have to go to the dentist?"

[nanrich]

"He spit the hard thing into the dust," continued Gramps. "It wasn't until he found the mate a few bites later that he saw the sparkle. Sent him scrambling to find the first one but soon he had both in hand."

"Hot strawberry rhubarb pie!" thought Trevor. Helping himself greedily to a huge bite... he bit down hard and cracked a tooth.

[Lurker]

"Earrings! Oh, no!" Evvie exclaimed. "That's even worse than stealing a pie. Would serve them right if they bit down on one and cracked a tooth."

[momof7]

"You know, Evvie, as it turned out, she had baked her sister's birthday gift into the pie - a pair of diamond studs worth a fortune."

[wvwoman]

"strawberry-rhubarb, and she was fit to be tied," zeke answered. "she had made it for her sister shanah's birthday the next day."

Evvie looked horrified, because she knew that address. "Not one of Aunt Donna's raspberry pies?"

"Down at the corner of South Ferry Street and 6th Avenue," Zeke continued, "that was where a pie, cooling on a windowsill, disappeared later that evening. It seemed a small thing at the time."

" 'Dumb kid', is what I thought when I first saw him. He said he was looking for farm work, needed a job right away...but if you want to be a farm hand, only a dang fool shows up in early June! The corn and spring wheat are all planted, and winter wheat don't ripen until almost July." Zeke was quiet for a moment, staring at the heat shimmering from the railroad tracks. "Shoulda known right then he had other things besides farm work on his mind."

[puzzleme]

"Rivers, yep, Trevor Rivers", Zeke mused as Evvie pushed the crate under her grandpop's outstretched feet and settled in next to him on the porch swing.
"I was just about your age, Evvie - 11 years or so - when I saw that feller for the first time and I sure do wish it'd been the last. That varmint rode the rails off and on for years - free of charge, don't you know, because he could run fast and jump high. Never could hold a job and didn't care if he did."
Zeke chuckled as he scolded Evvie, "Now don't be spitting those orange seeds into Gramma's flower garden or she'll have both our hides!"
Zeke petted Evvie's curly red hair and continued his story, "Now, Trevor, bad as he was, had some good to him, too. He sure could be a charmer and he charmed us all that summer before the bad trouble started."